on the 30th, when the Consul informed the collector at Liverpool of what had been learned from the tug, the vessel might have been stopped. At least she could not have communicated with the tug. This is apparent from what was done by the collector at Beaumaris on the 1st, when he did receive his instructions.1

Nothing was done until the 31st of July, when there was suggested to the Duke of Newcastle the propriety of sending the Governor of the Bahamas a copy of the report of the Law-Officers of the Crown of the 29th; and at 7.30 p. m. a telegram was sent to the customs officers at Cork to seize her if she arrived at that port.3

On the 1st of August similar orders were sent to the officers at Beaumaris and Holyhead, the instructions to send them not having been given the evening before until after the telegraph offices to those places had been closed.

The first telegram to Cork was sent more than thirty hours after the collector had been advised by the surveyor of the port, who had obtained his information from the master of the tug, that the Alabama had been the night before cruising off Port Lynas, and that the tug was about to start from Liverpool to meet her. The excuse for sending to Cork was that Mr. Squarey on the 29th had advised the collector he had reason to believe she had gone to Queenstown; but mention is omitted of the fact that afterward advice had been received that, up to the time of the departure of the Hercules, on the 30th, she was at some point nearer to Liverpool, at which she was to receive her crew and supplies from the tug.

Earl Russell thinks

In view of these facts, the United States believe the Arbitrators will have no difficulty in agreeing with Earl Russell in his opinion, as subsequently expressed to Mr. Adams, and re. this a scandal. ported by himself to Lord Lyons on the 27th of March, 1863, that "the cases of the Alabama and the Oreto were a scandal, and in some degree a reproach to our laws." This opinion he repeated on the 16th of February, 1864, in the House of Commons, when he said:

I say that here as I said it in that dispatch; I say that, having passed such a law in the year 1819, it is a scandal and a reproach that one of the belligerents in this American contest has been enabled, at the order of the confederate government, to fit out a vessel at Liverpool in such a way that she was capable of being made a vessel of war; that, after going to another port in Her Majesty's dominions to ship a portion of her crew, she proceeded to a port in neutral territory, and there completed her crew and equipment as a vessel of war, so that she has since been able to capture and destroy innocent merchant-vessels belonging to the other belligerent. Having been thus equipped by an evasion of the law, I say it is a scandal to our law that we should not be able to prevent such belligerent operations."

The Arbitrators will also readily find that the scandal was not the fault of the law, but of its execution.

As was truly said by Mr. Cobden in the House of Commons, on another occasion, July 23, 1863, in reference to the iron-clads:

Mr. Cobden's views.

I do not think it is very difficult to find out for what government any vessel which is being built in this country is intended, if it be intended for a government which can legitimately come to this country to buy a vessel.7

And the same distinguished statesman, on the same occasion, said, and said truly:

I perceive a fallacy which runs through Lord Russell's dispatches and the solicitor

Brit. Case, p. 98.

2 Brit. App., vol. i, p. 202.

Ibid., p. 205.

4 Brit. App., vol. i, p. 203.

5 Am. App., vol. i, p. 585; Brit. Blue Book, (North America,) No. 1, 1864, p. 2.

Am. App., vol. v, p. 528; Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, vol. clxxiii, pp. 634, 634.. Am. App., vol. v, p. 690.

*

general's speeches. They constantly confound two very different things, namely, the evidence necessary to detain a vessel and the evidence necessary to convict a vessel. The consequence is that we refuse to interfere until Mr. Adams has brought forward conclusive evidence on oath that is sufficient to convict. * The departure of that privateer [the Alabama] might have been prevented. That vessel, according to Lord Russell's dispatch, left the port of Liverpool without a clearance, clandestinely but the government might have prevented that. They had grounds for suspicion and might have said to the collector for the port: "Before this vessel leaves or has her clearance we must be satisfied on these points;" and to prevent her leaving without a clearance, they might have put custom-house officers on board. I maintain that you have power to do that under your customs consolidation act.1

That act provides (section 13) "that the commissioners of customs, or the collector or comptroller of any port under their direc

Want of due dili gence: 10 what consisted.

it

tions, may station officers on board any ship while within the limits of any port in the United Kingdom;" and (section 145) that "before any ship shall depart in ballast from the United Kingdom for parts beyond the seas, not having any goods on board except stores from the warehouse borne upon the victualling bill of such ship, nor any goods reported inward for exportation in such ship, the collector or comptroller shall clear such ship in ballast, by notifying such clearance and the date thereof on the victualling bill, and deliver the same to the master of such ship as the clearance thereof, and the master of such ship shall answer to the collector or comptroller such questions touching her departure and destination as shall be demanded of him." And again, (section 146,) "Any officers of customs may go on board any ship after clearance outward within the limits of any port in the United Kingdom, or within four leagues of the coast thereof, and may demand the ship's clearance." It is true, there is no provision for a forfeiture of the ship, and perhaps at that time there was no penalty imposed upon a master for a failure to comply with these provisions, but when Her Majesty's Government enacts that "before any ship shall depart" from the United Kingdom certain things shall have been done, there will be found somewhere, the United States believe, some power by which she can be detained until such things are done.

