the rigid application of the domestic laws of Prussia, or to insist on their applicability, under whatever notion of the abstract rights of sovereignty, even supposing them to be ever so well founded, to persons who have in the most solemn form, and in perfect good faith, following in this regard a natural and undoubting impression of their absolute right to do so, renounced their allegiance to his Majesty, and become, as they intend perpetually to remain, the subjects of a foreign and friendly State; whether there is not something to be done better than to insist on a course of proceeding from which no substantial benefit can ever be derived, but which, on the contrary, cannot fail to produce irritation and dissatisfaction, and in the end, it is to be feared, serious difficulty. It can afford certainly no satisfaction to Prussia, if she should be able, even supposing she could have any such desire, to exact a small sum now and then by way of fine from a few American citizens who may chance to find themselves temporarily and on their proper business in this country, because from thoughtless inattention when they were mere boys they went away, or because their parents, from thoughtlessness or any other cause, led them away from Prussia to a foreign country without having first obtained a permit of emigration. Still less could Prussia derive either satisfaction or profit from the forced service, if such a thing were practicable and would be submitted to, of such American citizens in the Prussian army; though on this point I must be allowed to add, that I cannot suppose that his Majesty's government can have any design or any desire to force these citizens into its military service. Is it necessary, then, let me ask, or can it be proper, that the local authorities in Prussia should be suffered to take advantage of the casual presence of these persons in Prussia, coming here on errands of affection or of business, to annoy and harass them by proceedings which are not at all likely to produce any beneficial result to anybody, or any practical result whatever, except such as everybody must lament; or by holding up the laws, exactions, and proceedings referred to, as a threat and a terror, to prevent or deter them from coming here, when on every consideration of justice, of humanity, and of friendly regard towards the country of their adoption, and which now owes them protection, they ought to be allowed to do so? Mr. Meyer, as I have said, is now in Europe. He is here expressly for the purpose indicated by me, and is waiting for the proper protection to enable him to visit to Paderborn. Accept, Monsieur le Baron, on this occasion, the asssurance of my distinguished consideration. D. D. BARNARD. His Excellency BARON VON MANTEUFFEL, &c., &c., &c. I forward, also, herewith, a copy of an additional letter from me to Baron Von Manteuffel, in the case of Dr. Gutowski. I have the honor to be, with the highest respect, your obedient servant. Hon. DANIEL WEBSTER, D. D. BARNARD. Secretary of State. Mr. Barnard to Baron Von Manteuffel. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Berlin, July 14, 1852. MONSIEUR LE BARON: Referring to my letter to your excellency of the 1st of July, 1852, in reference to Dr. Gutowski, I have the honor herewith to inclose to you, at his request, two documents, which I have just received from him, and which I doubt not will receive all due attention. These documents are: 1st. Dr. Gutowski's petition to his excellency the minister of the interior; and 2d. A certificate of guarantee for Dr. Gutowski, from the Count Skorzewski. I renew to your excellency, on this occasion, the assurance of my distinguished consideration. His Excellency Baron Von Manteuffel, &c. D. D. BARNARD. Mr. Barnard to Mr. Webster. No. 75.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I have the honor to inclose to you a copy of a letter addressed by me to Baron Von Manteuffel, in the matter of Christian George Born. I do not send a copy of Mr. Born's letter to me, as he has informed me that he has already transmitted a copy to the department. I have the honor to be, with the highest respect, your obedient servant, Hon. DANIEL WEBSTER, &c. D. D. BARNARD. Mr. Barnard to Baron Von Manteuffel. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, MONSIEUR LE BARON: I regret very much to be obliged to bring to your excellency's notice another complaint of a citizen of the United States, traveling in Prussia on his lawful business. The proceeding complained of took place at Minden, and the principal actor in the affair was an official personage whose name is Von Hassenkrug, though there were others who seem to have taken a willing part in it. The person to whom this wrong has been done is Mr. Christian George Born, a native of Prussia, but a resident of the United States since 1837, and now a citizen of that country. He is a merchant, engaged extensively in business, and visits Germany in that capacity, though he is at the same time specially commissioned by the Department of State at Washington, as bearer of dispatches to the legation of the United States at Vienna, to which place he has now proceeded. Of his entire respectability and unexceptionable character there cannot be a doubt, nor is it easy to understand what possible excuse there could have been for making him an object of suspicion, and treating him as he was treated, like a criminal. Mr. Born having addressed to me a full and minute statement of his grievance, and of the circumstances of his arrest, detention, and examination, I have caused a translation of the principal contents of that communication to be made into the German language, which I have the honor herewith to inclose to you, together with an appendix, containing a long list of names of respectable persons in Prussia to whom Mr. Born refers for his character and standing. The sum of the case then, is this: Mr. Born comes to Prussia as an American merchant, visiting the merchants and manufacturers of Prussia with a view to the prosecution and extension of his lawful business, and by which the beneficial trade between the two countries would be promoted and extended. He enters Prussia with a regular passport, which is regularly visaed at Aix-la-Chapelle. Having business to transact at several different towns and places in the neighborhood of that place, three or four weeks is thus actively consumed. He then leaves Dusseldorf to go to Bremen, through Minden. At Minden he encounters Mr. Von Hassenkrug. This official from the first is imperious and rude in his behaviour. He threatens to detain him before he has seen his passport, and before he could know if there was the slightest ground for detaining him. When his passport is produced, he immediately pronounces it not in order, and yet immediately proceeds to write a visé upon it, and he renders it back to the bearer as a proper authority for his proceeding on his journey. But happening at this moment to understand that Mr. Born was on his way to Bremen, and so about to pass out of Prussia instead of remaining in it, he