Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, December 2, 1872, Part II, Volume I

[215] *Part IV: Wherein Great Britain failed to perform its duties as a neutral.

[undated.]

Admission of British Cabinet Ministers. “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 obiged 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.

[216] 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 constituted Her Majesty’s Government. They place on 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 escape¹ 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.

[217] 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 *United States will not attempt to disinter from the grave of the past the unhappy passions and prejudices, and to revive the memory of the injuries, often great and sometimes petty, which caused such poignant regret, such wide-spread irritation, and such deep-seated sense of wrong in the United States. Over much of this feeling the kindly expression of regret in the Treaty of Washington has forever cast the mantle of oblivion.

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.

[218] British ports the base of insurgent operations; a partial hospitality shown to the insurgents; a branch of their Government established in Liverpool; their Government vessels officially aided in evading the blockade and in furnishing them with arms, munitions, and means for carrying on the struggle. *As soon as the authorities who were directing at Richmond the fortunes of the insurgents were sure that their right to carry on a maritime war would be recognized by Great Britain, their Secretary of the Navy recommended to Mr. Jefferson Davis to send an agent to Great Britain for the purpose of contracting for and superintending the construction of men-of-war; and Mr. James Dunwoody 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.”¹ 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.

[219] 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 *be within the personal recollection of the several gentlemen, members of the Tribunal, that in the year 1860 the world was dependent upon the fields of the insurgent States for a large portion of its supply of cotton, and that, when the blockade was established by the United States, a large part of the crop of 1860 was still unexported.² This, and all subsequent crops that might be produced during the struggle, would yield their value in gold as soon as landed in Liverpool.

The insurgent agents took advantage of this fact. They secured, through their assumed authority as a Government, the control of so much as might be necessary for their purposes, and they early made arrangements for a credit in Liverpool upon the faith of it.

The firm of Fraser, Trenholm & Co. [220] It so happened that there was at Charleston, at that time, a well-established commercial house, doing business under the name of John Fraser & Co. The head of this firm was George A. Trenhohn, of Charleston. Another prominent member *was Charles K. Prioleau, also a citizen of the United States. Before or about the time the insurrection broke out, and, as the United States believe, in anticipation of it, this house established a branch in Liverpool, under the name of Fraser, Trenholm & Co. Prioleau was dispatched thither to take charge of the Liverpool business, and became, for purposes that may easily be imagined, a naturalized British subject. George A. Trenholm remained in Charleston, and, in due course of time, became the Secretary of the insurgent Treasury, and a member of the so-called Government at Richmond. An arrangement was made by which the cotton of the insurgent authorities was to be sent to Fraser, Trenholm & Co., to be drawn against by the purchasing agents of the insurgents.¹

The first amount (five hundred thousand dollars) was placed to their credit in Liverpool, somewhere about the month of May, or early in June, 1861; and, under the name of” depositories,” Fraser, Trenholm & Co. remained a branch of the Treasury of the insurgent Government.

[221] *Thus there was early established in Great Britain a branch of the War Department of the insurgents, a branch of their Navy Department, and a branch of their Treasury, each with almost plenary powers. These things were done openly and notoriously. The persons and places of business of these several agents were well known to the communities in which they lived, and must have been familiar to the British officials. If there was any pretense of concealment in the outset it was soon abandoned.

On the 22d of July, 1861, Huse writes to the officer in charge of the insurgent Ordnance Department, complaining of the activity of the agents of the United States in watching and thwarting his movements. “It is difficult,” he says, “for a stranger to keep his actions secret when spies are on his path.” He says that he shall have ready, by the 1st of August, some of the goods that had been ordered on the 17th of the previous April, and more by the 1st of October, and that “the shipping of the articles will be left in the hands of the Navy Department.”²

[222] On the 18th of September, the steamer “Bermuda” ran the blockade and arrived at Savannah with “arms and munitions on board.”³ She came *from Fraser, Trenholm & Co., consigned to John Fraser & Co. Information of the character and purposes of this steamer, and of the nature of her freight, had been given to Lord Russell by Mr. Adams on the 15th of the previous August,⁴ and he had declined to “interfere with the clearance or sailing of the vessel.”⁵ On the fourth day after her arrival at Savannah her consignees offered to charter her to the insurgents, and the offer was accepted.”⁶

The experience of the “Bermuda,” or the difficulties which she encountered in running the blockade, seem to have induced the insurgent authorities to think that it would be well to have some surer way for receiving the purchases made by their agents in Liverpool. The stringency of the blockade established by the United States, and the nature of the coast that was blockaded, made it necessary to have a set of agents in the West Indies also.

Character of the blockaded coast. [223] The coast of the United States, from Chesapeake Bay to the Mexican frontier, is low, with shoaly water extending out for some distance to sea. A range of islands lies off the coast, from Florida to Charleston, and islands also lie off Wilmington and*the coast to the north of it. The waters within these islands are shallow, affording an inland navigation for vessels of light draught. The passages to the sea between the islands are generally of the same character. The outlying frontier of islands, or of shallow waters, is broken at Wilmington, at Charleston, and at Savannah. At these three points large steamers can approach and leave the coast; but these points were at that time guarded by the blockading vessels of the United States, so as to make the approach difficult. Vessels not of light draught and great speed were almost certain of capture; while vessels of such draught and speed could not carry both coal and a cargo across the Atlantic.

To avoid this risk it was resolved to send the purchases which might be made in England to Nassau in British bottoms, and there transship them into steamers of light draught and great speed, to be constructed for the purpose,¹ which could carry coal enough for the short passage into the waters that connected with either Charleston, Savannah, or Wilmington. The first order from Richmond that is known to have been given for such a shipment is dated the 22d of July, 1861.²

The attention of the Tribunal of Arbitration is *invited to the accompanying map, showing how admirably the British ports of Nassau and Bermuda were adapted for the illegal purposes for which it was proposed to use them. Nassau was surrounded by a cluster of British islands, so that even a slow-sailing blockade-runner, pressed by a pursuing man-of-war, could in a short time reach the protection of British waters. Bermuda had the advantage of being more directly off the ports of Wilmington and Charleston. Neither Nassau nor Bermuda, however, was more than two days distant from the blockaded ports for the swift steamers that were employed in the service.³

[224] Geographical situation of Nassau and Bermuda. On the 4th of October, 1861, Mr. Benjamin, writing from Richmond, and signing himself as “Acting Secretary of War,” addressed Mr. Mallory as Secretary of the Navy,” and asked if he could “spare an officer from his department to proceed to Havana and take charge of funds there, to be used by agents of this department in the purchase of small-arms and ammunition.”⁴

[225] *Mr. Lewis Heyliger, of New Orleans, was apparently designated for this purpose. On the 30th of November, 1861, he takes

a letter from Mr. Benjamin to Mr. Helm, the agent of the insurgents at Cardenas, in Cuba, saying that he is “an active and accomplished business man;” that he is to aid Helm, “whether in the disposal of the cotton or the arrangements for the shipments;”, and that “the articles first in importance, and to be sent in preference to everything else, are small-arms and cannon powder.”¹

Heyliger went to Cuba, and in a few days after was transferred to Nassau to take charge of “the British Steamer Gladiator, Commander G. G. Bird, with a cargo for the Confederate States.”² He remained there as the agent, treasury depositary, and representative of the insurgents during the rebellion.

What was done at Nassau. [226] The Gladiator was a steamer bought and fitted out in England under an agreement made at London, October 24, 1861, between Mr. T. O. Stock, a subject of Her Majesty, and Mr. Caleb Huse.³ The evident object of this agreement was to enable her to sail under the British flag, although owned by the insurgents. She was to take out five hundred tons of goods, and was “to proceed to a port in the *Confederate States or an intermediate port.” No concealment of her object or destination was made in England.⁴ She arrived at Nassau from London on the 9th of December, 1861.⁵

[227] The day after she arrived there a United States vessel of war came into the port. Heyliger, finding that this vessel would not leave, and that therefore the Gladiator, which was slower than the man-of-war, could not leave with safety, represented to the British authorities that such a course “would tend to cut off the trade” which the insurgents desired to divert to Nassau, and that he thought “some step should be adopted to remind him [the commander] that he is infringing on the laws of hospitality.” He reported this to Richmond and added, “I have reason to know that these arguments have not been without their effect, inasmuch as the matter was incidentally discussed at a meeting of the Council the other day; and I really believe that in the course of a week or two some action will be taken to impress the captain of the enemy’s vessel with the conviction that his absence will be preferable to his company.” “We have succeeded,” he continued, “in obtaining a very important modification of the existing laws, viz: the privilege of breaking bulk and transshipment? ⁶ *That modification was all that the insurgents wanted. That privilege converted the port of Nassau into an insurgent port, which could not be blockaded by the naval forces of the United States. Further stay of the United States vessels of war was therefore useless. The United States ask the Tribunal to find that this act, being a permission from the British authorities at Nassau, enabling a vessel chartered by the insurgents, and freighted with articles contraband of war, to diverge from its voyage, and to transship its cargo in a British port, when not made necessary by distress, was a violation of the duties of a neutral.

[228] On the 27th of January, 1862, Maffitt, an officer in the service of the insurgents, (the same who afterward commanded the Florida,) was sent to take command of the Gladiator as an insurgent vessel,⁷ (although under British colors,) and on the 30th of January, 1862, a portion of the Gladiator’s valuable cargo was transshipped to the “Kate,” a small steamer sailing under British colors, and eventually all went in the same way. In the dispatch announcing the transfer to the “Kate,” Heyliger said: “You may readily imagine how intensely disgusted the Yankees are at this partiality, as they style it. It is called another flagrant violation of neutral rights. * * My relations with *the authorities here are of the most friendly character. I receive many marked attentions, which I value as going to show the increased cordiality of feeling toward the Confederate Government.”¹

The United States are not able to say what “effect” the colonial authorities of Nassau induced Heyliger to think would come from his “arguments.” They point out, however, to the Tribunal of Arbitration the fact, that in about one month after that time, viz, on the 31st day of January, 1862, Earl Russell informed the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty that “during the continuance of the present hostilities * * * * no ship of war or privateer belonging to either of the belligerents shall be permitted to enter or remain in the port of Nassau, or in any other port, roadstead, or waters of the Bahama Islands, except by special leave of the Lieutenant Governor of the Bahama Islands, or in case of stress of weather.”²

[229] 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 had been dispatched thither from Liverpool. The Tribunal of Arbitration will not fail to observe that this was no British commerce which had existed before the war, and which the neutral might claim the right to continue. It was to a large extent the commerce of the authorities at Richmond—carried on in their own vessels, and for their own benefit—and consisted of the export of cotton from the South on account of the so-called Government, and the return of arms, munitions of war, and quartermaster stores from Great Britain, for the purpose of destroying the United States—a nation with which Great Britain was at peace. The United States confidently insist that Great Britain, by shielding and encouraging such a commerce, violated its duties as a neutral toward the United States.

The United States denied permission to deposit coal at Nassau. [230] It is a most unpleasant duty of the United States to call the attention of the Tribunal of Arbitration to the fact that, at the very time of this affair of the Gladiator, another matter was going *on in the same port, which furnished a commentary on the ideas of neutrality entertained by the Colonial Authorities.

The day after the arrival of that vessel, the United States Consul at Nassau wrote to his Government thus: “The coal which is being landed here for Government has caused great excitement among the Nassau masses, and a deputation visited Governor Nesbitt yesterday to remonstrate against its being landed.”³ The remonstrances were successful.

