"I have the honor to inform your lordship of the directions which I have received from my Government to solicit redress for the national and private injuries already thus sustained, as well as a more effective prevention of any repetition of such lawless and injurious proceedings in Her Majesty's ports hereafter."1

The Alexandra was made the subject of judicial proceedings, and Her Majesty's Government, through the inefficiency of its laws as actually administered, was compelled to pay the insurgents damages and costs for the detention.

The iron-clads were detained, and, to avoid another Alexandra experience, were purchased from the insurgents by Her Majesty's Government at a price which, the United States have reason to believe, did not entail a pecuniary loss upon the sellers. The Pampero (or Canton) was seized, and, by arrangement with the builders, a decree of forfeiture obtained, which was never enforced except for the detention of the vessel until the final defeat of the insurgents. The Rappahannock escaped, but was detained by the Government of France and was never made available against the United States. But she became a subject of annoyance and vexation to Her Majesty's Government, and furnished additional proof that, in the midst of the state of feeling which surrounded Her Majesty's courts of justice in England, her laws could not at all times. be made available there to enforce her international obligations and protect her from liability for national wrongs.

An offending officer acquitted by a jury on a trial before a judicial tribunal, was punished by the Government by being put on half-pay for life.

The Navy Department of the insurgents had and maintained its headquarters at Liverpool. Bullock, the "head agent," issued his orders and commissioned his officers from these headquarters. His seamen were recruited there; his officers congregated there, waiting the preparation of the vessels on which they were to cruise, and when the vessels got out of port, clandestinely or otherwise, had no difficulty in finding the means to reach them. Bounties, advances, half pay notes, and wages were made payable and paid there. When a ship went out of commission or enlistments expired, officers and other seamen made their way back there to the "Department."

In the mean time the British flag was allowed to cover cargoes, contraband of war, intended to pass a blockade maintained by the United States and supply the insurgents with the means of carrying on their operations. Ships were purchased by the insurgents intended for and maintained as "transports," all which were permitted to and did sail under the British flag. Constant complaint of this was made by the United States to Her Majesty's Government, and the reply uniformly came back that international obligations did not make it incumbent upon Her Majesty to interfere.

In the fall of 1864 the insurgents were again without any available Navy. The Florida and the Alabama had been sunk; the Sumter and the Georgia had been dismantled and sold in British ports to British subjects, the proceeds of the sales finding their way from thence into the Treasury of the insurgents. The Tallahassee had succeeded in running the blockade and in making a port of the insurgents after her short though destructive career, but was then held by the blockade maintained by the United States. The Rappahannock was held firm in the hands of the Government of France, and the Chickamauga, although 1 Adams to Russell, Nov. 20, 1862, Am. App., vol. i, p. 666.

commissioned, was still detained by the blockade. In the mean time the commerce of the United States had largely disappeared. Nearly two hundred vessels, with their cargoes, had been committed to the flames.' Over seven hundred, with an aggregate of nearly half a million of tonnage, had been transferred for self-preservation from the flag of the United States to that of Great Britain.2 All or nearly all of this had been caused by vessels fitted out in the ports of the Clyde or the Mersey. They had been manned and supplied from Great Britain. Their commissioned officers were chiefly from the insurgents; but they were com missioned in Great Britain and took their orders and departure there. But there was still left in the frozen seas of the North Pacific a little fleet of vessels from which it was supposed the flag of the United States could be floated with safety. This fleet was largely owned, and entirely officered and manned, by bold and daring seamen who made the Arctic seas their home in order that they might supply the inhabitants of more favored regions with such necessaries as those seas alone produced. This little fleet destroyed, and the commerce and carrying trade of the United States would be substantially gone. This "legitimate object and means of warfare," so early brought to the attention of Earl Russell by the "commission" sent from the insurgents, would then have fully accomplished its work. No vessels or cargoes had been condemned as prize and sold, but all had been destroyed.

To accomplish this further destruction a Navy must be provided. It need not be large, but still something must be had. It could not be obtained from France, because "no violation of its neutrality would be permitted," and work upon vessels of war would not be allowed there unless the builders could satisfy the Minister of Foreign Affairs that they "were honestly intended" for a government other than that of the insurgents. The minister of marine there had also declared that suspected vessels "should not be delivered to the Confederates."5

The hospitalities of the ports of Great Britain had never been refused to a ship having a commission of the insurgents. Her Majesty's Government had acknowledged the inefficiency of her laws as enforced in her courts and executed by her officers, yet Her Majesty's prime minister had declared, from his place in the House of Commons, that the Govern ment and people of the United States "must not imagine that any cry which may be raised will induce us (Her Majesty's Government) to come down to this House with a proposal to alter the law."

If by chance a vessel was detained, no pecuniary loss to the insurgents would be likely to follow, for the money invested would be paid back, and, possibly, a profit be added. The "navy agent" and the only efficient "Navy Department" of the insurgents were still tolerated and permitted to maintain "headquarters" at the principal commercial port of the Empire. Great Britain had never yet resented an insult to her neutrality by the insurgents. There never had been so great activity in the construction and purchase of steamers in Great Britain for “transports" as at this time."

