The Federal Spy system in Europe.
The
London Index, of the 5th inst, has an editorial on the boldness and persistence shown by the spies of the
United States in
England and
France.
Among other things it says:
‘
Some of the doings of these gentry would be amusing, if they were not so intolerably annoying to decent people.
A short time since, in
Liverpool, the residence of a lady whose husband (then absent) is connected with Confederate affairs, was beset by spies, who watched it night and day, and sought ingress under various pretences, until the nuisance at last became so great that the police had to be applied to. In or near
Glasgow, an outrage even more flagrant was perpetrated.
A Federal official, bearing a commission from the
President of the
United States, obtained, under pretext of seeking lodgings, access to the chambers of a gentleman supposed to be implicated in the building of some suspected vessel in the
Clyde, and upon the date acquired in this ingenious reconnaissance, a search-warrant was actually issued afterwards, though, of course, without producing the expected revelations.
There is scarcely an officer or prominent citizen of the
Confederate States, resident in
England, who is not more or less beset and pestered by this ubiquitous and protean-shaped espionage.
Servant maids are bribed to purloin letters; landladies are frightened by a mock assumption of Inquisitorial authority; wives, in the absence of their husbands, are imposed upon with fictions.--When successful, which they seldom are, these practices are avowed by the
Federal agents, or at least the fruits are unblushingly used to swell the "mass of evidence" transmitted through
Mr Adams to the Foreign Office.
That we are not exaggerating the extent of the organization to which this system of Federal espionage has been carried, will be evident to every ordinary reader of the news papers.
It is a notorious fact, repeatedly complained of through the press, that every considerable shipyard in
Great Britain is watched by spies.
The circumstances of the seizure of the Peterboff will also be recollected, and how it was partially excused on the ground that she was marked on a list of suspected vessels with suspected owners furnished by a Federal Consul to his Government.
A short time since it was made a boast in a Northern newspaper that an officer of a blockade runner, the
Cumberland, had been bribed by the
Federal Consul at
Havana, or his employee, to bring the ship to a designated spot, where the
De Soto lay five days in wait for her.
But these things are puerile compared to what remains to be told.
During last
autumn or
winter the confidential clerk of the eminent French naval contractor, M
Voruz, of
Nantes, disappeared, and with him very important and valuable papers relating to the business transactions of the house.
As the man enjoyed a highly respectable position and an ample salary, it was clear that no ordinary or small temptation could have induced him to forfeit his prospects and his country, and to risk the galleys.
Not long afterwards
Mr Dayton, the
Federal Minister at
Paris, in a correspondence which has been recently published, submitted to the
French Minister of Foreign Affairs what purported to be copies of papers implicating M
Voruz, and also his correspondent, M
Armand, of
Bordeaux, by the evidence of their own signatures, in extensive transactions for building vessels of war for the
Confederates.
Upon this evidence,
Mr Dayton based a formal demand for the seizure, or at least detention, of certain vessels, and other measures to frustrate the nefarious attempts of the
Confederates against the neutrality of
France.
We have no means of judging of the genuineness of his evidence, and we understand that both
Messrs Voruz and
Armand decline, as they have a perfect moral and legal right to do, to pronounce in the matter until the originals are produced, of which these papers profess to be copies.
Mr Dayton's dilemma, however, is no enviable one to a gentleman and the representative of a foreign nation.
Either the papers submitted to the
French Foreign Office are of a piece with the report of the
Confederate Secretary of the Navy palmed on Earl Russell, and in that case the simultaneous employment of forged documents for the same purpose with the two Governments would bear somewhat too suspicious a character.
Or, on the other hand, if they are genuine, then he confesses himself guilty of subornation of robbery, and liable, but for his diplomatic character, to a criminal prosecution.
’