On the same day the Colonial Secretary wrote to the Consul that the coal could be admitted only “on the express condition and understanding that such coal should not afterward be reshipped or otherwise used in any manner which may, in the opinion of the law authorities of the Colony, involve a breach of Her Majesty’s Proclamation of the 13th of May last, and particularly that such coal shall not be used for the purpose of coaling, or affording facilities for coaling, at this port, the vessels of war of the United States Navy, during the continuance of the hostilities” ¹

[231] [232] The sincerity of the desire of the Colonial Authorities to obey Her Majesty’s Proclamation may be estimated from the following facts: 1. That that Proclamation inhibited Her Majesty’s * subjects from “breaking, or endeavoring to break, any blockade lawfully or actually established by or on behalf of either of the said contending parties;”² yet the Colonial Authorities finding that the Gladiator, which had been chartered to break a blockade established by the United States, would probably be intercepted by the vessels of the United States, permitted the cargo to be transshipped into smaller steamers, with the avowed purpose of breaking that blockade; 2. That Her Majesty’s Proclamation also inhibited British subjects from “carrying military stores or materials, or any article or articles considered and deemed to be contraband of war, according to the law or modern usage of nations, for the use or service of either of the said contending parties;” yet the Colonial Authorities welcomed the Gladiator, sailing under the British flag with contraband of war in violation of the Proclamation, and permitted her to shift her illegal cargo into other vessels, in like manner using the British flag for the purpose of transporting it to and on account of a belligerent. 3. That Her Majesty’s Proclamation made no mention of coal, and that coal is not regarded by Her Majesty’s Government as an article necessarily contraband of war;³ yet the Government of the * United States was forbidden by the same authorities, in the same week, to deposit its coal at Nassau, except upon the condition that it would not use it.

The United States have no reason to suppose that either of these partial decisions met with the disapproval of Her Majesty’s Government.

Complaints to Earl Russell and his reply. [233] On the contrary, Earl Russell, on the 8th of January, 1862, in reply to a complaint from Mr. Adams that the port of Nassau was used as a depot of supplies by the insurgents, officially informed that gentleman that he had received “a report from the receiver general of the port of Nassau stating that no warlike stores have been received at that port, either from Great Britain or elsewhere, and that no munitions of war have been shipped from thence to the Confederate States.”⁴ 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 should 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 neglect 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.

On the 31st day of the same month, instructions issued from the Foreign Office, prescribing the amount of hospitalities to be extended to the belligerents.

Instructions as to hospitalities to the belligerents. [234] These instructions have already been referred to. They provided that: 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 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 necessary 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 enough 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.¹

Lard Palmerston’s threats. [235] Almost simultaneously with the announcement by Earl Russell of an imaginary condition of affairs at Nassau, Lord Palmerston stated to Mr. Adams that “it would not do for the United States ships of war to harass British commerce on the high seas, under pretense of preventing the Confederates from receiving things that are contraband of war.”² Thus, Great Britain, in the month of January, 1802, through Earl Russell and Lord Palmerston, and the instructions, to the Admiralty ex*cluding United States vessels of war from the port of Nassau, except by permission of the Governor, virtually said to the United States: “You complain that the insurgents make illegal use of Nassau, to your injury, in violation of the Queen’s Proclamation, and of our duties as a neutral. We deny the fact; at the same time we exclude your vessels from that port, the place where you can best establish the truth of your allegations, and we warn you not to attempt to prove them by examining too closely, on the high seas, the vessels which sail under the British flag,”

[236] Having now shown how the operations of the insurgents began at Nassau, and how they were facilitated by the co-operation and complicity of the local authorities, it will not be necessary to trespass on the patience of the Tribunal of Arbitration by a similarly minute examination of the doings at that port for the rest of the year 1862. Other vessels, freighted with contraband of war, followed the Gladiator. The Economist and the Southwick came closely upon her track, and Heyliger was directed to do with their cargoes as he had done with the Gladiator’s.¹ Huse was also instructed to continue his purchases, and to send to the West India Islands, where the steamers could break bulk.² Huse called the attention of his principals to the efficiency of the blockade; said that the vessels which brought the cargoes across the Atlantic could not enter the blockaded ports; urged them to continue the system of transshipment; and complained of the activity of the United States officials.³ It was considered important to have a naval officer in charge of the transshipments, and Maffitt was detailed for the purpose.⁴ He arrived there on or about the 21st of May, and” reported that he had assumed command of the Manassas, [Florida;] which had arrived there from Liverpool on the 28th day of April; said that his “ambition was great;” and promised to give “annoyance to the enemy.”⁵ In May the supply of coal for the insurgent vessels fell short, and Heyliger went to Bermuda to buy some.⁶ The steps taken about this time for the detention of the Florida will be alluded to later.

Contraband of war fraudulently cleared at Nassau for British ports. The cargoes of contraband of war that were thus transshipped were entered on the manifests as for St. John’s, New Brunswick. It could not but have been well known at the custom-house that this was a fraud; yet the customs authorities winked at the fraud, and gave the vessels clearances as British vessels sailing for British ports.⁷

[237] *Heyliger continued to report the transshipment and forwarding of these arms and military supplies. He noticed the arrival and departure of the “Kate,” and other vessels, on account of the insurgent authorities, and on the 26th of July, 1862, he reported that the “Steamer Scotia, a private venture,”⁸ was about to leave with a large supply of rifles, powder, and other ammunition. He did not report any other “private venture,” so far as known to the United States.

Resume for the year 1862. [238] [239] The operations of Huse during this year, and his shipments through Heyliger, are detailed as follows in a letter to Colonel Gorgas, insurgent Chief of Ordnance, to the insurgent Secretary of War, dated December 3, 1862.⁹ “The purchase of ordnance and ordnance stores in foreign markets on Government account are made by Major Caleb Huse, C. S. Artillery, who resides in London, and whose address is No. 38 Clarendon Road, Notting Hill, London, West. Major Huse was detailed for this duty in April, 1861. * * * He has purchased arms to the amount of 157,000, [stands?] and large quantities of gunpowder, some artillery, infantry equipments, harness, swords, percussion caps, saltpeter, lead, &c. In addition to ordnance stores, using a rare forecast, he has purchased and *shipped large supplies of clothing, blankets, cloth, and shoes for the quartermaster’s department, without specific orders to do so. * * To pay for these purchases, funds have been from time to time sent to him by the Treasury Department, on requisition from the War Department, amounting in the aggregate to $3,095,139 18. These have been wholly inadequate to his wants, and have fallen far short of our requisitions. He was consequently in debt at latest advices to the amount of £444,850, a sum equivalent, when the value of exchange is considered, to $5,925,402 of our currency. * * An agent, Mr. Norman S. Walker, was lately dispatched with $2,000,000 in bonds of the Confederate States. The instructions to Mr. Walker direct him to return to Bermuda, after the disposition of the bonds in England, and after conference with Major Huse. He is to remain there as a resident disbursing agent, and is, in conjunction with Mr. S. G. Porter, charged with the transfers of the cargo of the ‘Harriet Pinkney,’ now there, and other ships hereafter to arrive, to the ports of the Confederate States. * * * A large part of the cargoes have been landed at Nassau, and thence transmitted to the ports of the Confederate States in fast steamers. Their destination has lately been changed to Bermuda, where several most valuable cargoes are now awaiting transportation. It appears to me to be the appro*priate duty of the Navy Department to assist in the running in of these cargoes; but if the burden of it is to be borne entirely by the War Department, it is highly important that light-draught steamers should be purchased, and used solely for the transportation of cargoes from Bermuda.”

Base changed to Bermuda. This change to Bermuda had been recommended by Hose in the previous August.¹ The reason given was that “the port of Nassau had become dangerous;” and he had appointed as agent there “Mr. S. G. Porter, a gentleman highly recommended by Commander J. D. Bullock.” Gorgas inquired of the insurgent Secretary of War whether Huse’s appointment of Porter should be approved,² and the reply is to be found in the above extract. Walker went there before January 1, 1863,³ and on the 9th day of February, 1863, it was reported that Bermuda was a good depot for the purpose, and that the insurgent authorities “had then three steamers running there.”⁴

[240] Having thus shown that the branch of the insurgent War Department established in Great Britain had, during the years 1861 and 1862, purchased arms, ammunition, and supplies to the amount of about nine millions of dollars, and that the branch *of their Treasury established at Liverpool had during the same time paid on account of these purchases over three millions of dollars, and that vessels either belonging to or chartered by the insurgent authorities were occupied as transports, (in violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819,) in carrying this large quantity of war material from British ports to the insurgents, and in bringing back cotton, the property of the insurgent authorities, to be used in making payments therefor, it is now necessary to see what the branch of their Navy Department, under the direction of Bullock, was engaged in during the same period.

The United States are not able to trace these transactions with the minuteness with which they have been able to narrate the doings of Huse and Heyliger. The correspondence of those who assumed to’ direct the naval affairs of the insurgents has not come into the possession of the United States, as did the confidential correspondence of other agents heretofore cited. Bullock’s operations, however, were on so large a scale that it will not be difficult to follow him. In doing this the United States will confine themselves to general statements, reserving the particulars for the remarks that will be made upon the career of each cruiser.

[241] What was done at Liverpool by Bullock. Bullock, as has been said, established himself in Liverpool in the summer of 1861. The United States Consul reports him on the 20th of September as “residing in private lodgings in Liverpool,” and as being “chiefly in communication with Fraser, Trenholm & Co., whose office he visits daily.” Prioleau, one of the firm of Fraser, Trenholm & Co., says that he occupied for a year after his arrival a room in their office.¹

It is probable that as early as October, 1861, he had made the contracts for the two gun-boats which were afterward known as the Florida and the Alabama. The drawings of the Alabama were signed by the Lairds, who built her, on the 6th of October, 1861. The United States have no means for determining the date when the contract was made with Fawcett, Preston & Co., for the Florida. Their Consul at Liverpool has stated that on his arrival at the consulate in November, 1861, his attention was called by the acting consul to this vessel, then called the Oreto, and to the Alabama. It is clear, therefore, that the work was advanced at that time.² Prioleau also testifies that he introduced Bullock to Fawcett, Preston & Co., for the purpose of making the contract for the Florida.³

[242] The Florida. By the 4th of February, 1862, the Florida was so nearly completed that the Consul at Liverpool wrote, “She is now taking in her coal, and appear*ances indicate that she will leave here the latter part of the week without her armament.” Her gun-carriages were soon taken on board, in pieces, some in a rough state, and were put in the held,⁴ and a day or two later she received her provisions, and the crew was shipped. The steamer Bahama preceded her by a few days with her armament, but reached Nassau after her.

