tion of the vessel said to have been fitted out at Liverpool for the service of the so-styled Confederate States, should that vessel put in to Nassau; and I am to request that you will take these papers into your immediate consideration and favor Lord Russell with your opinion thereupon. You will observe that the instructions for the governor of the Bahamas should be forwarded by the mail of the 27th instant. I am, &c., E. HAMMOND. No. 36. Mr. Adams in formed of proceed [212] ings taken with regard to the vessel, Explanations аз Earl Russell to Mr. Adams. FOREIGN OFFICE, September 22, 1862. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 4th instant, inclosing a copy of a letter from the United States consul at Liverpool,together with *the deposition of Henry Redden respecting the supply of cannon and munitions of war to the gun-boat No. 290. You also call attention to the fact that you have not yet received any reply to the representations you have addressed to Her Majesty's gov ernment upon the subject. to her departure. I had the honor, in acknowledging the receipt of your letter of the 23d of June, to state to you that the matter had been referred to the proper department of Her Majesty's government for investigation. Your subsequent letters were also at once forwarded to that department, but, as you were informed in my letter of the 28th of July, it was requisite before any active steps could be taken in the matter to consult the law-officers of the Crown. This could not be done until sufficient evidence had been collected, and from the nature of the case some time was necessarily spent in procuring it. The report of the law-officers was not received until the 29th of July, and on the same day a telegraphic message was forwarded to Her Majesty's government, stating that the vessel had sailed that morning. Instructions were then dispatched to Ireland to detain the vessel should she put into Queenstown, and similar instructions have been sent to the governor of the Bahamas in case of her visiting Nassau. It appears, however, that the vessel did not go to Queenstown, as had been expected, and nothing has been since heard of her movements. The officers of customs will now be directed to report upon the further evidence forwarded by you, and I shall not fail to inform you of the result of the inquiry. I am, &c., No. 37. RUSSELL The law-officers of the Crown to Earl Russell. TEMPLE, September 25, 1862. (Received September 26.) MY LORD: We are honored with your lordship's commands signified in Mr. Hammond's letter of the 16th September instant. Vogel should stating that he was directed to transmit to us, together with the former papers, a letter from the Colonial Office, inclosing Opinion of law-offi cers. be seized if she puts into Nassau. a copy of the judgment delivered by the court of Bahamas in the case of the Oreto, and requesting to be informed whether it will be necessary to modify the instructions sent to the governor of the Bahamas, founded upon our report of the 29th July last, for the detention of the vessel said to have been fitted out at Liverpool for the service of the so-styled Confederate States, should that vessel put into Nassau; and to request that we would take these papers into consideration and furnish your lordship with our opinion thereupon. Mr. Hammond was also pleased to state that the instructions for the governor of the Bahamas should be forwarded by the mail of the 27th instant. In obedience to your lordship's commands we have taken these papers into consideration, and have the honor to report— That we are of 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. We have, &c., WILLIAM ATHERTON. No. 38. Mr. Hammond to Sir F. Rogers. FOREIGN OFFICE, September 26, 1862. colonial office. SIR: I am directed by Earl Russell to request that you will acquaint the Duke of Newcastle that his lordship thought it desira- Copy of law-officers' ble to take the opinion of the law-officers of the Crown on report forwarded to the question asked by the governor of Bahama respecting the course he should pursue in regard to the confederate steamer No. 290, under the circumstances of the Oreto having been released [213] by the admiralty court at Nassau; and I am now *to inclose, for the information of the Duke of Newcastle, a copy of the report which Lord Russell has received from the law-officers.1 I am, &c., E. HAMMOND. No. 39. Mr. Hamilton to Mr. Hammond. TREASURY CHAMBERS, September 29, 1862. (Received September 30.) SIR: With reference to your letter of the 12th instant, and previous correspondence, I am directed by the lords commissioners of Her Majesty's treasury to transmit herewith, for the information of Earl Russell, copy of a report, dated 25th instant, of the commissioners of customs relative to the supply of cannon, &c., to the gun-boat No. 290. I am, &c., (Signed) GEO. A. HAMILTON. 