The Virginius was a steamer which was built in England during the civil war, and was used as a blockade-runner. She was captured and brought to the Washington Navy Yard. There she was sold at auction. The purchaser was one John F. Patterson, who took an oath that he was a citizen of the United States. On the 26th of September, 1870, the Virginius was registered in the custom house of New York. As all the requisites of the statute were fulfilled in her behalf, she cleared in the usual way for Curacoa, and sailed early in September for that port. It was discovered a good many years after that Patterson was not the real owner of the vessel, but that, as a matter of fact, the money for her purchase had been furnished by Cuban sympathizers, and that she was virtually controlled by them. From the day of her clearance in New York, she certainly did not return within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Nevertheless, she preserved her American papers, and whenever she entered foreign ports, she made it a practice to put forth a claim to American nationality, which claim was always recognized by the authorities in those ports. There is no evidence whatever to show that she committed any overt act, or did anything that was contrary to international law. She cleared from Kingston, Jamaica, on the 23rd of October, 1873, for Costa Rica. As President Grant said in his message to Congress, January 5th, 1874, she was under the flag of the United States, and she would appear to have had, as against all powers except the United States, the right to fly that flag and to claim its protection as enjoyed by all regularly documented vessels registered as part of our commercial marine. Still quoting President Grant, no state of war existed conferring upon a maritime power the right to molest and detain upon the high seas a documented vessel, and it could not be pretended that the Virginius had placed herself without the pale of all law by acts of piracy against the human race. (And yet this very thing is what the Spaniards, without rhyme or reason, did claim. Ever since they have been claiming what was false, as for instance their reports of the victories (!) in the American-Spanish war. By so doing they have made themselves the laughing-stock of nations, for, although they never hesitate to lie, they do not know how to lie with a semblance of truth, which might be, far be it from us to say would be, a saving grace). If the papers of the Virginius were irregular or fraudulent, and frankly they probably were, the offense was one against the laws of the United States, justifiable only in their tribunals. However, to return to facts, on the morning of the 31st of October, the Virginius was seen cruising near the coast of Cuba. She was chased by the Spanish man-of-war Tornado, captured, and brought into the harbor of Santiago de Cuba on the following day.