When the Florida sailed she took a crew of fifty-two men and some guns,⁵ and was in every respect a man-of-war except that her armament was not in place. It was conclusively shown at Nassau that she might have been fitted for battle in twenty-four hours after leaving the dock in the Mersey.⁶

The vessel in that condition was consigned by Bullock to Heyliger.⁷ The connection of Bullock with the vessel from the beginning is established by this act, as well as by the evidence of Prioleau. The connection of Fraser, Trenholm & Co. is shown by the admission of Prioleau, and by the fact that a member of that firm accompanied her on her trial trip and on her departure.⁸

[243] Mr. Adams called the attention of Earl Russell to the character and destination of this vessel on *the 29th of February, and again on the 25th of March, 1861. Her Majesty’s Government had ample time to ascertain her character and to detain her. They did go through the form of an examination which, seen in the light of subsequent events, reads like a farce.⁹

The Alabama [244] The work on the Alabama progressed more slowly than that on the Florida, possibly because it was a larger vessel. She was launched on the 15th of May, and made her trial trip on the 12th of June.¹⁰ “The money for her was advanced by Fraser, Trenholm & Co.”¹ Captain Bullock was “all the time in communication with Fawcett, Preston & Co., who fitted out the Oreto, and with the Lairds, who were fitting out this vessel,” and went “almost daily on board the gun-boat, and seemed to be recognized as in authority.” It was even said in Liverpool that he was to command her.² Mr. Adams, on the 23d of June, invited Earl Russel’s attention to this vessel, and an examination was ordered. The examiners reported to the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury that it was “most apparent that she is intended for a ship of war,” and that “the description of her in the communication of the United States Consul is *most correct, with the exception that her engines are not constructed on the oscillatory principle.”³

The evidence of the criminal character of the vessel became so overwhelming that Her Majesty’s Government was at length induced to give an order for her detention. Before the order reached Liverpool she had escaped. She ran down to Moelfra Bay, on the coast of the Isle of Anglesey, and there took on board twenty or thirty men from the tug Hercules, with the knowledge of the British officials at Liverpool. She then sailed to the Azores, where she was met by the Agrippina from London and the Bahama from Liverpool. These vessels brought her officers, her armaments, and her coal. The transshipments were made, and then the British ensign was hauled down, and the insurgent flag hoisted.

[245] It is not deemed necessary to examine further, in this connection, the evidence showing the palpable character of this vessel, especially as Lord Russell, in the course of the discussion which ensued, admitted that “it is undoubtedly true that the Alabama was partly fitted out in a British port.” ⁴ That evidence, will be discussed more at length in its appropriate place. For the present, the United States only aim to satisfy the Tribunal that, flagrant *as was the violation of neutrality in the case of the Alabama, it was but a part of the great scheme which was set on foot when Huse, Bullock, and Fraser, Trenholm & Co., combined together in Liverpool.

The Sumter at Gibralter. The operations of Captain Bullock were manifest about this time in quite another quarter of the globe. The insurgent steamer Sumter put into Gibraltar in January, 1862, out of coal, and not being able immediately to obtain any was obliged to remain there until United States men-of-war arrived in those waters. Deeming it impossible to escape she was then offered for sale, and when the sellers came to make title, the officer in charge produced “a power of attorney from a certain Bullock, who styles himself senior naval officer in Europe.”⁵ Great Britain, in spite of the protests of the United States officials,⁶ permitted a sale to take place,⁷ and it is not improbable that, if the sale was bona fide, the money went to the insurgent agents to swell the fund for the payment of the Alabama and the Florida, then in the Mersey.

The Florida at Nassua. When the Florida reached Nassau, it was again found necessary to depend upon the Liverpool combination for funds.

[246] The insurgent Secretary of the Navy making *application to their Secretary of the Treasury for fifty thousand dollars, to fit out and equip the C. S. Steamer “Manassas,” [Florida,] “now at Nassau,”¹ was answered that “the Department had funds in England,” and that he could have “a bill of exchange on England for the amount required.”² Mallory accepted the suggestion, and requested Memminger to “transmit to Nassau, through Messrs. J. Fraser & Co., of Charleston, a bill of exchange in favor of Lieutenant John N. Maffitt, for fifty thousand dollars, ($50,000,) or its equivalent in pounds,”³ which was done.

Contracts for constructing six ironclads. [247] The construction and dispatch of these vessels were by no means all that was planned in Liverpool during that year. On the 21st day of August, 1862, Mallory, the insurgent Secretary of the Navy, wrote Mr. Jefferson Davis: “A contract has been made for the construction abroad and delivery of six iron-clad steam-vessels of war, upon plans and specifications prepared by this department, which, with the outfits to be furnished, together with six complete extra engines and boilers, are estimated to cost about $3,500,000.”⁴ The estimates annexed to this letter are to the same amount. Thus it appears that, before the 1st of * January, 1863, Bullock had dispatched from Great Britain two formidable cruisers, the Alabama and the Florida, to prey upon the commerce of the United States, had sold another cruiser at Gibraltar, and had possibly turned the proceeds into the Treasury of the insurgents, at the office of Fraser, Trenholm & Co., and had, by himself or through another agent, made some sort of a contract for the construction of six iron-clads; and that Fraser, Trenholm & Co. had provided the funds for these vessels, and also for what was necessary in order to complete the fitting out of the Florida at Nassau.

The Sumter at Trinidad. The Florida at Nassau. [248] Before proceeding further in this history, it is better to pause to take note of two other acts of the Colonial Authorities, which, so far as known, were not censured by Great Britain. The first of these was the hospitality extended to the Sumter in Trinidad, in August, 1861. She was allowed to remain five days in port, and to “supply herself with coals and other necessary outfits.”⁵ The second case was the reception of the Florida at Nassau, in 1863. The Florida steamed into Nassau on the morning of the 26th of January, in that year. What took place is thus described by an insurgent writer: “This seems to be our principal port of entry, and the amount of money *we throw into the hands of the Nassauites probably influences their sentiments in our favor. We took on board coal and provisions to last us for several months.” ⁶

>Mr. Adams represents the foregoing facts to Earl Russell. [249] This history has now arrived at the time when the United States were in a position to confirm to Great Britain all, and more than all, that Mr. Adams had represented to Earl Russell as to the course of the insurgents in Liverpool, and to place in the hands of Her Majesty’s Government the thread for the discovery of all the violations of British sovereignty, and of all the injuries to the United States perpetrated on British soil, which have been set forth in this paper. On the 19th of January, 1863, Mr. Seward transmitted to Mr. Adams “a copy of some treasonable correspondence of the insurgents at Richmond, with their agents abroad, which throws a flood of light upon the naval preparations they are making in Great Britain.”¹ On the 9th day of February, 1863, Mr. Adams inclosed this correspondence to Earl Russell, with a note in which he said—what could be said without the least exaggeration—“These papers go to show a deliberate attempt to establish within the limits of this Kingdom a system of action in direct hostility to the Government of the *United States. This plan embraces not only the building and fitting out of several ships of war under the direction of agents especially commissioned for the purpose, but the preparation of a series of measures under the same auspices for the obtaining from Her Majesty’s subjects the pecuniary means essential to the execution of those hostile projects. * * * Taken as a whole, these papers serve most conclusively to show that no respect whatever has been paid in her own realm by these parties to the neutrality declared by Her Majesty at the outset of these hostilities; and that, so far as may be in their power, they are bent on making her Kingdom subservient to their purpose of conducting hostilities against a nation with which she is at peace.”²

Lord Russell declines to act. [250] Lord Russell delayed his answer to this communication exactly one month. On the 9th day of March, 1863, he made a reply, the substance of which was that Her Majesty’s Government would not examine into the truth of Mr. Seward’s and Mr. Adams’s allegations, because, even if they were true, the papers which had been submitted by Mr. Adams went “merely to show that the agents of the so-called Confederate States resident in this country [Great Britain] have received instructions from their own Government *to endeavor to raise money on securities of that Government in England, and to enter into contracts for the purchase of munitions of war, and for the building of iron-clad vessels; but there is no proof in these papers that the agents referred to have as yet brought themselves within the reach of any criminal law of the United Kingdom.”³

Inefficiency of the Foreign Enlistment Act. In order fully to comprehend the force of this answer, it is necessary to ask the Tribunal to pause, for the purpose of inquiring, into what had taken place between the two Governments as to alleged defects in the Foreign Enlistment Act, and as to the necessity of amending it so as to give the Government greater powers.

It was found when the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819 came to be put into operation, under the direction of a Government inspired by unfriendly feelings toward the United States, that there were practical and multiplying difficulties in the way of using it so as to prevent the departure of the cruisers. Earl Russell, as early as March, 1862, in reply to an earnest representation⁴ made by Mr. Adams under instructions, said that “the duty of nations in amity with each other is not to suffer their good faith to he violated by evil-disposed persons within their borders, merely from the inefficiency of their prohibitory policy.” ⁵

[251] *Within a few months after this the Alabama escaped from the port of Liverpool, and never returned. The openness and the audacity with which this was done seemed at one time to induce the British Cabinet to entertain the idea of amending the Foreign Enlistment Act.

Propositions to amend the Foreign Enlistment Act. On the 19th day of December, 1862,⁶ Lord Russell, in reply to what he called Mr. Adams’s “demand for a more effective prevention for the future of the fitting out of such vessels from British ports,” informed him that Her Majesty’s Government were of “opinion that certain amendments might be introduced into the Foreign Enlistment Act, which, if sanctioned by Parliament, would have the effect of giving greater power to the Executive to prevent the construction in British ports of ships destined for the use of belligerents.” He also said that he was ready at any time to confer with Mr. Adams, and to listen to any suggestions which he might have to make by which the British Foreign Enlistment Act and the corresponding Statute of the United States might be made more efficient for their purpose.

Propositions declined by Great Britain. [252] Mr. Adams communicated with his Government, and, having obtained instructions, informed Lord Russell that his “suggestions of possible amendments to the enlistment laws in order to make *them more effective had been favorably received. Although the law of the United States was considered as of very sufficient vigor, the Government were not unwilling to consider propositions to improve upon it.” Lord Russell replied that, since his note was written, the subject had been considered in Cabinet, and the Lord Chancellor had expressed the opinion that the British law was sufficiently effective, and that under these circumstances he did not see that he could have any change to propose.¹

[253] The United States are unable to state what amendments to the Foreign Enlistment Acts of the two countries the British Government might have proposed had they not changed their minds between December, 1862, and March 1863. It is to be presumed, from the use of the word “construction” in Lord Russell’s note, that it was in contemplation to make some proposition to remedy a supposed defect in the British statute as to the construction of a vessel intended to carry on war, as distinguished from the “equipping, furnishing, fitting out, or arming” such a vessel. It was understood to be the opinion of the British lawyers that the construction of such a vessel was not an offense under the act of 1819. It is also possible that Her Majesty’s Government may have *desired to give the Executive in Great Britain some power similar to that possessed by the Executive of the United States for the arrest of vessels so constructed. As the proposal for negotiations on the subject was withdrawn, it is impossible to do more than conjecture what was contemplated.

From the hour when Lord Russell informed Mr. Adams that the Lord Chancellor was satisfied that the British laws were sufficiently effective, the British Government resisted every attempt to change the laws and give them more vigor.

Propositions renewed and declined. [254] Mr. Adams again, on the 26th of March, 1863, sought an interview with Lord Russell on the subject of the rebel hostile operations in British territory. What took place there is described by Lord Russell in a letter written on the following day to Lord Lyons:² “With respect to the law itself, Mr. Adams said either it was sufficient for the purposes of neutrality, and then let the British Government enforce it; or it was insufficient, and then let the British Government apply to Parliament to amend it I said that the cabinet were of opinion that the law was sufficient, but that legal evidence could not always be procured; that the British Government had done everything in its power to execute the law, but I admitted that the cases of *the Alabama and Oreto were a scandal, and, in some degree, a reproach to our laws.”

