Note 5 — Chapter XIX · INTERNATIONAL LAW IN THE TRENT CASE.

The commissioners had official dispatches in their possession while on board the Trent. Mr. Alfred Slidell, a son of one of the commissioners and a passenger on the Trent at the time she was stopped, said in answer to a recent letter of inquiry from the author: “At the time Messrs. Mason and Slidell were seized by Capt. Wilkes, they were, of course, in possession of their letters of credence, besides other official documents. As far as I can remember, no search was made, by the officers of the San Jacinto, for official documents, nor any attempt made to interfere with the members of the families of the four gentlemen seized.”