ports or from the vessels captured.

Thus has a single cruiser, upon

the destructive plan, the power, perhaps, of twenty acting upon pecuniary views alone; and thus may the employment of our small force in some degree compensate for the great inequality [of our force] compared with that of the enemy." Such were the policy and the orders of President Madison and of the Secretary of the Navy in 1812, 1813, 1814; and such, beyond question, would be the plan and the instructions of any administration under the circumstances.'

In conclusion Mr. Bolles says:

It is evident that after it had been, as it soon was, resolved that neither treason nor piracy should be charged against Semmes before a military or naval tribunal, and that his methods of capturing, "plundering," and destroying vessels should not be treated as offenses against public law and duty, but that he should be dealt with as a belligerent naval officer, bound to obey the laws of war and entitled to their protection, it was needless to inquire where or by whom the Alabama was built, manned, armed, or commissioned, or whether a government without an open port can legitimately own or employ a naval force. These inquiries, however interesting or important they might be in other connections, were of no sort of interest or importance as elements of a trial for violating the laws of war in the conduct of a cruiser subject to those laws and protected by them.

In this way the field and the duty of inquiry were reduced to the two subjects of cruelty to prisoners and perfidy toward Captain Winslow and the power he represented.

The two questions thus left are dealt with by Mr. Bolles in the following number of the same review, in a most interesting paper, the result being wholly to exculpate Semmes of every charge of ill treatment or cruelty to prisoners, to acquit him of any charge of perfidy during the engagement with the Kearsarge, but to maintain that he was guilty of a violation of military honor in not surrendering himself as a prisoner of war after being taken off by the Deerhound.

The British government having thus decided on acknowledging the Confederate States as a belligerent power, and, as a neces- Regulations of sary consequence, on the admission of confederate ships of June 1, 1861. war into British ports on the same footing as those of the United States, it only remains to be seen whether the same treatment was afforded to both which impartial neutrality would require.

On the 1st of June, 1861, Her Majesty's order was issued prohibiting, as has not been unusual in the case of modern maritime wars, and has been general with reference to privateers, the introduction of prizes by the ships of either belligerent into British ports. Whatever may, generally speaking, be the motive of such a regulation, it was, in the present instance, obviously a measure the effect of which was to place the confederate vessels in a position of considerable disadvantage, seeing that, their own ports being strictly blockaded, they were thus left without any port into which to take their prizes. Accordingly, as reported in a dispatch from Lord Lyons to Earl Russell, of the 17th June, 1861, it was hailed by Mr. Seward as "likely to prove a death-blow to southern privateering." As it was clearly at the discretion of Her Majesty's government to adopt this regulation or not, it must be admitted that, thus far, there was no manifestation of the partiality by which that government has been said to have been animated.

In January, 1862, after the war had been going on for some months, circumstances arose which made further regulations as to Regulations of 31 the admission of the armed vessels of the two belligerents January, 1962. into British ports necessary. Instructions, bearing date the 31st January, 1862, were accordingly issued by the Government. One of these had reference to the ports of the Bahamas in particular, the others to the ports and waters of Her Majesty's dominions in general.

to Nassau.

The following state of things had arisen at Nassau. As has been so often repeated, the port of Nassau had been made the entrepôt for the blockade-running trade, the natural consequence of which had been that the waters of the colony were watched by, and their immediate vicinity made the cruising-ground of, Federal ships.

In October, 1861, Mr. Adams forwarded to Lord Russell an intercepted letter from a Mr. Baldwin, whom he stated to be in the service of the insurgents, addressed to a Mr. Adderley, of Nassau, from which he said that it appeared that Nassau had been made, to some extent, an entrepôt for the transmission of contraband of war from Great Britain to the blockaded ports.' The matter was referred by Lord Russell to the colonial office, and by that Department to the governor of the colony, and the latter forwarded, in reply, on the 20th November, 1861, a report from the receiver-general at Nassau, stating that no warlike stores had been received at that port either from the United Kingdom or elsewhere, nor had any munitions of war been shipped from Nassau to the Confederate States. This report, received by Lord Russell on the 31st of December, was communicated to Mr. Adams on the 8th of January, 1862.3

Upon this the Case of the United States makes the following remark: The United States with confidence assert, in view of what has been already shown, that, had Earl Russell seriously inquired into the complaints of Mr. Adams, a state of facts would have been disclosed entirely at variance with this report--one which would have impelled Her Majesty's government to suppress what was going on at Nassau. The foregoing facts were all within the reach of Her Majesty's government, although at that time not within the reach of the government of the United States. The failure to discover them after Mr. Adams had called attention to them, was a negleet of the diligence in the preservation of its neutrality, which was "due" from Great Britain to the United States; and it taints all the subsequent conduct of Great Britain toward the United States during the struggle.4

Further on, Lord Russell's communication is described as the "announcement of an imaginary condition of affairs; thus making it ap pear that, at the date of Lord Russell's communication, the report received from Nassau and transmitted by him was an unfaithful one; whereas the fact was that, at the date of the report, no vessel laden with munitions of war had arrived at Nassau.