[255] The Tribunal of Arbitration will thus see that about three weeks before Earl Russell made his extraordinary official reply to the representations of Mr. Adams, he had informed Mr. Adams “that the Lord Cham cellor had expressed the opinion that the British [neutrality] law was sufficiently effective, and that, under these circumstances, he did not see that he could have any change to propose”¹ in it. It will also now be observed that when that declaration was made, Mr. Adams’s note of February 9, 1863, with the proof of the complicity of the insurgent agents in England, had been in Earl Russell’s portfolio four days. It will also be observed that that proof established, or afforded to Earl Russell the clue by which he could, and, as the United States say, should have satisfied himself—1. “That contracts were already made for the construction of iron-clad ‘fighting-ships’ in England.”² 2. That Eraser, Trenholm & Co. were the “depositaries” of the insurgents in Liverpool, and that the money in their hands was “to be applied to the contracts.”³ 3. That they (F., T. & Co.) were to pay purchases made by Mr.*Huse and other agents.⁴ 4. That other contracts for the construction of vessels besides those for the six ironclads had been taken by parties in Great Britain.⁵ 5. That parties in England were arranging for an insurgent cotton loan, the proceeds of which were to be deposited with Fraser, Trenholm & Co. for the purpose of carrying out all these contracts.⁶

[256] When the United States found that the proof of such aggravated wrong was not deemed worthy of investigation by Her Majesty’s Government, because it contained no statements which could be used as evidence to convict a criminal before an English jury,⁷ they were most reluctantly forced from that time forward, throughout the struggle, to believe that no complaints would be listened to by Her Majesty’s Government which were not accompanied by proof that the persons complained of had brought themselves “within reach of the criminal law of the United Kingdom;” that the penal provisions of the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819 were to be taken by Great Britain, as the measure of its duty as a neutral; and that no amendment or change in that act was to be made with the assent of the existing Government.

These proceedings were an abandonment, in advance, of “due diligence.” They earnestly and confidently insist before this tribunal, that this decision of Her Majesty’s Government was in violation of its obligations toward the United States; that it was an abandonment, in advance, not only of that” due diligence “which is defined in the Treaty, of Washington as one of the duties of a neutral, but of any measure of diligence, to restrain the insurgents from using its territory for purposes hostile to the United States.

Encouraged by the immunity afforded by these several decisions of Her Majesty’s Government, the insurgent agents in Great Britain began to extend their operations.

The Georgia. [257] Early in April, 1863, a steamer, called the Japan, which was afterward known as the Georgia, left the Clyde, “with intent to depredate on the commerce of the United States.”¹ This vessel had been publicly launched on the 10th of the previous January as an insurgent steamer, at which time a Miss North, daughter of a Captain North, of one of the Confederate States, officiated as priestess, and christened the craft *“Virginia.”² “Some seventy or eighty men, twice the number that would be required for any legitimate voyage, were shipped at Liverpool for this vessel, and sent to Greenock.”³ A small steamer called the “Alar,” belonging to a British subject, was loaded with a large supply of guns, shell, shot, powder, &c.,”⁴ and dispatched to meet her. The two vessels met off the French coast; the “Alar” was made fast alongside the “Japan,” and in twenty-four hours the whole of the guns and ammunition were transferred.⁵ The “Japan” then dropped her Oriental name, hoisted the flag of the insurgents, and steamed away; one day’s work after leaving the Clyde having converted her into an armed cruiser. It was not, however, until the 23d of the following June that her British register was canceled and the transfer made to foreign owners.⁶

The Alexandra. [258] [259] Early in March, 1863, Miller & Son, the builders of the Florida, launched, at their yard in Liverpool, a new gun-boat, to be called the Alexandra.⁷ The evidence of the hostile uses for which this vessel was intended was so overwhelming that proceedings were instituted against her for a violation of *the Foreign Enlistment Act.⁸ In the trial of this case it was clearly proved that the Alexandra was a man-of-war, and that she was constructed for the purpose of carrying on hostilities against the United States.⁹ But the judge instructed the jury that a neutral might “make a vessel and arm it, and then offer it for sale”¹⁰ to a belligerent; and that, a fortiori “if any man may build a vessel for the purpose of offering it to either of the belligerent Powers who is minded to have it, may he not execute an order for it?” He also instructed them that “to ‘equip’ is Ho furnish with arms;’” “in the case of a ship, especially, it is to furnish and complete with arms;”¹ that “‘equip,’ ‘furnish,’ ‘fit out,’ or ‘arm,’ all mean precisely the same *thing;” and he closed that branch of the instructions by saying, “the question is whether you think that this vessel was fitted. Armed she certainly was not, but was there an intention that she should be finished, fitted, or equipped, in Liverpool? Because, gentlemen, I must say, it seems to me that the Alabama sailed away from Liverpool without any arms at all; merely a ship in ballast, unfurnished, unequipped, unprepared; and her arms were put in at Terceira, not a port in Her Majesty’s Dominions. The Foreign Enlistment Act is no more violated by that than by any other indifferent matter that might happen about a boat of any kind whatever.” The jury gave a verdict without delay for the gun-boat. An appeal on this construction of the statute was taken to a higher court. The rulings of the judge on the trial were not reversed, and the decision stood as the law of England until and after the close of the rebellion, and still stands as the judicial construction of the act of 1819.

The rulings in the Alexandra emasculated the Foreign Enlistment Act. [260] Thus, after the political’ branch of Her Majesty’s Government had announced its purpose of limiting its duties to the enforcement of the Foreign Enlistment Act, and had practically stripped that act of all features except those relating to the prosecution of offenders as criminals, the judicial branch of that Government emasculated it by a ruling *which openly authorized the construction of new Alabamas and of new Floridas.

Contracts were also made, some time in the year 1862, for the construction, at Glasgow, of a formidable vessel, known as the Pampero. Mr. Dudley reported that the cost of the construction was to be something over £300,000.² This vessel was seized at Glasgow for an alleged violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act. On the trial, which took place in 1864, it appeared that the Scottish courts were not disposed to follow the English courts in depriving the Foreign Enlistment Act of all force. The insurgents, therefore, abandoned the attempt to use the Pampero as a cruiser, and ceased to contract for the construction or fitting out of vessels within the Scottish Kingdom. A similar course in the English courts might have produced similar results in England.

Lairds’ iron-clad rams. [261] About the same time the arrangements were made with the Lairds for the construction, at Birkenhead, opposite Liverpool, of the two ironclads which were afterward known as “Lairds’ ironclads,” or “Lairds’ rams.” The keel of one of them, as has been already said, was laid in the same stocks from which the Alabama was launched.³ These vessels were most formidable, and were *“pushed forward with all possible dispatch. The men were at work night and day upon them.” The machinery and guns were made simultaneously with the hull, and it was reported that “by the time she is launched they will be ready to be placed in her.”⁴

[262] [263] [264] Their construction was originally ordered from Richmond, and they were superintended by Captain Bullock,⁵ who was at that time in frequent correspondence with Mr. Mallory “about building the two above-named and other war vessels in England,” “and about the money to pay for the same.”⁵ “The drawings for them were in the office of Fraser, Trenholm & Co., as early as June, 1862, in Captain Bullock’s hands.’¹ By the early part of April, 1883, “the hulls were complete, and the sides were covered with slabs of teak-wood about twelve inches thick.” Early in June, 1863, one of the vessels had begun to receive her iron armor plates, “about four inches thick,” “The deck of each vessel was prepared to receive two turrets.”² “Each ram had a stem, made of wrought iron, about eight inches thick, projecting about five feet under the water line, and obviously intended for the purpose of penetrating and destroying other *vessels.”² These facts, and others, were communicated by Mr. Adams to Earl Russell in a note dated July 11, 1863.³ Commenting upon them Mr. Adams said: “A war has thus been practically conducted by a portion of her people against a Government with which Her Majesty is under the most solemn of all national engagements to preserve a lasting and durable peace.” On the 10th of July, Mr. Adams sent to Lord Russell further evidence of the character of these vessels.⁴ On the 25th of July, he again wrote him on the subject, with fresh proof of their purposes.⁵ On the 14th of August he again wrote to Earl Russell with “further information;” said that he regretted to see “that the preparation * * * is not intermitted” and added: “It is difficult for me to give to your Lordship an adequate idea of the uneasiness and anxiety created in the different ports of the United States by the idea that instruments of injury, of so formidable a character, continue to threaten their safety, as issuing from the ports of Great Britain, a country with which the people of the United States are at peace.”⁶ On the 3d of September Mr. Adams again earnestly returned to *the subject. He wrote to Earl Russell, inclosing “copies of further depositions relating to the launching and other preparation of the second of the two vessels of war from the yard of Messrs. Laird, at Birkenhead.”⁷ He said that he believed there was “not any reasonable ground for doubt that these vessels, if permitted to leave the port of Liverpool, will be at once devoted to the object of carrying on war against the United States of America,” and he closed by saying that he had been directed “to describe the grave nature of the situation in which both countries must be placed, in the event of an act of aggression committed against the Government and the people of the United States by either of these formidable vessels.” The new evidence inclosed in this letter related only to the fact that the second ram was launched, and cannot be said to have strengthened the case as previously presented. Again, on the 4th of September, Mr. Adams sent to the Foreign Office evidence to show the preparation for immediate departure of one of these vessels.⁸ Late in the afternoon of the 4th, after the note had been dispatched to Earl Russell and a copy of it sent to Mr. Seward, Mr. Adams received from Earl Russell a note, dated the 1st of September, saying that *“Her Majesty’s Government are advised that they cannot interfere in anyway with these vessels.”⁹ On the 5th Mr. Adams replied, expressing his “profound regret at the conclusion to which Her Majesty’s Government have arrived;” and added: “It would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war.”¹ On the 8th of September Mr. Adams received a short note, written in the third person, in which it was said “instructions have been issued which will prevent the departure of the two iron-clad vessels from Liverpool.”² It would appear from the British Blue Book that the instructions for their detention “had scarcely been sent” when Mr. Adams’s note of the 3d of September was received at the Foreign Office.³

Their detention not an abandonment of the lax construction of the duties of a neutral. [265] There was little in all this transaction to lead the United States to hope for a returning and better sense of justice in the British Government. For they could not but observe, when comparing the dates of the receipt of the several notes which passed between Lord Russell and Mr. Adams, that when Her Majesty’s Government, after a delay of six weeks, answered that it could not interfere with these vessels, it was in possession of convincing evidence of their character and destina*tion, which was not materially, if at all, strengthened by the evidence contained in Mr. Adams’s letter of the 3d of September. They were therefore forced to conclude that, in detaining the vessels, Her Majesty’s Government was influenced, not by change in their opinion as to the force or effect of the Foreign Enlistment Act, or as to the duty of Great Britain toward the United States, but solely by a desire to avoid, in the interest of peace, what Mr. Adams called “the grave nature of the situation in which both countries must be placed, in the event of an act of aggression committed against the Government and people of the United States by either of these formidable vessels.” The United States fully and earnestly shared this desire with Great Britain, and they were relieved from a state of painful suspense when the dangers which Mr. Adams pointed oat were averted. But they would have felt a still greater relief could they have received at that time the assurance, or could they have seen in the transaction any evidence from which they could assume that the Executive Branch of the British Government was no longer of the opinion expressed in Lord Russell’s note of September 1, as to its duties in regard to evidence such as that inclosed in Mr. Adams’s previous notes and no longer intended to regard the Foreign Enlistment.

[266] *Act, as expounded by the court in the Alexandra case, as the measure of its international duties.

The contracts with Arman for the construction of vessels in France. Extensive as were the arrangements made from Liverpool by the insurgent agents, at that time, for the construction in Great Britain of vessels of war intended to carry on war against the United States, their operations were not confined to Great Britain. Captain Bullock, without shifting his office from Liverpool, signed an agreement, “for the account of his principals,” on the 16th of April, 1863, with Lucien Arman, ship-builder at Bordeaux, whereby Mr. Annan engaged “to construct four steamers of 400 horse-power, and arranged for the reception of an armament of from ten to twelve cannon.” As it was necessary in France to obtain the consent of the Government to the armament of such vessels within the limits of the Empire, Mr. Arman informed the Government that these vessels were “intended to establish a regular communication between Shanghai, Yedo, and San Francisco, passing the strait of Van Dieman, and also that they are to be fitted out, should the opportunity present itself, for sale to the Chinese or Japanese Empire.” On this representation permission was given to arm them, the armament of two to be supplied by Mr. Arman at Bordeaux, and that of the other two by Mr. Vorus at Nantes.

