PART IV. WHEREIN GREAT BRITAIN FAILED TO PER- "There is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy.”— Speech of Mr. Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer, October 7, 1862. "It has been usual for a power carrying on war upon the seas to possess ports of its own in which vessels are built, equipped, and fitted, and from which they issue, to which they bring their prizes, and in which those prizes when brought before a court are either condemned or restored. But it so happens that in this conflict the Confederate States have no ports except those of the Mersey and the Clyde, from which they fit out ships to cruise against the Federals; and having no ports to which to bring their prizes, they are obliged to burn them on the high seas."-Speech of Earl Russell, Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, April 26, 1864. "Her Britannic Majesty has authorized her High Commissioners and Plenipotentiaries to express in a friendly spirit the regret felt by Her Majesty's Government for the escape, under whatever circumstances, of the Alabama and other vessels from British ports, and for the depredations committed by those vessels."-Treaty of Washington, Article I. The extracts which are placed at the head of this division of the Case of the United States are at once evidence of the facts which will now be set forth, and a condensation of the line of argument which those facts logically suggest. The United States summon no less illustrious a person than the present Prime Minister of England, to prove, not only that the insurgents were engaged in the year 1862 in making a navy, but that the fact was known to the gentlemen who then constitu Admissions of British Cabinet Ministers. British Cabinet Admissions of ted Her Majesty's Government. They place on Ministers. the stand as their next witness Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs during the whole period of the rebellion, to prove where the insurgents were constructing that navy, and why they were constructing it in the Mersey and the Clyde; and further, to prove that these facts, also, were known at the time to the gentlemen who then constituted Her Majesty's Government. And lastly, they lay before the Tribunal of Arbitration the graceful and kindly testimony of the regret of Her Majesty's Government that the escape' of the cruisers, which were built in Great Britain, with the knowledge of the Government, and which constituted that navy, should have resulted in the subsequent destruction of the property of citizens of the United States. In discussing this question, except so far as may be absolutely necessary for the protection of the interests which they are bound to guard, the "I wish the word 'escape' had not been found in the apology, as it is termed in describing the exit from our ports of the Alabama and other ships of that kind. I cannot help thinking that was an unguarded expression, which may affect the course of the future arbitration. I can easily imagine that in some minds the word 'escape' would be construed unfavorably to this country, for it means that something has got away which might have been retained. We speak of the escape of a prisoner; and the meaning of the term is that there was power to prevent the escape, and that the escape happened in spite of it."-Lord Cairn's (ex-Chancellor) speech in the House of Lords, June 12, 1871. See London Times, June 13, 1871. United States will not attempt to disinter from of Admissions British Cabinet the grave of the past the unhappy passions and Ministers. The reports of the diplomatic and consular officers of the United States, made from the British dominions to their Government during the war, which are printed in the volumes which will accompany this case, are full of proof of a constant state of irritating hostility to the United States, and of friendship, to the insurgents in the several communities from which they are written. These dispatches are interesting, as showing the facilities which the complicity of the community often, if not always, gave to the schemes of the insurgents for violating the sovereignty of Great Britain. The reports from Liverpool, Nassau, Bermuda, and Melbourne are especially interesting in this respect, and tend to throw much light on the causes of the differences which are, it is to be hoped, to be forever set at rest by the decision of this Tribunal. 28 British ports the base of insurgent As soon as the authorities who were directing operations; a par- at Richmond the fortunes of the insurgents were tial hospitality shown to the in surgents; a branch sure that their right to carry on a maritime war ment established would be recognized by Great Britain, their Secretary of the Navy recommended to Mr. Jefferson in Liverpool; their Government vessels officially aided in evading the Davis to send an agent to Great Britain for the blockade and in with arms, muni 1 furnishing them purpose of contracting for and superintending the tions, and means construction of men-of-war; and Mr. James Dunfor carrying on the struggle. woody Bullock, who had been an officer in the Navy of the United States, was, in accordance with that recommendation, sent there in the summer of 1861, and entered upon his duties before the autumn of that year. Mr. North, also formerly of the United States Navy, was empowered "to purchase vessels "1 for the insurgents; and Mr. Caleb Huse, formerly of the Ordnance Department of the Army of the United States, was sent to London for "the purchase of arms and munitions of war." Mr. Bullock, Mr. North, and Mr. Huse continued to discharge their duties during most of the struggle, and served the purposes of those who sent them there, with intelligence and activity. The means for carrying on these extensive operations were to be derived from the proceeds. of the cotton crop of the South. It will probably 1 Walker to Green, 1st July, 1861, Vol. VI, page 30. |