1 No. 37. arming, and until the Sunday we left her outside Terceira Bay. About 1 o'clock on that day, I think about 24th August, the 290 fired a gun, hauled down the British flag, and hoisted the confederate flag at the peak, the St. George's Cross at the fore, and a pennant at the main. She was then just outside of the bay, steering to sea. Captain Bullock and Captain Butcher were still on board of her. We kept company with her until about 12 that night, when Captains Bullock and Butcher left her and came on board the Bahama, and came back with us to Liverpool. When I was engaged by Mr. Barnett he gave me a note payable six days after the Bahama sailed, at office in Water street. My brother received the money for the note. I never signed any articles or agreement of any kind. (Signed) GEORGE KING. Signed and declared before me, at the custom-house, Liverpool, this 27th day of September, 1862. (Signed) J. PRICE EDWARDS, Collector. No. 41. Earl Russell to Mr. Adams. Mr. Adams in Majesty's govern go beyond the law, FOREIGN OFFICE, October 4, 1862. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 30th ultimo, inclosing a copy of another deposition formed that Her taken before the collector of the port of Liverpool with ment are unable to reference to the proceedings of the gun-boat 290, and fur Municipal and inter ther expressing a belief that enterprises of a similar kind are in course of progress in the ports of the United King dom; and I have to state to you that, much as Her Majesty's govern ment desire to prevent such occurrences, they are unable to go beyond the law, municipal and international. national. I am, &c., RUSSELL. No. 42. Report of customs Commissioners warded to Mr. Adams. Earl Russell to Mr. Adams. FOREIGN OFFICE, October 9, 1862. SIR: With reference to my letter to you of the 22d ultimo, I have the honor to inclose a copy of a letter which I have received from the board of treasury forwarding the copy of a report from Her Majesty's commissioners of customs relative to the supply of cannon and munitions of war to the gun-boat No. 290. I am, &c., (Signed) RUSSELL. The commissiorers of customs to the lords commissioners of the treasury, September 25, 1902. [See inclosure in No. 39.] No. 43. Mr. Adams to Earl Russell. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, London, October 9, 1862. (Received October 11.) MY LORD: I now have the honor to transmit to your lordship a copy of an intercepted letter which I have received from my Further represent 1 Government, being the further evidence to which I made tion by Mr. Adams. allusion in my note to your lordship of the 30th September, as substantiating the allegations made of the infringement of the enlistment law by the insurgents of the United States in the ports of Great Britain. I am well aware of the fact to which your lordship calls my attention in the note of the 4th instant, the reception of which I have the honor to acknowledge, that Her Majesty's government are unable to go beyond the law, municipal and international, in preventing enterprises of the kind referred to. But in the representations which I have had the honor lately to make, I beg to remind your lordship that I base them upon evidence which applies directly to infringements of the municipal law itself, and not to anything beyond it. The consequence of an omission to enforce its penalties is therefore necessarily that heretofore pointed out by eminent counsel, to wit, that "the law is little better than a dead letter;" a result against which "the Government of the United States has serious ground of remonstrance." I pray, &c., CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. [Inclosure in No. 43. J Mr. Mallory to Commander North, C. S. N. NAVY DEPARTMENT, Intercepted letter of Mr. Mallory, coufederate secretary of SIR: Your letter of the 29th March last reached me this morning. The department notined you on 11th January last that you would receive orders to command the second vessel then being built in England, but for reasons satisfactory to the department you were subsequently assigned to the command of the first vessel, the Florida, (Oreto,) now at Nassau, and any just ground for the "surprise and astonishment" in this respect at the department's action is not perceived. the navy. A commission as commander for the war was sent you on the 5th May, and your failure to follow the Oreto, which left England about the 21st March, and to take command of her as was contemplated, and as you were apprised by Captain Bullock on the 26th March, is not understood, and has been productive of some embarrassment. Captain Bullock was nominated by the executive for his position in the navy under existing law, and was duly confirmed by the senate, and your protest to this department against the actin of these co-ordinate branches of your government is out of place. Upon the receipt of this leter you will turn over to Lieutenant G. F. Sinclair the instructions which you have received, together with any public funds in your hands, and return to the Confederate States in such manner as your judgment may direct. Should you not be provided with funds for this purpose, Commander Bullock will, upon your application, supply them. I am, &c., (Signed) S. H. MALLORY, would be ready and lodged in England to pay for these vessels as it fell due. From what I know I am satisfied that the money was all duly paid as it fell due for these vessels. I saw a letter from Captain Bullock to Fraser, Trenholm & Co., (a firm in Liverpool hereinafter again referred to,) thanking them. Captain Bullock kept copies of his correspondence, and they