[267] *On the 16th of July, 1863, another agreement was made in Bordeaux between Mr. Arman and Mr. Bullock, “acting for the account of principals.” Arman agreed to construct two screw steamships of wood and iron, with iron turrets, of 300 horse-power. Bullock was to supply the armament; the ships were to be finished in six months; one fifth of the price was to be paid in advance.

Under these contracts Bullock is said to have paid Arman 5,280,000 franc.¹ But one of the vessels ever went into the possession of the insurgents, and that by fraud. It may interest the Tribunal of Arbitration to learn, in a few words, the result of these contracts and the course pursued by the French Government.

Conduct of the French Government. [268] The authorization which had been obtained for Mr. Arman and Mr. Vorus to arm the four vessels, under the contract of the 15th of April, and the doings of Mr. Arman under the contract of the 16th of July, were unknown to the minister of foreign affairs. When they were brought to Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys’ attention by the minister of the United States at Paris, he took immediate *steps to prevent a violation of the neutrality of France. He wrote to Mr. Dayton, (October 22, 1863,) “Que M. le ministre de la marine vient de notifier à M. Vorus le retrait de l’autorisation qu’il avait obtenue pour l’armement de quatre navires en construction a Nantes eta Bordeaux. Il en a été donné également avis à M. Arman, dont l’attention a été en même temps apelée sur la responsabilité qu’il pourrait encourir par des actes en opposition avec la déclaration du 11 juin 1861.”

[269] Contrast between the conduct of France and of Great Britain. Mr. Arman made many efforts to remove the injunctions of the Government, but without success. He was finally forced to sell to the Prussian Government two of the clippers constructed at Bordeaux under the contract of April 15. Two other clippers, constructed at Nantes under that contract, were sold to the Peruvian Government. Of the two ironclads constructed under the contract of July 16, one was sold to Prussia for 2,075,000 francs. A contract was made for the sale of the other to Denmark, which was then at war, and it was sent, under the Danish name of Stoerkodder, to Copenhagen. It arrived there after the time agreed upon for the delivery and after the war was over, and the Danish Government refused to accept it. The person in charge of the vessel in Copenhagen held at once the power of attorney of M. Arman and of Mr. Bul*lock; and in one capacity he delivered the vessel to himself in the other capacity, and took her to the Isle of Houat, off the French coast, where she was met by a steamer from England with an armament. Taking this on board, she crossed the Atlantic, stopping in Spain and Portugal on the way. In the port of Havana news was received of the suppression of the insurrection, and she was delivered to the authorities of the United States. The course pursued by France toward these vessels is in striking contrast with Great Britain’s conduct in the cases of the Florida and the Alabama.

[270] Bullock’s operations in this way called for a great deal of money. On the 22d of May, 1863, a “navy warrant on Messrs. Fraser, Trenholm & Co. for £300,000 “was sent to him.² On the 25th of June, 1863, “drafts for £20,000 and £38,062 13s. 4d., in favor of Commander James D. Bullock, on the C. S. Depositary in Liverpool, were forwarded to him.”¹ Other funds were sent that the United States are not able to trace. In September, 1863, his contracts had been so heavy that he was low in funds. Maffitt sent to him at Liverpool a number of “men, discharged from the Florida, with their accounts and discharges.”² He could *not pay them, and the men “began to get restive.” Mallory made an effort to send him further funds, and asked Memminger to instruct “the Depositary at Liverpool” to countersign certain cotton certificates “on the application of Commander Bullock.”³ In this, or in some other way, the funds were replenished, and large sums were spent after that time.

While these extensive preparations for a fleet were going on in England and France, an event took place at the Cape of Good Hope which tested afresh the purpose of Her Majesty’s Government to maintain British neutrality and enforce the Queen’s Proclamation.

The Tuscaloosa at the Cape of Good Hope. [171] [272] On the 5th of August, 1863, the Alabama arrived in Table Bay and gave information that the Tuscaloosa, a prize that had been captured off Brazil, would soon arrive in the character of a tender. On the 8th that vessel arrived in Simon’s Bay, having her original cargo of wool on board. She lay in port about a week, and while there “overtures were made by some parties in Cape Town to purchase the cargo of wool.”⁴ The wool was disposed of to a Cape Town merchant, on condition that he should send it to Eurore for sale, and two-thirds of the price should be paid into the insurgent treasury; and it was landed for that purpose by the Tuscaloosa, on a wild spot, called Angra Pequena, outside of British jurisdictiou.⁵ When the Tuscaloosa made her appearance at Cape Town, Rear-Admiral Sir Baldwin Walker wrote to the Governor, desiring to know “whether this vessel ought still to be looked upon in the light of a prize, she never having been condemned in a prize court.”⁶ He was instructed to admit the vessel. The practical experience of the honest sailor rebelled at this decision, and he replied, “I apprehend that to bring a captured vessel under the denomination of a vessel of war, she must be fitted for warlike purposes, and not merely have a few men and a few small guns put on board her, (in fact nothing but a prize crew,) in order to disguise her real character as a prize. Now, this vessel has her original cargo of wool still on board, which cannot be required for warlike purposes, and her armament and number of her crew are quite insufficient for any services other than those of slight defense. Viewing all the circumstances of the case, they afford room for the supposition that the vessel is styled a tender, with the object of avoiding the prohibition against her entrance as a prize into our ports, where, if the captors wished, arrangements *could be made for the disposal of her valuable cargo.”⁷

She is released against the advice of Sir Baldwin Walker. The Governor replied that the Attorney General was of opinion that “if the vessel received the two guns from the Alabama or other Confederate vessel of war, or if the person in command of her has a commission of war, * * * there will be a sufficient setting forth as a vessel of war to justify her being held to be a ship of war.”¹ The Admiral replied, tersely, “As there are two guns on board, and an officer of the Alabama in charge of her, the vessel appears to come within the meaning of the cases cited in your communication.”² He did not seem to think it worth while to repeat his opinion as to the frivolous character of such evidence, since it had been disregarded by the civil authorities.

The course of the Governor disapproved. [273] The Tuscaloosa comes again into the waters of the colony. The Governor reverse his policy and seizes the vessel. [274] His course is again disapproved. The facts were in due course reported by the Governor to the Home Government at London,³ and the Colonial Minister wrote back that Her Majesty’s Government were of opinion that the “Tuscaloosa” did not lose the character of a prize captured by the Alabama merely because she was at the time of her being brought within British waters armed with two small rifle-guns, and manned *with a crew often men from the Alabama, and used as a tender to that vessel under the authority of Captain Semmes.⁴ He said that he “considered that the mode of proceeding in such circumstances most consistent with Her Majesty’s dignity, and most proper for the vindication of her territorial rights, would have been to prohibit the exercise of any further control over the Tuscaloosa by the captors, and to retain that vessel under Her Majesty’s control and jurisdiction until properly reclaimed by her original owners.” These instructions were looked upon by the Governor as a censure;⁵ and the Tuscaloosa having in the mean time come again into port and placed herself within the jurisdiction, was seized, and the facts reported to London.⁶ Her Majesty’s Government disavowed this act, and instructed the Governor “to restore the Tuscaloosa to the lieutenant of the Confederate States who lately commanded her; or, if he seizes the vessel, should have left the Cape, then to retain her until she can be handed over to some person who may have authority from Captain Semmes, of the Alabama, or from the Government of the Confederate States, to receive her.”⁷ The *Governor was also informed that the Home Government had not in any degree censured him for the course which he had pursued.⁸ The Duke of Newcastle placed his instructions to restore the vessel upon “the peculiar circumstances of this case.” But the Tribunal of Arbitration will observe that, inasmuch as, notwithstanding his first decision of the 4th of November above cited, he did, in his second instructions, fully approve of the course of the Governor in receiving the vessel originally as a man-of-war, in violation of the Queen’s Proclamation and of well-settled principles of International Law, and against the sensible and honest advice of Rear-Admiral Sir Baldwin Walker, he was in no position to shelter the British Government from responsibility for the hostile act of her officials, by pleading any special or peculiar circumstances.

Blockade-running. It is necessary now to go back and bring up the history of army purchases and blockade-running. Walker and Porter were left established as agents at Bermuda, and Heyliger at Nassau.

[275] On the 28th of March, 1863, Fraser, Trenholm & Co. were notified that the insurgent Secretary of the Treasury had “appointed Mr. Lewis Heyliger a depositary of the treasury at Nassau, New Providence, and Colonel Norman S. Walker a de*positary at Bermuda;”¹ and they were told that Messrs. Heyliger and Walker would forward shipments of cotton on account of the treasury, and would draw on them for funds to pay expenses of the vessels and to make purchases of return cargoes. They were also informed that shipments of cotton would be made by way of Nassau and Bermuda by the authorities at Richmond, and they were directed to pay the proceeds of such shipments to Mr. Huse. The cotton was sent forward as opportunity offered. Thus, for instance, in May, 1863, the navy transported to Nassau five hundred and seventy-five bales for the treasury.² The shipments were, in fact, going whenever there was opportunity.

Mr. J. M. Seixas was also appointed agent of the insurgent War Department in the ports of Wilmington and Charleston, “to take charge of all that relates to the running of the steamers of the Department sailing, from and arriving at those ports.”³

Cotton, shipments. [276] On the 18th of April, 1863, Walker forwarded to Fraser, Trenholm & Co. 800 bales of cotton, drew against it for £20,000 for his own disbursements for commissary stores, and notified Huse that the balance would go to his credit with Fraser, Trenholm* & Co. He also reported the arrival at Bermuda of “Confederate steamers,” blockade runners, with cotton, and he called Huse’s attention to “the importance of sending to this place (Bermuda) one or two cargoes of Duffryne coal for the Government steamers;” and adds: “You will readily see the injurious delay which may result from the want of a proper supply of coal.” He also says: “From all that I can learn, any Confederate man-of-war which may come to this port will have no difficulty in coaling and procuring supplies.” ⁴

The blockade-runners of the Richmond authorities were by this time well known, and were making regular voyages. The Cornubia was running before January, 1863.⁵ The Giraffe and the Cornubia ran regularly to Bermuda and to Nassau,⁶ in February, 1863. One or two more were thought “highly desirable.” In March there was “enough to employ three steamers for some time to come,” and Huse was authorized “to add to the fleet two more good swift steamers,”⁷, and was furnished with a credit of £200,000 on Fraser, Trenholm & Co.⁸

[277] The insurgent government was all this while urg*ing its agents to dispatch arms and munitions of war. In April, 1863, twenty thousand Enfield rifle bayonets were wanted as soon as possible.⁹ On the 6th of May “one hundred and fifty thousand bayonets” were wanted, “and lead and saltpeter in large quantities.”¹⁰. On the 1st of June, Walker is ordered to send “paper for making catridges by the first boat;” “if there is none on hand send to Major Huse to buy a large quantity”¹¹ Two days later he was ordered to send “Colt’s pistol-caps as soon as possible.”¹² They were wanted for Lee, who was preparing to move toward Gettysburgh.