takes his passport from him, and angrily proclaims that he shall be detained, and his baggage minutely searched. To convince him of his error, and to show him who it was with whom he was dealing thus harshly, Mr. Born exhibits to him a document under the signature and seal of the Secretary of State of the United States, appointing him a bearer of dispatches from that government to Vienna. This document produced no change in Mr. Hassenkrug's conduct, and no effect upon him but to cause him to indulge in an expression towards the United States too vulgar and indecent to be repeated. He persists in detaining Mr. Born, and orders him and his baggage to the room of the third and fourth class passengers, where his baggage is overhauled and examined. After this he is conducted, in the custody of a police officer, an English mile and a half, to the police court of Minden, followed by a rabble, as if he had been a condemned culprit. At ten o'clock, having arrived at the station of Minden at half past four in the morning, his examination commences before an under officer of the police court. His repeated and earnest request that the landrath, or chief of police, might be present if the papers and writings in his possession were to be examined, was not complied with. These papers and writings were opened and examined by the under officer, assisted by Mr. Hassenkrug, they possessing themselves in this way of a knowledge of all the private and business affairs and relations of Mr. Born which these papers might disclose. Finally, at near twelve o'clock, unable to find the slightest material to justify a proceeding which from the first had no foundation in reason, Mr. Born was dismissed and allowed to pursue his journey. I am sure that this sort of unjustifiable and apparently wanton annoyance offered to citizens of the United States traveling in Prussia, or temporarily visiting this country on business, of which there have been of late too many examples, cannot meet the approval of his Majesty's government. I hardly need assure your excellency that I claim for my countrymen visiting Prussia no exemption from the just operation of the regular laws and internal regulations of Prussia which have for their object the protection of society and the government against crimes either perpetrated or devised for their overthrow or injury; but, when proceedings are instituted against them for which no justification can be alleged, or even an excuse which could stand a moment's candid examination, it becomes my imperative duty to interpose in their behalf, and in cases where some casual circumstances may have excited suspicion, enough perhaps to make it not improper that some inquiry should be instituted on the part of the local police or authorities, it is equally my duty to appeal to the government of his Majesty against proceedings which are so conducted as to confound and level all moral distinctions, all notions of right and wrong, and to place the innocent and the guilty in one common category of oppression and ignominy. In the best and most humane systems of government or jurisprudence, legal suspicion may light on an innocent person. But if suspicion is to be made a ground of accusation and of criminal proceeding, it should at least have something better to rest upon than imagination, or a mere wild and vague conjecture; and, at any rate, when acts and circumstances affecting an individual are, to say the least of it, quite as consistent with his innocence as with any imputation of guilt, every rule of law, and every dictate of reason, justice, and humanity, require that his innocence rather than his guilt should be Ex. Doc. 38-3 assumed until the contrary shall become manifest, and, if molested at all, it should only be with the most studied and delicate regard to his personal rights and his feelings as a man. This is what is due to every human being; and enlightened and humane as the government of his Majesty is well known to be, this, I assume, is what is, and always must be, accorded to his Majesty's subjects in the circumstances supposed; and this is what, in the behalf of my government, I claim shall be accorded, under the same circumstances, to the citizens of the United Stases visiting Prussia. It certainly would have been as easy and quite as efficient to have conducted the proceedings in the case of Mr. Born, in a mild, reluctant, temperate, and friendly spirit, as with the fierce zeal and vindictive temper manifested towards him. There were no appearances about him to have raised at any time even a wellgrounded suspicion. He had not entered Prussia without a passport perfectly in order; and for the time that he had remained within the Prussian dominions, there was nothing which was not susceptible of the easiest explanation, and nothing which was not promptly and fully explained on the spot. There was a respectable Prussian present to answer for him, who had known him for thirty years; and if anything was still wanting to put an end to all questions about his character and pretensions, it was supplied by the commission which he bore and exhibited from the Department of State at Washington. This, however, was not only not enough to prevent his being detained and ill treated, but this very document gave occasion to Mr. Hassenkrug to vent his vulgar malignity against a government and country with which his Majesty the King, his royal master, maintains relations of peace, commerce, and amity, as they have been maintained uninterruptedly, by treaty, from the time of the Great Frederick, and from the earliest infancy of the American government. The proceedings against Mr. Born, and his personal treatment, were altogether in a spirit of oppression and vindictiveness such as a known and undoubted criminal might perhaps have encountered without cause of complaint, and not at all in the spirit of an honest and necessary inquiry, made merely to ascertain whether there was any reason for detaining him, or regarding him as a suspected person. His examination was prosecuted in an inquisitorial manner, and as if to intimidate and entrap him. His language was misinterpreted, and his truth openly questioned and denied. He was treated throughout as a guilty person, assumed to be so, and as if nothing remained but to find in his words, or among his effects or his papers, not the proofs of his guilt, but the materials to justify the assumption of his guilt; and all this while, I feel bound to say, that Mr. Born was as innocent, whether in conduct or in thought, of any offense against his Majesty, his government, or his laws, as his accuser, or his respectable examiner, and that from the first to the last there was not the least reasonable ground for believing otherwise. I submit this case to your excellency's consideration. It cannot fail to be regarded as one calling for the interposition of his Majesty's government, and for some suitable action on its part. The case is the more grave, because it does not stand alone. If it had been a solitary instance, it might have been looked upon in another light; but, unhap |