This assertion is fairly based upon the reply of the English Government to the owners on February 20, 1864. Earl Russell had expressly declared that his government could not interfere officially. "On the contrary," he said, "a careful perusal of the elaborate and able Judgment, containing the reasons of the Judge, the authorities cited by him in support of it, and the important evidence properly invoked from the cases of the _Stephen Hart_ and _Gertrude_ (which her majesty's government have now seen for the first time) in which the same parties were concerned," had convinced his Government that the decision was justifiable under the circumstances.[26] The fact was pointed out that the evidence had gone "so far to establish that the cargo of the _Springbok_, containing a considerable portion of contraband, was never really and _bona fide_ destined for Nassau, but was either destined merely to call there or to be immediately transhipped after its arrival there without breaking bulk and without any previous incorporation into the common stock of that Colony, and then to proceed to its _real destination_, being a _blockaded port_."[27] The "complicity of the owners of the ship, with the design of the owners of the cargo," was "so probable on the evidence" that, in the opinion of the law advisers of the Crown, "there would be great difficulty in contending that this ship and cargo had not been rightly condemned." The only recourse of the owners was consequently the "usual and proper remedy of an appeal" before the United States Courts. [Footnote 26: Sessional Papers, Miscl., No. I (1900), C. 34, pp. 39-40; Russell to Lyons, Feb. 20, 1864.] [Footnote 27: Ibid. Italics our own.] The next point that Count Hatzfeldt made was not so squarely met by Lord Salisbury, namely, that the manual of the English Admiralty of 1866 expressly declared: "A vessel's destination shall be considered neutral, if both the point to which she is bound and every intermediate port at which she is to call in the course of her voyage be neutral." And again, "The destination is conclusive as to the destination of the goods on board." Count Hatzfeldt contended that upon this principle, admitted by Great Britain herself, Germany was fully justified in claiming the release of the ship without adjudication since she was a mail-steamer with a fixed itinerary and consequently could not discharge her cargo at any other port than the neutral port of destination.[28] [Footnote 28: Sessional Papers, Africa, No. I (1900), C. 33, p. 6.]