2

Subsequently, in the case of the Laird iron-clads, the law as it stood when the Alabama escaped, was used and made effectual. When the Government was afterward called upon in the House of Commons to answer for the seizure of those vessels, and inquired of as to the authority by which it was made, an elaborate and conclusive reply was given by the Attorney-General in a speech from which extracts have already been presented for the consideration of the Arbitrators.3

Earl Russell re

Now, what was done in the case of the iron-clads? quested the secretary of the treasury to" move the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury to desire that those vessels may be prevented from leaving the port of Liverpool until satisfactory evidence can be given as to their destination; or, at all events, until the inquiries which are now being prosecuted with a view to obtain such evidence shall have been brought to a conclusion." 4

In consequence of this request, one of Her Majesty's ships of war was

1 Am. App., vol. v., p. 693.

2 Am. App. Counter Case, 1158, 1165, 1166.

3 Ante, pp. 78, 88.

* *

4 Brit. App., vol. ii, p. 352. On the 26th October, 1863, the law-officers of the Crown, on being inquired of as "to the course which, under the circumstances, should be adopted" by Her Majesty's Government in respect to these iron-clads, replied, “ We are of opinion that it is competent to them to direct those vessels to be detained in any place which the commissioners of Her Majesty's customs may think fit to order under section 223 of 16 and 17 Vict., cap. 107, (the customs law consolidation act,) which is incorporated by reference into the foreign-enlistment act, 59 Geo. III, cap. 69, sec. 7.” Brit. App., vol. ii, p. 419.

placed on the watch, and the vessels did not leave port. Had the law been executed in the same manner with respect to the Alabama, the present Tribunal would never have been called upon to consider the subject now under discussion. When the builders appeared not disposed to reply to any question with reference to her destination after leaving port, there were reasonable grounds for supposing that the destination was an illegal one, and the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury could and should have been moved to prevent her leaving until satisfactory evidence was given that it was lawful.

Much stress is laid in the Case presented by Her Majesty's Government upon the fact, that while the attention of Mr. Adams and the Consul had long been given to the vessel and she was launched as early as the 15th of May, no representation had been made to Earl Russell in respect to her until the 23d of June, and this is considered of sufficient importance to be made the subject of a second reference in the Counter Case.

The 23d of June, the Arbitrators will notice, was more than one month before she sailed; sufficient time certainly to have enabled the Government to detain her, if it had been so inclined, upon information after that time obtained. But it will also be remembered that the vessel had not escaped the notice of the customs officers,' and they took no action, although it was but a few weeks before that the Oreto had been permitted to escape, and was then known to have arrived at Nassau, a port entirely inconsistent with an innocent destination. In fact, on the morning of the 28th of July, the day before the Alabama sailed, and before she was moved out of the dock into the river, the Journal of Commerce, one of the public prints at Liverpool, contained an account. of the proceedings which were being carried on against the Oreto at Nassau.2

It was not time for action which the officers of the Government required, but inclination.

Again, it is said she was not overtaken by the Tuscarora, which had been brought to Southampton by Mr. Adams for the very purpose of intercepting her; nor by any other of the vessels of war of the United States until finally destroyed by the Kearsarge. No better answer to this can be given than in the words of Sir Thomas Baring in the House of Commons, on the 13th of May, 1864, when he said, that "even with our cruisers afloat it would not be easy to pick up an Alabama ;"3 or in those of Mr. Cobden, in the same debate:

Perhaps nothing is more difficult, not to say impossible, than to find a ship on the ocean after she has once got out of sight. Nelson himself passed many months trying to find a fleet of five hundred sail going from France, to Egypt. You may find a vessel in a harbor just as Nelson found the French fleet at the Nile; but even if you should find an American cruiser in a harbor, by your own rules you must allow her to escape, because you say she must have a start of twenty-four hours.4

The latter gentleman on another occasion, July 23d, 1863, also said: Now, when still the great bulk of our commerce is carried on by sailing-vessels, two or three steamers, built especially for speed, may harass, and, in fact, may render valueless, the mercantile marine of a whole nation. I have heard it said, "O, if it were our case, we should soon catch those vessels." I have four times crossed the Atlantic, and sailed for two thousand miles without seeing a strange sail. The ocean is a very wide place. You cannot follow a vessel when it has once got out to sea with any chance of catching it. You have no stations where you can hear of it, and no road which you can follow with the chance of catching it. 5

1 Brit. Case, p. 83.

Am. App., vol. vii, p. 76.

3 Am. App., vol. v, p. 579.

*

4 Ibid., p. 593.

5 Am. App., vol. v, p. 690.

Especially does this difficulty exist if the laws and regulations of neutrality are not strictly enforced. In January, 1863, Commodore Wilkes, of the United States Navy, wrote to the Secretary of the Navy of his Government :

The fact of the Florida having but a few days' coal, makes me anxious to have our vessels off the Martinique, which is the only island they can hope to get any coal or supplies at, the English islands being cut off under the rules of Her Majesty for some sixty days yet, which precludes the possibility, unless by some chicanery or fraud, the hope of their getting coal and comfort there; therefore the island of Martinique it seems to me to be the only one to which they will attempt to resort.1

The Florida did get coal at Barbados, an English island, and the plans of Commodore Wilkes failed.