Consequently the Navy Department, located in Great Britain, sought there to obtain its means of operation. A vessel known as the Sea King, which, while building at Glasgow, a year previous, had attracted

1 Am. App., vol. iv, p. 446.

2 Brit. App., vol. i, p. 504.

3 Am. App. Counter Case, p. 897.

Ibid., p. 904.

5 Am. App. Counter Case, p. 916. 6 Am. App., vol. iv, p. 531.

Bullock to Memminger, and other correspondence, August 23, 1864; Am. App., vol. vi, p. 169.

Purchase of the Sea King.

the attention of the officers of the United States as suspicious, was found in port on her return from a voyage to the East Indies. On the 20th September, 1864, she was purchased and a bill of sale given of her to the father-in-law of the managing partner of the firm acting in Liverpool as "financial agents" of the insurgents. This bill of sale was registered in a public office of Her Majesty's Government on that day.2

On the 5th October a crew for that vessel was shipped, at a shippingoffice in London, and before a shipping-master, for "a voyage from London to Bombay, (calling at any ports or places on the passage that may be required,) and or any other ports or places, in India, or China or Japan, or the Pacific, Atlantic, or Indian Oceans, trading to and from as legal freights may offer, until her return to a final port of discharge in the United Kingdom, (or Continent of Europe, if required;) voyage not to exceed two years.'

The Arbitrators will in all this see a striking resemblance to the cir cumstances attending the purchase and sending forth of the Georgia eighteen months before. On the 7th October, at 3 p. m., a certificate of sale was filed in the office of the registrar of shipping, in accordance with section 76 of the merchant-shipping act, 1854, by which the owner empowered the master to sell the ship at any port out of the United Kingdom, for not less than £45,000, within six months from the date of the certificate.5 Her master was Peter S. Corbett, who had previously commanded the insurgent transport Douglass, afterward known as the Margaret and Jessie.

The Sea King was cleared and sailed from London on the 8th of October, with a cargo of coal. She commenced engaging her Her departure. crew as early as the 25th September."

On the 7th of October, the attention of the Consul at Liverpool was drawn to some suspicious circumstances connected with a screw-steamer called the Laurel, which he understood had been recently purchased by the insurgents, but his knowledge was not such as to justify a presentation of the case to Her Majesty's Government, under the rules prescribed for the action of its officers. Therefore, no report was made by Mr. Adams to Earl Russell. She was cleared from Liverpool on the 8th of October for Matamoros, &c.3

As early as the 12th October, an article appeared in the Liverpool Journal of Commerce announcing her sailing and using this language:

Departure of the Laurel with her crew and armament.

Her cargo is of such a mixed nature that no belligerent State would have the slightest doubt as to its usefulness. But the Laurel must not be supposed to be intended for a cruiser; she is merely a tender, and carries out to a certain latitude guns and ammunition for a new screw-steamer of which Captain Semmes is to take command. To show that Captain Semmes does not go unattended, we may here state that he took with him on board the Laurel eight officers and one hundred men, most of whom served with him on board the Alabama.9

There were errors in the statements contained in this article, but the very errors show that the air was at that time filled with rumors, and that intelligent action at the proper time by the Government might have traced these rumors to their source, and, in all probability, prevented this new escape.

4

The Laurel did, however, clear with the armament of the Sea King

Am. App., vol. vi, p. 560.

Brit. App., vol. i, p. 495.

Ibid., p. 496.

Am. App. Case, p. 1144.

Brit. App., vol. i, p. 495.

6 Brit. App., vol. i, p. 486. 7 Am. App., vol. vi, p. 556. Brit. App., vol. i, p. 492. 9 Am. App., vol. vi, p. 558.

as cargo, and with all, save one, of her officers (twenty-four) and some (seventeen) seamen as passengers.1

Armament of the Shenandoah.

Of these officers, five had previously served on the Alabama alone, two on both the Alabama and Sumter, one on the Georgia alone, one on both the Rappahannock and Georgia, and two on the Rappahannock alone; and of the men, five had served on the Alabama. Three of the officers had avoided capture at the time the Alabama was sunk in the engagement with the Kearsarge, by escape upon the English yacht." On the 17th October the two vessels, the Sea King and the Laurel, met at the island of Madeira. They proceeded from thence to the island of Desertas, where the armament, and the officers and seamen who came as passengers, were transferred to the Sea King. No bill of sale was ever given by the captain under the certificate of sale. No purchase money was paid there. The certificate of sale was never returned to the office of the registrar in Great Britain as was required by section 81 of the merchant-shipping act, 1854,3 and the registered British character of the Sea King remained during her whole career. But the armament transferred, in the same manner as had previously been done in the cases of the Alabama and Georgia, the Sea King became the Shenandoah, an insurgent cruiser. She had, however, no sufficient crew. Of officers and men she mustered not to exceed forty-four. All the seamen were, however, British subjects, and the officers came together on British soil to be placed on board the new cruiser under the protection of the British flag. If a ship of war of the United States had met the Laurel on her passage and taken these officers from her deck, Great Britain would have considered her neutrality violated, and demanded their return amidst the most active preparations for war, as had been previously done in the case of the Trent.*

