LS signed “H. Clay,” one page both sides, 7.5 x 9, August 16, 1827. Letter to Samuel Hodges, the US consul for the Cape de Verd Islands, in full: "Herewith you will receive transcripts of a Communication from the British Ministry upon the subject of the impressment of some Seamen from the American Brig Pharos into the British Ship of War, Redwing, on the Coast of Africa in the winter of 1825, a statement of which was received at this Department in your Letter dated the 16 day of March 1826.—You will readily perceive that the Communication of the British Minister renders it important that the statement derived from you should be corroborated by Captain Ephraim Merchant, himself, the Master of the Pharos, if this can be done; and I have to request you to lose no time in procuring his deposition to be taken, accordingly, upon his return to your district from the Coast of Africa, whither, you state in your Letter of the 20th of June, he had gone, and in transmitting it to this Department." Also included: a letter addressed to Hodges from Daniel Brent of the state department, dated August 22, 1827; a copied extract of a letter from Redwing Commander Douglas Clavering to Commodore Charles Bullen, dated September 19, 1826; and four copies of secretarial letters sent from British Envoy Charles R. Vaughan to Clay, all of which relate to the Pharos incident. In overall fine condition.
When Great Britain and America declared war on slave trading in 1808, the former wished to hasten the suppression of slave trade by seeking a reciprocal right to search agreement with the United States. The latter, however, argued that the searching of American ships was an illegal violation of national sovereignty; the forceful invasion onto an American ship was equivalent to an invasion of the United States itself. On December 6, 1825, all hope of securing a reciprocal agreement ended when the HMS Redwing fired into the Boston-based Pharos anchored in the port of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Two sailors were taken off of the American ship and pressed into British service. After American protests one of the sailors was released, with the British refusing to release the other, claiming him to be a subject of the Queen.
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