It was not till the 8th of December that a vessel, the Gladiator, with a cargo of arms, suspected of being intended for the Confederate States, arrived at Nassau. The United States consul at once sent a message to the commander of the United States naval forces at Key West to request the presence of a cruiser. On the 13th of December he reports the "most opportune" arrival of the United States war-steamer Flambeau from New York, and adds that her commander "is watching intently the movements of the rebel steamers." From a letter addressed by the governor to the British naval officer on the station it appears that the Flambeau kept her steam up ready for instant movement, causing considerable alarm among the shipping in the port; and that a rumor prevailed that her commander meant to cut out the Gladiator, or, at all events, to seize that vessel immediately on her leaving.

The dispatches reporting this state of affairs were received in Lon

don on the 16th of January, and the attention of the British government was necessarily called to the peculiar position of the Bahama Archipelago. On the one hand, it was obvious that it would form a convenient place of resort for confederate privateers; while, on the other, it seemed likely that its ports and waters would be used by the United States war-vessels for the purpose of watching and pursuing confederate vessels or others engaged in trade with the blockaded ports, so that collisions in the waters of the colony or in their immediate neighborhood would be almost certain to result. To prevent this it was necessary to provide some special regulation.

About the same time the Nashville confederate war-steamer having put into the port of Southampton for repairs and coal, the United States war-steamer Tuscarora, which had coaled at the same port, was found to be closely watching her, for the avowed purpose of intercepting and seizing her on her again putting to sea. By keeping his steam up, and keeping slips on his cable, the commander of the Tuscarora was virtually keeping the Nashville blockaded, thus plainly making the waters of the Solent the base of naval operations.1

Upon this M. Calvo, in the second volume of his well-known work, "Le droit international," after stating the facts relative to the two vessels, says: "La corvette fédérale la Tuscarora entra dans le même port pour surveiller son ennemi, et l'attaquer dès qu'il reprendrait la Devant cette attitude hostile les autorités locales intervinrent, et la Tuscarora, abandonnant son post d'observation sans toutefois renoncer à ses projets, resta près d'un mois dans les eaux anglaises au mépris des règles les moins contestées du droit international.”2

mer.

In the preceding November, after the reception of the Sumter at Trinidad, Mr. Seward had, through Lord Lyons, pressed upon the British government the propriety of adopting the rule laid down, as he said, by the other powers of Europe, not to allow privateers to remain for more than twenty-four hours in their ports.3

Such a rule, relating exclusively to privateers, was not one which Her Majesty's government were at all called upon to apply to commissioned ships of war such as the Sumter any more than the other maritime powers had done-Mr. Seward being, in this respect, altogether mistaken, as was shown by the readiness with which the other maritime powers received the confederate vessels of war into their ports and allowed them to stay there. Still, when, to prevent the possibility of hostile collisions in their own ports, the British government found it expedient to apply this rule to vessels of war indiscriminately, they might be assured that in doing so they would give cause of satisfaction rather than of complaint to the United States Government.

The instructions issued were to the following effect: 1. No ship of war or privateer of either belligerent was to be permitted to enter any port, roadstead, or water in the Bahamas except by special leave of the lieutenant-governor, or in case of stress of weather; and in case such permission should be given, the vessel was, nevertheless, to be required to go to sea as soon as possible, and with no supplies except such as might be necessary for immediate use. 2. No ship of war or privateer of either belligerent was to be permitted to use British ports or waters as a station or place of resort for any warlike purpose, or for the purpose of obtaining any facilities of warlike equipment. 3. Such ships or privateers entering British waters were to be required to depart British Appendix, vol ii, p. 120.

2 Vol. ii, p. 423.

3 United States Documents, vol. i, p. 342.

within twenty-four hours after entrance, except in case of stress of weather, or requiring provisions or things for the crew or repairs; in which cases they were to go to sea as soon as possible after the expiration of the twenty-four hours, taking only the supplies neces sary for immediate use; they were not to remain in port more than twenty-four hours after the completion of necessary repairs. 4. Supplies to such ships or privateers were to be limited to what might be necessary for the subsistence of the crew, and to sufficient coal to take the vessel to the nearest port of its own country, or to some nearer destination; and a vessel that had been supplied with coal in British waters could not be again supplied with it within British jurisdiction until after the expiration of three months from the date of the last supply taken from a British port.

With reference to the regulation concerning Nassau, the case of the United States has the following remark:

An order more unfriendly to the United States, more directly in the interest of the insurgents, could not have been made even if founded upon Heyliger's friendly intimations to the colonial authorities. Under the construction practically put upon it, the vessels of war of the United States were excluded from this harbor for any purpose, while it was open for free ingress and egress to vessels of the insurgents, purchased or built and owned by the authorities at Richmond, bringing their cotton to be transshipped in British bottoms to Fraser, Trenholm & Co., in Liverpool, and taking on board the cargoes of arms and munitions of war which have been dispatched thither from Liverpool.1

And in another place it is observed:

The instructions of January 31, 1862, forbade both belligerents alike to enter the port of Nassau, except by permission of the governer, or in stress of weather. That permission was lavishly given to every insurgent cruiser, but was granted churlishly, if at all, to the vessels of the United States.