Un

It may be admitted that if the Shenandoah at this point in her his tory stood alone, and there had been no other cause of complaint against Her Majesty's Government, the United States could not now hold Great Britain responsible for her original escape and armament. But this vessel was purchased in, and armed from, Great Britain, three years and a half after the insurrection in the United States had put on the form of war. The insurgents had found the laws and the Government of Great Britain favorable to their operations. They had, under those laws and under that Government, availed themselves of the "ports of the Clyde and the Mersey," (their only ports,) and made a navy. der the warfare of that navy, the commerce of the United States, which at the commencement rivalled that of Great Britain, had been transferred to the English flag. Her Majesty's Government had never punished the insurgents for any violation of her neutrality. It had not then even remonstrated. On the contrary, it had tolerated and thus encouraged violations. It seems never to have conceived the idea which was so significantly promulgated by His Majesty, the Emperor of Brazil, that toleration of abuse was "equivalent to permitting the ports of the empire to serve as bases for operations." 5

The negligence which enabled the Florida and the Alabama to escape fastens itself upon the Shenandoah. The excessive hospitality which had always been extended gave the insurgents to understand, as they rightfully might, that the ports of Her Majesty's dominions could be

1 Brit. App., vol. i, p. 477.

2 See Temple's affidavit, Brit. App., vol. i, p. 701; inclosure No. 2, in Mr. Adams to Earl Russell, ibid., 379. 5 Brit. App., vol. i, page 294.

3 Am. App. Counter Case, p. 1145.

4 Am. Case, p. 82.

made the bases of their naval operations, and in consequence they operated from there, and from there alone.

When the commander of the Shenandoah left Liverpool to join her, and take command, he had in his possession a letter from Bullock, bearing date of October, 1864; and when he returned in November, 1865, he addressed Earl Russell as follows:

1

I commissioned the ship in October, 1864, under orders from the naval department of the Confederate States; and, in pursuance of the same, commenced actively cruising against the enemy's commerce. My orders directed me to visit certain seas in preference to others; in obedience thereto I found myself in May, June, and July of this year, in the Okhotsk Sea and the Arctic Ocean.

Thus she started, under orders issued from Great Britain, to reach the most distant commerce of the United States.

Her first point of destination on the course she was ordered to make was Melbourne, in Her Majesty's dominions. To that port a transport, bearing the name of John Frazer, (one of the firm of John Frazer & Co., at Charleston, of which Frazer, Trenholm & Co., the Liverpool depositary, was a branch,) was sent from England by the insurgent Navy Department with her supply of coal.3

Her Majesty's Government received notice of the equipment of the Shenandoah, and its attending circumstances, on the 12th November. It came in the form of a report from the Consul of Her Majesty at Teneriffe, and was accompanied by the captain of the Sea King, under arrest, and affidavits of witnesses detailing the facts.

On the 18th Mr. Adams also communicated the same information to Ear Russell, with additional affidavits."

The November mail from Europe, which arrived at Melbourne about the middle of January, carried there the news of her departure and her conversion into a vessel of war.6

After starting upon her cruise she "boarded at sea the galley Kebby Prince, from Cardiff, to the port of Bahia ;" and in such act her commander opened the manifest of such "galley, breaking the seal of the Brazilian Consulate." For this offense His Majesty, the Emperor of Brazil, true to his principles of enforcing neutrality, as well as proclaiming it, promulgated an order in the official gazette at Rio Janeiro, on the 21st of December, prohibiting "the entrance into any port of the empire of said steamer, or of any other vessel commanded by the said Waddell."

Arrives at Mel

On the 25th of January, 1865, she arrived at Hobson's Bay, near Mel. bourne, and asked leave to coal and repair. Commander King, of Her Majesty's ship Bombay, then at that station, bourne in reporting to Commodore Wiseman, under date of the 26th, said: The crew at present consists of only seventy men, though her proper complement is one hundred and forty. The men almost entirely are stated to be either English or Irish. Captain Waddell informed me that the Shenandoah is fast under canvas, and Steams at the rate of thirteen knots; that she is fourteen months old, and was turned into a man-of-war on the ocean. He also told me that he had lately destroyed nine American vessels. It is suspected that the Shenandoah was lately called the Sea King, and that remains of the old letters are still perceptible; but of that I cannot speak from personal observation. From the paucity of her crew at present she cannot be very efficient for fighting purposes.

*

*

*

The Governor of the Colony also, in reporting to Mr. Cardwell under

Brit. App., vol. i, p. 667.

Ibid., p. 667.

5 Brit. App., vol. i. p. 484.

6 Blanchard to Seward, Brit.

App., vol. i, p. 584.

Brit. App., vol. i, p. 696; Am. App., vol. vi, p. 698. 7 Am. App., vol. vi, p. 588.

Brit. App., vol. i, թ. 477.

Brit. App., vol. i, p. 499.