[278] Walker shows in all this emergency a fear of being crippled for want of coal. On the 21st of March he was arranging for a cargo in the port of Bermuda.¹ On the 29th of March he writes that he has purchased that cargo, and wants more.² On the 16th of May he urges Huse to send coal. “Every steamer takes from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty tons.” He has but six hundred tons left.³ On the 23d of May he again calls attention “most earnestly to the *importance of keeping him supplied with good steam coal.” He “hopes that some are already on the way.” His “stock is almost exhausted.”⁴ On the 30th of June he cries “send us coal, coal, coal! Each steamer takes one hundred and eighty tons, so that six hundred tons will be quickly consumed.”⁵ Again on the 9th of July he writes “coal, coal, coal. Send me two thousand tons. The Lee, I fear, will be laid up for the want of it. You may calculate that each steamer will take one hundred and eighty tons.”⁶ He wrote also to Fraser, Trenholm & Co., to the same effect, saying that there should be a “reserve there of at least three or four thousand tons.”⁷ Shipments were made, and the supplies reached him before there was any serious detention of the blockade-runners. He was enabled to fulfill all the orders given in Richmond a short time before the advance of Lee’s army into Pennsylvania.

The insurgent Government interested hi blockade-running. [279] [280] In spite of the countenance given by the authorities in Bermuda and Nassau, funds could not be forwarded fast enough to Major Huse to meet the great demands made upon him at this time. On the 23d of July, 1863, “on behalf of the Confederate Government,” he made an arrangement with *the Mercantile Trading Company for an advance of £150,000, to be extended to £300,000, for the purchase of goods for the insurgents, and their shipment by the company, “via Bermuda, Nassau, or Havana;” “the Confederate Government to have two-thirds cargo space in each vessel, the company one-third each way;” “the cotton received from the Confederate States to be consigned to the company’s agency in Liverpool.”⁸ Stringer, the managing director of the company, soon became doubtful of Huse’s powers, and wrote Mr. Mason, saying that he had already advanced him £20,000 on saltpeter, and inquiring about the powers;⁹ to which Mason replied that he did not know about the extent of Huse’s powers, but that he had no doubt that the saltpeter would be taken, by the insurgents.¹⁰ Stringer’s doubts were soon set at rest; for it would seem that about that time there must have been received in London an agreement without date, executed in Richmond by “J. Gorgas, Colonel, Chief of Ordnance,” and “approved” by “J. A. Seddon, Secretary of War,” which probably replaced the temporary agreement of July 23. Five steamers were to be put on to run from Bermuda or Nassau to Charleston or Wilmington, two thirds to be owned by the insur*gents, and one-third by the British contractors. The insurgents were to pay for their two-thirds in cotton, at Charleston, and were to be allowed commissions for their part of the work, the other contracting parties haying a similar allowance. The portion of the proceeds of cotton belonging to the insurgents was “to be paid to the credit of the War Department with Messrs. Eraser, Trenholm & Co., of Liverpool.” The insurgents were to furnish officers to command the vessels. The document was signed by “C. E. Thorburn,” and by “Chas. H. Reid & Co.,” and by “The Mercantile Trading Co., Limited; Edgar P. Stringer, Managing Director, Loudon, 23d September, 1863.”¹ Mr. Thorburn was a shareholder in the Trading Company,² and on the 3d of October Mr. Stringer is found corresponding with him about the purchase of these vessels.³

[281] Meanwhile the operations of the insurgents at Nassau and Bermuda had gone on with even more vigor than during the previous year. Huse’s credit had been strained to the utmost, but was now restored. The purchases and supplies for the Quartermaster’s Department appear to have been transferred during this summer exclusively to Nassau. Seixas was instructed to place one thousand bales of cotton at Nassau for the Quar* term aster’s Department, before the close of the year, and was told that “the wants of the Quartermaster General are at Nassau, not Bermuda.”⁴

Heyliger diligently complied with his instructions to forward quartermaster’s stores. On the 29th of October he sent 40 tons by the “Antonica,” “Margaret,” and “Jessie.” On the 2d of November he shipped by the “Hansa” 19 tons; the next day by the “Beauregard” 40 or 50 tons; and a large quantity by the “Alice;” and on the 5th of November he sent 20 tons by the “Banshee.” The “Margaret” and the “Jessie” were captured; the others ran the blockade. The Quartermaster’s Department was much employed in collecting and forwarding cotton to meet these purchases.⁵

[282] Major Ferguson was in Liverpool at this time as an agent for the purchase of quartermaster’s stores, and was sending large amounts forward. Fraser, Trenholm & Co. refused his drafts, because Heyliger had already overdrawn the Quartermaster’s account.⁶ Ferguson thereupon wrote, urging that cotton should be forwarded. “I have,” he says, “more faith in cotton than I ever had. If we can but get that out, we can buy all England, for most *of the men, as well as their merchandise, haye a price.”⁷

These facts brought to Earl Russell’s notice. He sees no offense in them. On the 3d of November, 1863, Mr. Adains, laid before Earl Russell “new proofs of the manner in which the neutrality of Her Majesty’s ports is abused by the insurgents In the United States, in order the more effectually to procrastinate their resistance,” which he contended showed the “establishment in the port of St. George’s, in the island of Bermuda, of a depot of naval stores for their use and benefit in the prosecution of the war.”⁸ This information should have put Lord Russell on the track of all the facts in regard to Bermuda. Had Her Majesty’s Government pursued the investigations to which it gave them the clew, it would have done so. Earl Russell, on the 27th of November, answered that “Her Majesty’s Government do not consider that they can properly interfere in this matter.”⁹ The dates would seem to indicate a possibility that no inquiries were made at Bermuda.

[283] On the 29th of December, 1863, Mr. Adams wrote Earl Russell that he had “information entitled to credit,” that Ralph Cator, “an officer in Her Majesty’s naval service,” was “engaged in violating the blockade:” and that there was *“a strong disposition on the part of a portion of Her Majesty’s navy to violate the neutrality of their Sovereign in aiding and assisting the enemies of the United States.”¹ This, too, was answered in a week from its date, without taking the trouble to inquire in the West Indies.²

[284] Again, upon the 25th day of January, 1864, Mr. Adams called attention to “the manner in which the insurgents habitually abuse the belligerent privileges which have been conceded to them by Great Britain.” It would seem that he had lately had a conversation with Earl Russell on the subject, for he says that he “deems it almost superfluous to enlarge further on the difficulties which must grow out of a toleration of the outrageous abuses of the belligerent privileges that have been granted to the insurgents.”³ “It would be difficult,” he adds, “to find an example in history of a more systematic and persistent effort to violate the neutral position of a country than this one has been from its commencement, that has not brought on a war. That this has been the object of the parties engaged in it I have never for a moment doubted.” “It must be obvious,” he says, “to your Lordship that, after such an exposition, all British subjects engaged in these violations of blockade must incur a suspicion *strong enough to make them liable to be treated as enemies, and, if taken, to be reckoned as prisoners of war.”⁴

Earl Russell’s attention again called to these facts. Earl Russell replied to this note on the 9th of March.⁵ He ignored the evidence and charges of the hostile use of the British West India ports. He alluded to a charge against Lieutenant Rooke, which he set aside as unimportant, and to a charge against one James Ash of a purpose to build ships for the insurgents. As to the latter charge, he reiterated the oft-repeated plea that there was no “legal and proper evidence” to sustain it; and having disposed of these, he confined himself to a notice of Mr. Adams’s intimation that it might become necessary to treat blockade-runners as prisoners of war. This, he said, could not be assented to.

[285] He again sees no offense in them. A short discussion ensued, which was closed by a note of Mr. Adams, transmitting further evidence of the character of the trade between the British West Indian ports and the insurgent States, and calling Earl Russell’s “particular attention to the express condition exacted from all vessels in trade with the insurgent ports, that one-half of the tonnage of each vessel may be employed by the so-called Government for its own use, both on the *outward and homeward voyage;”⁶ to which Earl Russell replied in an answer in which he said, in substance, that admitting all the facts stated to be true, there was nothing in them worthy of attention; tor “the subjects of Her Majesty are entitled by International Law to carry on the operations of commerce equally with both belligerents, subject to the capture of their vessels and to no other penalty.” ⁷

[286] This discussion closed the correspondence which took place between the two Governments on this branch of the subject. It left Great Britain justifying all that took place, after actual knowledge of much, and possible knowledge of all, had been brought within its reach. It left, too, the Queen’s Proclamation as to this subject virtually revoked, and Her Majesty’s subjects assured that it was no violation of international duty to break the blockade. It is worthy of remark that Lord Westbury, the Lord High Chancellor, gave a judicial decision to the same effect,¹ which was soon after followed by the High Court of Admiralty.² The executive and judicial branches of the British Government were thus a second time brought into *accord in construing away Her Majesty’s Proclamation.

Blockade-running throve, and Nassau and Bermuda prospered under these repeated decisions of Her Majesty’s Government. The: Florida, too, arrived at Bermuda on the 16th of July, 1861, and remained there until the 27th, taking coal and supplies on board; and this at a time when like permission was refused to the vessels of the United States.

Blockade running in partnership with the insurgent Government. It was a favorite idea of the insurgent authorities from the beginning to become interested with Englishmen as partners in blockade-running. One contract to that effect has already been alluded to.

[287] In July, 1864, McRae reported other contracts.³ Captain Bullock, with whom (he said) I [McRae] am directed by the Secretary of the Treasury to consult,” was a party to the transaction. These contracts “made provisions for fourteen steamers, four to leave during the month of August, eight in December, and two in April, 1865.”³ They were to be “built of steel, and to carry one thousand bales of cotton each, on a draught of seven feet water, and with an average speed of thirteen knots per hour.”³ Arrangements were at the same time made for the purchase of supplies for Huse and Ferguson pending the fin-dishing of the vessels. The “Owl” was the first of these vessels to arrive. The insurgent Navy Department claimed the right “to place a naval officer in charge of her in conformity with regulations.”⁴ The treasury doubted this, but Mallory insisted upon his right.⁵ This drew from Bullock an indignant letter, complaining that the navy had taken these vessels. Good ships were building for the navy; why take these vessels, which were not suited for naval purposes.⁶

[288] On the 5th of October, 1864, orders were given for more arms, and McRae was ordered to supply Huse with $50,000 for the purpose.⁷ On the 26th of November, Ferguson reports his doings in the purchase of woolen goods, and gives the reason for “making Liverpool his headquarters.”⁸ As late as the 7th of January, 1865, McBae is ordered to pay to Bullock £105,000. The steamer “Laurel,” the same which took the arms and men to the Shenandoah, was then in Wilmington. She was sent out with a cargo of cotton, with instructions to the officer in command to sell the steamer and the cotton, and to pay Bullock £12,000 out of the proceeds, putting the balance to the credit of the treasury, with Fraser, Trenholm & Co.⁹ No efforts seem to have been spared to sustain the dying fortunes of the insurrection. The insurgents, at the last, fell into the unaccountable error of supposing that the British Government intended to interfere with their blockade-running. They changed the apparent ownership of the Stag into the name of John Fraser & Co., lest it should be seized as “a transport owned by the Confederate States, engaged in the blockade.”¹ It is needless to say that the precaution was not required. Evidence had over and over again been laid before Lord Russell that these blockade-runners were, in fact, transports of the insurgents, carrying their funds for Liverpool, and bringing back their arms and munitions of war, and that the operations of these vessels were brought clearly within the terms of the Foreign Enlistment Act; but he ever turned a deaf ear to the charges.