Armament from

the Bahama.

The Alabama having escaped, the British steamship Bahama cleared on the 13th of August from Liverpool for Nassau with her armament, shipped by Fawcett, Preston & Co. The Bahama also had on board Captain Raphael Semmes, who afterward commanded the Alabama, and some officers and seamen, as passengers.3 The English bark Agrippina also cleared from London in August for Demerara with a cargo of coal and munitions of war.+

At Angra Bay, in the Azores, which "had been used and abused by corsairs and pirates during centuries," on the 22d and 23d of August, this armament, coal, ammunition, and stores, and these officers and seamen, were transferred, under the British flag, from these vessels to the Alabama. On the 24th, Captain Semmes, with his officers, took posses sion of the Alabama and mustered the crew, eighty-four in number and mostly British subjects. The English ensign was hauled down and the flag of the insurgents hoisted. Thus armed, manned, and equipped, the Alabama sailed from the Azores as a cruiser of the insurgents. On the 18th of November she arrived at Martinique, and anchored in the harbor of Fort de France. She went there to coal, arrangements having been made to meet the bark Agrippina, (the same that had taken part of her outfit to Angra,) which had arrived about one week previous with a cargo of coal from an English port. On the 5th of September Mr. Adams had forwarded to Earl Russell a letter from the consul at Liverpool, stating that the Agrippina was to carry out another cargo of coal to the Alabama. On the 25th the commissioners of customs informed the lords commissioners of the treasury that they had no power to interfere."

At Martinique.

The Agrippina left port upon the order of Captain Semmes to get under way forthwith and proceed to a new place of rendezvous, as "it would not do for him to think of coaling in Martinique under the cir cumstances." Martinique was under the jurisdiction of the French Government and not under that of Her Majesty.

11

On the evening of the 19th the Alabama herself left port, the United States steamer San Jacinto having appeared in the offing.12

On the af

ternoon of the 20th she joined the Agrippina, and the two ran together

to their concerted anchorage in Blanquilla, "one of those little coral islands that skirt the South Americau coast, not yet fully adapted to the habitation of man."1

They remained there five days, the Alabama coaling and making other necessary preparations for sea, when the coal-ship, which had still another supply of coal on board, was dispatched to another rendezvous, the Arcas, little islands in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Yucatan.2 This new rendezvous was reached by both vessels on the 23d of December.3 The Alabama remained at the Arcas a week, coaling, repairing, and refitting. At the end of that time the Agrippina was put under sailing orders for Liverpool to report to Captain Bullock for another cargo of coal, to be delivered at Fernando de Noronha, another rendezvous agreed upon.

Destroys the Hat

On the 11th of January Captain Semmes engaged and sunk the United States gun-boat Hatteras twenty-five miles southeast of Galveston, Texas, one of the ports of the insurgents. In the teras. engagement the Alabama received "six large shot-holes at the waterline."5

At Jamaica, Janu

and lands prisoners.

On the evening of the 20th she arrived at Port Poyal, in the island of Jamaica, and within the jurisdiction of Her Majesty's Government, "to repair damages sustained in the action," and ary 29, 1963, repairs to land prisoners. The distance from the place of the engagement to Jamaica was about fifteen hundred miles. On arriving Captain Semmes applied to the naval officer in command at the station for permission to land his prisoners, repair damages, and to receive coal and supplies, stating it was absolutely necessary the damages "should be repaired before he could proceed to sea with safety." This was the first British port the vessel had visited after her escape from Liverpool. In this connection it will be recollected by the Arbitrators that on the 31st of July, after her escape, Earl Russell suggested to the Duke of Newcastle "the propriety of a copy of the inclosed report (that of the Law-Officers, of the 29th of July) being sent to the Governor of the Bahamas." 8 On the 16th of September, after the receipt at London of information of the release of the Oreto at Nassau, the Law-Officers were inquired of whether it would be "necessary to modify the instructions sent to the Governor of the Bahamas" for the detention of the Alabama, and on the 25th they replied that they were of "the opinion that if the vessel 290 should put into Nassau, she ought to be there seized and proceeded against, provided that there be nothing in the condition of the vessel when at Nassau tending to rebut the inference which the law-officers drew from the facts laid before them with respect to the vessel when she lay at Birkenhead." 1

"10

This was after it was known that the Alabama had been armed and equipped and had started on her cruise, as that fact was communicated by Mr. Adams to Earl Russell on the 4th of September.11

After the necessary correspondence between the naval officer at Jamaica and the Lieutenant-Governor of the island, the permission to repair asked for by Captain Semmes on his arrival was granted. This was reported to the Government of Her Majesty, and on the 14th of February Earl Russell informed the Duke of Newcastle that, in his