are deposited in one of the banks in Savannah. From the time of my coming to England until I sailed in the Alabama my principal business was in paying the officers of the confederate navy, who were over here attached to the Alabama, and sent over for that purpose. I used to pay them monthly, about the first of the month, at Fraser, Trenholm & Co.'s office in Liverpool, and I drew the money for that purpose from that firm. Commander James D. Bullock, John Low, lieutenant, Eugene Maffit, midshipman, E. M. Anderson, midshipman, came over to England in the same vessel with myself. Captain Bullock came over to England, in the first instance, to contract for building the two vessels, the Oreto, now called the Florida, and the Alabama. He came to contract for and in behalf of the southern confederacy, with the understanding that he was to have the command of one of the vessels. I have heard him say so; and I have learned this also from the correspondence between him and Mr. Mallory, secretary of the confederate navy, as before mentioned, which passed through my hands. At the commencement of my engagement with Captain Bullock I acted as his clerk. The contract for building the Alabama was made with Messrs. Laird, of Birkenhead, by Captain Bullock. I have seen it myself. I made a copy from the original. The copy was in the ship. It was signed byCaptain Bullock, on the one part, and Messrs. Laird, on the other. I made the copy at instance of Captain Bullock from the original, which [219] he has. *The ship cost in United States money about $255,000; this included provisions, &c., enough for a voyage to the East Indies, which Messrs. Laird were by the contract to provide. The payments were all made before the vessel sailed to the best of my belief. Sinclair, Hamilton & Co., of London, had money. Fraser, Trenholm & Co., of Liverpool, had money. There was government money in both their hands over here, enough for the purpose of paying them. I was over to see the Alabama before she was launched from Messrs. Laird's yard, and was on board the vessel with Captain Bullock, and have met Captain Bullock and one of the Messrs. Laird at Fraser, Trenholm & Co.'s office. Captain Bullock superintended the building of the Alabama and Oreto; also while he was here Captain Matthew J. Butcher was the captain who took her to sea. He is an Englishman, and represented himself as belonging to the royal naval reserve. At the time the Alabama was being built by Messrs. Laird, and when I saw them at different times at their yard in Birkenhead and at Fraser, Trenholm & Co.'s office, I have not the slightest doubt that they perfectly well knew that such steamer was being built for the southern confederacy, and that she was to be used in war against the Government of the United States. When the vessel sailed from Liverpool she had her shot-racks fitted in the usual places; she had sockets in her decks, and the pins fitted which held fast frames on carriages for the pivot-guns, and breaching-bolts. These had been placed in by the builders of the vessel, Messrs. Laird & Co. She was also full of provisions and stores, enough for four months' cruise. When shesailed she had beds, bedding, cooking utensils, and mess utensils for 100 men, and powder-tanks fitted in. We sailed from Liverpool on the 29th day of July, 1862. This was some three or four days sooner than we expected to sail. The reason for our sailing at Departure of Ala- this time before we contemplated was on account of information which bama from Liverpool. we had received, that proceedings were being commenced to stop the vessel from sailing. Captain Bullock sent Lieutenant Low to me on Sunday evening the 27th of July, to say that I must be at Fraser, Trenholm & Co.'s office early next morning. The next morning I arrived at half-past 9 o'clock. Captain Butcher came in and told me the ship which at that time was called the 290, also Eurica, would sail the next day, and he wanted me to go with him. In a few minutes Captain Bullock came in and told me he wanted me to go to sea at a minute's notice, that they were going to send her right out. I placed my things on the vessel on that evening. There were about seventy or eighty men in the vessel at this time under Captain Butcher, who had been in command of the vessel for more than a month before she sailed. I went on the vessel on the morning of the 29th July, for the purpose of sailing. We started out of the river Mersey at about half-past 10 o'clock, Captain Butcher com manded; Mr. Low acted as first mate; George T. Fullam as second mate; and David Herbert Llewellyn as assistant surgeon. Captain Bullock, Lieutenants North and Sinclair, were on board, also the two Messrs. Laird, Mr. A. E. Byrne, and five or six ladies, (including two Miss Lairds,) and some other gentlemen whom I do not know. When we sailed it was not our intention to return, but it was with the intention of going to sea, and so understood by us all. The ladies and passengers were taken on board as a blind. After we got on board, one of the Messrs. Laird who built the vessel came to me and gave me £312 in English gold. Captain Bullock came and asked me if Mr. Laird had given me the money; that he had some to give me which I must put in the safe. I |