[289] Continued partiality. [290] On the 15th of March, 1865, Mr. Adams complained of this matter for the last time. The United States steamer San Jacinto having been wrecked on the Bahamas, and her officers and crew having found shelter at Nassau, the “Honduras,” also a man-of-war, was sent there for the purpose of paying in coin the claims for salvage. *The Consul asked permission for the “Honduras” to enter the port, which was refused, although the “Florida” had, less than six months before, remained eleven days at Bermuda, and taken on board a full supply of coal. In bringing this breach of hospitality to the notice of Earl Russell, Mr. Adams said: “I shall not seek to dwell on the painful impression this proceeding has made in the Naval Department of the United States, which at the same time had too much reason to be cognizant of the abuse made of that port by persons practically engaged in hostilities in violation of Her Majesty’s Proclamation. There was no single day during the month in which this incident happened that thirty-five vessels, engaged in breaking the blockade, were not to be seen flaunting their contraband flags in that port. Neither has its hospitality been restricted to that hybrid class of British ships running its illegal ventures-on joint account with the insurgent authorities in the United States. The Chameleon, not inaptly named, but before known as the Tallahassee, and still earlier as a British steamer fitted out from London to play the part of a privateer’ out of Wilmington, was lying at that very time in Nassau, relieved indeed of her guns, but still retaining all the attributes of her hostile occupation. But a few days earlier the steamer Laurel, whose history*is already too well known to your Lordship, by my note of the 7th instant, had reappeared after its assumption of the name of the Confederate States, and had there been not only received, but commissioned with a post mail to a port of Her Majesty’s Kingdom.”² Lord Russell took no notice of Mr. Adams’s charge, that many of these blockade-runners were, in fact, transports in the insurgent service, and that the ports of Nassau and Bermuda were depots of ordnance and quartermasters’ stores. His only reply, made four days after the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, was a repetition of the old story, “there is nothing in the law of nations which forbids the attempt of neutral ship-owners or commanders to evade the blockade.”³ To the last the British Government refused to interfere. The fears which induced the insurgents to try to cover up the ownership of the “Stag” were groundless. The partnership continued until the United States interfered, and closed the business, before the English partners could deliver the last vessels under the contract.

It is necessary to add a few words in regard to the closing operations of Bullock’s department, before bringing this imperfect outline of Great Britain’s violation of its duties as a neutral to a close.

The Rappahannock. [291] [292] [293] *On the 30th of November, 1863, the London Times announced that “the screw gun-vessel ‘Victor,’ recently purchased from the Admiralty, has, as had been expected, passed into the hands of the Confederate Government.”¹ “The ‘Victor,’ an old dispatch-boat belonging to Her Majesty’s Navy, was one of a number of ships ordered by the Admiralty to be sold as worn out and unserviceable. An offer for her was accepted on the 14th of September, 1863, and on the 10th of November the hull was delivered to the order of the purchasers, Messrs. Coleman & Co., the masts, sails, and rigging having been previously removed, as the pivots and other fittings for guns.”² The steamer, instead of being taken away, remained at Sheerness, “refitting, under the direction of persons connected with the royal dock-yards.”³ Many facts came to the knowledge of Mr. Adams, indicating that the vessel was intended for the insurgents. In pursuing his inquiries, however, the suspicions of the parties concerned were probably excited; for the vessel, “by no means prepared for sea, and with no adequate force to man her,” was carried with the workmen actually engaged upon her, across the English Channel and taken into Calais. Mr. Adams called Lord Russell’s attention to these *proceedings,⁴ and furnished him with evidence tending to show the guilt of the purchasers, and also that one Rumble, inspector of machinery afloat of Her Majesty’s dock-yard, Sheerness, had been the principal person concerned in enlisting the crew. Bumble was subsequently tried and acquitted, although the proof against him was clear. As to the vessel, any doubt of her character was at once removed. The insurgent flag was hoisted, and she went into commission under the name of the Rappahannock in crossing the Channel, and she entered the port of Calais claiming to be an insurgent man-of-war. What was done there is described in the statement of the Solicitor General to the jury on the trial of Rumble: “The preparations for equipping, which had been interrupted, were proceeded with; a number of boiler-makers were sent for from England, and many of them were induced to leave their employment in the dock-yard without leave, and when they returned they were discharged as being absent without leave; attempts were made to enlist more men; a large store of coals was taken in; but at this point the French Government stepped in. The French Government, not choosing their ports to be made the scene of hostile operations, interposed, and prevented any further equipment of the vessel,*and by the short and summary process of mooring a man-of-war across her bows, prevented her going out of the port, and she has been kept a prisoner in the harbor ever since.”⁵ Contrast again the course of the French Government with that of the British Government in like cases. What vessel bearing a commission from the Richmond authorities was ever disturbed by a British gunboat, no matter how flagrant might have been her violations of British sovereignty?

The Shenandoah. In the summer or autumn of the year 1864, there was in London a vessel called the Sea King. She was a merchant steamer which had belonged to a Bombay company, and had been employed in the East India trade.⁶ On the 20th of September in that year she was sold in London to Richard Wright, of Liverpool,⁷ the father-in law of Prioleau, of South Carolina, the managing partner in the Liverpool house of Fraser, Trenholm & Co.

[294] [295] On the 7th of October Wright gave a power of attorney to one Corbett, an Englishman, “to sell her at any time within six months for a sum not less than £45,000 sterling. On the next day she cleared for Bombay, and sailed with a large supply of coal and about fifty tons of metal and a *crew of forty-seven men.”¹ Corbett sold her to the insurgents on the high-seas, or rather made the form of transfer comply with the facts of the original transaction which took place in England.² On the day after the Sea King left London, the Laurel, a screw-steamer, “nearly new built, very strong, and admirably adapted for a privateer,”³ left Liverpool, clearing for Matamoras via Nassau. She took on board “a number of cases containing guns and carriages;” and she had “twenty-one seamen, six stewards, besides deck-hands and firemen,”⁴ as first reported by the Consul at Liverpool. Further information after she left led him to write that she had taken “about one hundred men, forty or fifty of whom were on the pirate Alabama, and all Englishmen.”⁵ The two vessels met off Madeira. On the morning of the 18th of October they went together to the barren island of Porto Santo near Madeira, and there, with eighteen hours’ work, transferred to the Sea King the arms and ammunition from the Laurel, “guns, gun-carriages, shot, shell, powder, clothing, goods, &c.”⁶ The insurgent commander of the Sea King and about forty men came out of the Laurel* and took possession of *the vessel, and named her the Shenandoah the insurgent flag was hoisted, the Laurel hoisted the English flag, and took on board some of the men of the Shenandoah, who could not be induced, even by “a bucketful of sovereigns,” to aid in violating the Queen’s Proclamation and the two vessels separated.

The next appearance of the Shenandoah in a British port was at Melbourne in January, 1865. Her character and history were well known, and were at once brought to the notice of the Governor by the Consul of the United States.⁷ The evidence was so clear that the authorities evidently felt they must go through the form of arresting and examining her. This was the shell conceded to the United States. The kernel was reserved for the insurgents. The vessel was discharged and allowed to make extensive repairs; to go upon a dry-dock; to take on board three hundred tons of coal, having at the time four hundred tons on board; and the authorities deliberately shut their eyes while she enlisted about fifty men.⁸

[296] The Shenandoah, with its British crew, continued its career of destruction until long after the insurgents had abandoned the contest in America. It was not until the 19th of June, 1865, that Bul*lock, managing things to the last, issued his instructions to Captain Waddell to desist.⁹ This communication the Foreign Office undertook to forward to him.¹⁰ Captain Waddell arrived with his ship in the Mersey in November, 1865, and surrendered his ship to the British Government, by whom it was handed over to the United States.

Mr. Mountague Bernard’s list of vessels detained by Great Britain. It is due to Great Britain to say that, in addition to the rams, some other vessels were detained by Her Majesty’s Government. Mr. Mountague Bernard, one of Her Majesty’s High Commissioners at Washington, in his able and courteous, but essentially British, “Historical Account of the Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War,”¹ thus recapitulates the action of the British Government in the cases which have not been hitherto noticed in this paper. From his position, it may reasonably be assumed that the list is a complete one:

[297] [298] “November 18, 1862—The Hector. Mr. Adams’s application referred to the Admiralty November 18. This was an inquiry whether the Hector was building for Her Majesty’s Government. On reference to the Admiralty it was answered in the affirmative.—January 16, 1863—The Georgiana. Referred to Treasury and Home * Office January 17. Ship said to be fitting at Liverpool for the Confederates. Mr. Adams could not divulge the authority on which this statement was made. Reports from the customs, sent to Mr. Adams on the 18th, 19th, and 27th of January, tended to show that she was not designed for war. She sailed on the 21st of January for Nassau, and on the 19th of March was wrecked in attempting to enter Charleston Harbor.—March 26, 1863—The Phantom and the Southerner. Referred to the Treasury and the Home Office March 27, to the Law Officers of the Crown June 2. The Phantom was fitting at Liverpool, the Southerner at Stockton-on-Tees. Both proved to be intended for blockade-runners. * * *—March 18, 1864—The Amphion. Referred to Home Office March 18. This vessel was said to be equipped for the Confederate service. The Law Officers reported that no case was made out. She was eventually sent to Copenhagen for sale as a merchant-ship.—April 16, 1864—The Hawk. Referred to the Home Office, to the Lord Advocate, and the Treasury April 18. This case had been already (April 4) reported on by the customs, and the papers sent to the Lord Advocate. On the 13th of April the ship, which was suspected of having been built for the Confederates, left the Clyde without a register, and came to Greenhithe. The Law Officers * decided that there was no evidence to warrant a seizure. She proved to be a blockade-runner. * * * —January 30, 1865—The Virginia and the Louisa Ann Fanny. Referred to Treasury February 1. Vessels said to be in course of equipment at London. No case was established, and they proved to be blockade-runners, as reported by the Governor of the Bahamas, who had been instructed to watch their proceedings.—February 7, 1863—The Hercules and Ajax. Referred to Treasury and Home Office February 8 and 9. Both vessels built in the Clyde. The Ajax first proceeded to Ireland, and was detained at Queenstown by the mutiny of some of the crew, who declared she was for the Confederate service. She was accordingly searched, but proved to be only fitted as a merchant-ship. The Governor of the Bahamas was instructed to watch her at Nassau. On her arrival there she was again overhauled, but nothing suspicious discovered, and the Governor reported that she was adapted, and he believed intended, for a tug-boat. The Hercules being still in the Clyde, inquiries were made by the customs officers there, who reported that she was undoubtedly a tug-boat, and the sister ship to the Ajax.”

[299] This is the whole catalogue of good works, additional to those already alluded to, which the accomplished advocate of Great Britain is able to put in *as an offset to the simple story of injuries which has been told in this paper. Comment upon it is unnecessary.

The United States have now completed what they have to say in this connection of the conduct of Great Britain during the insurrection. Some of the narrative may, in its perusal, appear minute, and to refer to transactions which will be claimed on the part of Great Britain to have been conducted in conformity with some construction of alleged International Law. These transactions are, however, historically narrated; and even those which come nearest to a justification, as within some precedent, or some claim of neutral right, exhibit a disinclination to investigate, not to say a foregone conclusion of adverse decision. British municipal statute rather than recognized International Law was the standard of neutral duty and the rigid rules of evidence of the English Common Law were applied to the complaints made in behalf of the United States, in striking contrast to the friendliness of construction, the alacrity of decision, and the ease of proof in the interests of the insurgents.

Before proceeding to relate in detail the acts of the several cruisers, which will constitute specific claims against Great Britain, the United States ask the Tribunal to pause to see what has been already established.