How devoid of all foundation are these complaints will appear from the facts stated in the British Counter Case, where it is observed:

It will perhaps be a matter of some little surprise to the tribunal to learn that, whereas on two occasions only did vessels visit the port of Nassau as confederate cruisers, there are no less than thirty-four visits of United States ships of war to the Bahama Islands recorded during the time that the regulation was in force. On four occasions, at least, vessels of the United States exceeded the twenty-four hours' limit, and took in coal by permission; one of them also received permission to repair; several were engaged in pursuit of vessels suspected of being blockade-runners, and did not in every instance relinquish the chase within British limits. Two prizes appear, indeed, to have been captured by them, one within a mile of the shore, the other almost in port.3 The tabular statement of visits of United States vessels to the Bahamas during the civil war, which is printed in the British Appendix, abundantly bears out the answer thus given.*

The general regulations applicable to all Her Majesty's ports, which, as we have seen, were in conformity with the wishes of the United States Government, though not intended by the British government to have any operation more favorable to one belligerent than the other, nevertheless could not fail to prove very prejudicial to the confederates, the strict blockade of whose ports left their ships of war without any ports to which they could resort for repairs or supplies, or into which they could take their prizes. The rule forbidding them a greater supply of coal than would suffice to take them to their nearest port, and prohibiting also a renewal of the supply within three months, was ob viously calculated to place them at the greatest possible disadvantage. Compelled, from having no ports of their own, to keep the sea, their means of doing so were necessarily lessened, and the regulation, in itself 1 Page 228.

so unfavorable to the confederate vessels, was rendered still more so by the strict construction put on it by Her Majesty's government, by whom the governors of the different colonies were instructed that, in case of any special application for leave to coal at a British port within the three months, if it appeared that any part of the former supply had been consumed otherwise than in gaining the nearest port, not even stress of weather should form a ground of exception. As no confederate vessel could seek its nearest port, this was practically to prevent the possibility of a renewed supply under any circumstances within the three months.

The attempts on the part of the United States to show that any favor was extended to confederate cruisers which was withheld from their own vessels, appear to me signally to fail.

The only specific instances in which any complaint has been made (and if there had been any others we may be quite sure we should have heard of them) are the cases of the Keystone State, Quaker City, and the Dacotah. As to the first two, the answer given in the British Counter Case, on the authority of a letter from the governor of Bermuda to the secretary of state for the colonies, and which is further borne out by the letters of the commanding officers of the vessels themselves, is as follows:

An allusion is made in a foot-note at page 324 of the Case of the United States, to the failure of the United States vessels Keystone State and Quaker City to obtain coal at Bermuda in December, 1861. At that time there was no restriction on the coaling of belligerent vessels. All that happened was, that the British admiral declined to supply the two vessels mentioned from the government stores, not having a sufficient stock for his own vessels. A similar answer had, in the foregoing October, been returned to the commander of the Nashville, who had supplied himself from private sources, but this, on account either of the scarcity or the high price of coal in the colony, the United States officers did not do.o

As regards the Dacotah, which was allowed to supply herself with coal at Nassau, but only on an engagement from her commander that his vessel should not, within ten days after leaving the port, be found cruising within five miles of any of the Bahama Islands, Governor Bayley, in a letter to the secretary of state for the colonies, of the 2d May, 1863, states:

I have no distinct recollection of the special reasons which induced me to impose the restrictions mentioned by the consul in the Dacotah's coaling; I can only suppose that I did this in consequence of the pertinacity with which Federal vessels about that time resorted to the harbor on pretense of coaling, but really with the object of watching the arrival and departure of English merchant-vessels, supposed to be freighted with cargoes for the southern ports. Had not such prohibition been issued, the harbor would have become a mere convenience for Federal men-of-war ruuning in and out to intercept British shipping. And that such conditions as I thought it my duty to impose were tempered by a proper feeling of courtesy and humanity will, I think, be made evident by the accompanying letters from the American consul on the subject of the Federal man-of-war, the R. Cuyler, and the memoranda of my replies indorsed upon them by myself.

On the whole, I am satisfied that I have acted with perfect impartiality in all my dealings with Federal and confederate men-of-war. But I am not surprised that my conduct should have been misrepresented by so hot-headed a partisan as the late American consul, Mr. Whiting, whose ingenuity in misconstruction is well illustrated by his reply to my letter of the 29th of September, of both of which papers I inclose copies, with the indorsation of the draught of my replies to his last communication. I think that these inclosures will be sufficient to prove that, in my demeanor to the Federal men-of-war, I have generally preserved an attitude of fairness and impartiality. And that if at any time I have appeared to assume an unfriendly or inhospit

'British Appendix, vol. iii, p. 10.

2 British Counter-Case, pp. 115, 116; British Appendix, vol. v, p. 7; United States Documents, vol. vi, p. 52.