[300] The charges in Mr. Fish’s instruction of September 25, 1869, sustained by this evidence. In a dispatch from Mr. Fish to Mr. Motley, on the 25th of September, 1869, in which the Government of the United States, for the last time, recited diplomatically its grievances against Great Britain, certain statements were made which were esteemed to be of sufficient importance to be transferred to Mr. Mountague Bernard’s book. Mr. Bernard was pleased to say of these statements, that a “rhetorical color, to use an inoffensive phrase, [was] thrown over the foregoing train of assertions, which purport to be statements of fact.” The United States now repeat those statements which Her Majesty’s High Commissioner did them the honor to incorporate, into his able work, and to comment upon, and they confidently insist that every statement therein contained has been more than made good by the evidence referred to in this paper. Those statements were as follows,¹ the references to the proof being inserted for the convenience of the Tribunal:

[301] “As time went on; as the insurrection from political came at length to be military as the sectional controversy in the United States proceeded to exhibit itself in the organization of great armies and fleets, and in the prosecution of hostilities on a scale of gigantic magnitude, then it was that the spirit of the Queen’s Proclamation showed itself in *the event, seeing that in virtue of the Proclamation maritime enterprises in the ports of Great Britain, which would otherwise have been piratical, were rendered lawful, [see Lord Campbell’s speech in the House of Lords, May 16, 1861 cited ante, page 14,] and thus Great Britain became, and to the end continued to be, the arsenal, [see Huse and Ferguson’s letters and Gorgas’s report of Husds purchases,] the navy-yard, [see the foregoing account of Bullock’s doings,] and the Treasury, [see the foregoing evidence as to Fraser, Trenholm & Co.’s acts as depositaries,] of the insurgent Confederates.

[302] “A spectacle was thus presented without precedent or parallel in the history of civilized nations. Great Britain, although the professed friend of the United States, yet, in time of avowed international peace, permitted [see the decision in the Alexandra case; also the refusals to proceed against the Florida, Alabama and the rams] armed cruisers to be fitted out and harbored and equipped in her ports to cruise against the merchant-ships of the United States, and to burn and destroy them until our maritime commerce was swept from the ocean. [See Mr. Cobden’s speech in the House of Commons, May 13, 1864.] Oar merchant-vessels were destroyed piratically by captors who had no ports of their own [see Earl Russell’s speech in the House of Lords, April 26, 1864] in which to refit * or to condemn prizes, and whose only nationality was the quarter-deck of their ships, built, dispatched to sea, and, not seldom in name, still professedly owned in Great Britain. [See the evidence in regard to the transfers of the Georgia, and of the Shenandoah.]

* * * * * * *

[303] “The Queen’s Ministers excused themselves by alleged defects in the municipal law of the country. [See Earl Russell’s constant pleas of want of sufficient proof to convict criminals] Learned counsel either advised that the wrongs committed did not constitute violations of the municipal law, or else gave sanction to artful devices of deceit to cover up such violations of law. [See the decision as to the Florida; as to the Alabama until she was ready to sail; as to the rams; and as to the operations at Nassau, Bermuda, and Liverpool.] And, strange to say, the courts of England or of Scotland, up to the very highest, were occupied month after month with juridical niceties and technicalities of statute construction in this respect, [see the Alexandra case,] while the Queen’s Government itself, including the omnipotent Parliament, which might have settled these questions in an hour by appropriate legislation, sat with folded arms, as if unmindful of its international obligations, and suffered ship after ship to be constructed *in its ports to wage war on the United States. [See the decision of the Cabinet, communicated to Mr. Adams, February 13, 1863, and Lord Palmerston’s speech in the House of Commons, March 27, 1863.]

* * * * * * *

“When the defects of the existing laws of Parliament had become apparent, the Government of the United States earnestly entreated the Queen’s Ministers to provide the required remedy, as it would have been easy to do, by a proper act of Parliament; but this the Queen’s Government refused. [See the account of Lord Russell’s interview with Mr. Adams, February 13, 1863.]

* * * * * * *

[304] “On the present occasion, the Queen’s Ministers seem to have committed the error of assuming that they needed not to look beyond their own local law, enacted for their own domestic convenience, and might, under cover of the deficiencies of that law, disregard their sovereign duties toward another Sovereign Bower. Nor was it, in our judgment, any adequate excuse for the Queen’s Ministers to profess extreme tenderness of private rights, or apprehension of actions for damages, in case of any attempt to arrest the many ships which, either in England or Scotland, were, with ostentatious publicity, being constructed to cruise against the United States. [See the evidence as to the Florida, the Georgia, the Alabama, the rams, the Bermuda, the Tallahassee, the Pampero, the Rappahannock, the Laurel, and other vessels.]

* * * * * * *

“But although such acts of violation of law were frequent in Great Britain, and susceptible of complete technical proof, notorious, flaunted directly in the face of the world, varnished over, if at all, with the shallowest pretexts of deception, yet no efficient step appears to have been taken by the British Government to enforce the execution of its municipal laws or to vindicate the majesty of its outraged sovereign power.

[The Alabama, the Florida, the Georgia, and the Shenandoah escaped. The rams were seized, but never condemned; no guilty party was ever punished; Bulloch and Prioleau were never interfered with.]

[305] “And the Government of the United States cannot believe—it would conceive itself wanting in respect for Great Britain to impute—that the Queen’s Ministers are so much hampered by juridical difficulties that the local administration is thus reduced to such a state of legal impotency as to deprive the Government of capacity to uphold its sovereignty against local wrong-doers, or its neutrality as regards other Sovereign Powers. [Contrast with this the course of the British Gov*ernment and Parliament during the Franco-German war.]

“If, indeed, it were so, the causes of reclamation on the part of the United States would only be the more positive and sure, for the law of nations assumes that each Government is capable of discharging its international obligations; and, perchance, if it be not, then the absence of such capability is itself a specific ground of responsibility for consequences. [This statement probably will not be denied.]

“But the Queen’s Government would not be content to admit, nor will the Government of the United States presume to impute to it, such political organization of the British Empire as to imply any want of legal ability on its part to discharge, in the amplest manner, all its duties of sovereignty and amity toward other Powers.

“It remains only in this relation to refer to one other point, namely, the question of negligence; neglect on the part of officers of the British Government, whether superior or subordinate, to detain Confederate cruisers, and especially the Alabama, the most successful of the depredators on the commerce of the United States.

“On this point the President conceives that little needs now to be said, for various cogent reasons:

[306] *“First, the matter has been exhaustively discussed already by this Department, or by the successive American Ministers.

“Then, if the question of negligence be discussed with frankness, it must be treated in this instance as a case of extreme negligence, which Sir William Jones has taught us to regard as equivalent or approximate to evil intention. The question of negligence, therefore, cannot be presented without danger of thought or language disrespectful toward the Queen’s Ministers; and the President, while purposing, of course, as his sense of duty requires, to sustain the rights of the United States in all their utmost amplitude, yet intends to speak and act in relation to Great Britain in the same spirit of international respect which he expects of her in relation to the United States, and he is sincerely desirous that all discussions between the Governments may be so conducted as not only to prevent any aggravation of existing differences, but to tend to such reasonable and amicable determination as best becomes two great nations of common origin and conscious dignity and strength.

[307] “I assume, therefore, pretermitting detailed discussion in this respect, that the negligence of the officers of the British Government in the matter of the Alabama, at least, was gross and inexcusable, and such as indisputably to devolve on that Government full responsibility for all the depredations committed by her. Indeed, this conclusion seems in effect to be conceded in Great Britain. [See the preface to Earl Russell’s Speeches and Dispatches.] At all events, the United States conceive that the proofs of responsible negligence in this matter are so clear that no room remains for debate on that point, and it should be taken for granted in all future negotiations with Great Britain.”

1. 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.
1. Walker to Green, 1st July, 1861, Vol. VI, page 30.
1. Walker to Green, 1st July, 1861, Vol. VI, page 30.
2. “It was estimated that only about 750,000 bales at most of the crop of 1860 regained on hand in the South when the blockade began. The crop of 1861 was about 2,750,000 bales—a little more than half the total quantity consumed in 1860—and this supply, or so much of it as could be properly picked, cleaned, and baled, would, together with what remained from the previous year, have been available for exportation in the winter and spring of 1861–’62. The quantity actually sent abroad, however, up to July or August, 1862, was reckoned not to exceed 50,000 bales, the great bulk of which, but not the whole, went to England.”—Bernard’s Neutrality of Great Britain, page 286.
1. “Of twenty steamers, which were said to have been kept plying in 1863 between Nassau and two of the blockaded ports, seven belonged to a mercantile firm at Charleston, who had a branch house at Liverpool, and through whom the Confederate Government transacted its business in England.” “The name of the Charleston firm was John Fraser & Co.; that of the Liverpool house, Fraser, Trenholm & Co. Of the five members of the house, four, I believe, were South Carolinians, and one a British subject.”—Bernard’s Neutrality of Great Britain, page 289 and note. The British subject referred to by Mr. Bernard was Prioleau, naturalized for the purpose.
2. Huse to Gorgas, Vol. VI, page 33.
3. Lawton to Cooper, 20th September, 1861, Vol. VI, page 36.
4. Adams to Russell, Vol. I, page 760.
5. Russell to Adams, Vol. I, page 762.
6. Benjamin to John Fraser & Co., 27th September, 1861, Vol. VI, page 37.
1. Huse to Gorgas, 15th March, 1862, Vol. VI, page 69.
2. Walker to Huse and Anderson, Vol. VI, page 31.
3. “The British Island of New Providence, in the Bahamas, became the favorite resort of ships employed in these enterprises. Situated in close neighborhood to the coast of Florida, and within three days’ sail of Charleston, it offered singular facilities to the blockade-runners. The harbor of Nassau, usually quiet and almost empty, was soon thronged with shipping of all kinds; and its wharves and warehouses became an entrepot for cargoes brought thither from different quarters. Agents of the Confederate Government resided there, and were busily employed in assisting and developing the traffic.—Bernard’s Neutrality of Great Britain, page 39.
4. Benjamin to Mallory, Vol. VI, page 39.
1. Benjamin to Helm, Vol. VI, page 43.
2. Helm to Heyliger, 20th December, 1861, Vol. VI, page 51.
3. See the agreement, Vol. VI, page 42.
4. Adams to Seward, Vol. I, page 769.
5. Whiting to Seward, 10th December, 1861, Vol. VI, page 44.
6. Heyliger to Benjamin, 27th December, 1861, Vol. VI, page 55.
7. Benjamin to Maffitt, 27th January, 1862, Vol. VI, page 57.
1. Heyliger to Benjamin, 30th January, 1862, Vol. VI, page 48.
2. Vol. VI, page 175.
3. Whiting to Seward, Vol. VI, page 44; Vol. I, page 696.
1. Thompson to Whiting, Vol. VI, page 45.
2. Vol. I, page 44.
3. Lord Granville to Count Bemstorff, 15th September, 1870.
4. Russell to Adams, Vol. VI, page 57.
1. Vol. IV, page 175.
2. Earl Russell to Lord Lyons, Vol. II, page 591.
1. Benjamin to Heyliger, 22d March, 1862, Vol. VI, page 71.
2. Benjamin to Huse, 10th March, 1862, Vol. VI, page 68.
3. Huse to Gorgas, 15th March, 1862, Vol. VI, page 69.
4. Randolph to Heyliger, 11th April, 1862, Vol. VI, page 72.
5. Maffitt to Randolph, 21st May, 1862, Vol. VI, page 83.
6. Heyliger to Randolph, 28th June, 1862. Vol. VI, page 87.
7. Hawley to Seward, 27th June, 1863, Vol. VI, page 127.
8. Heyliger to Randolph, Vol. VI, page 92.
9. Gorgas to Seddon, Vol. VI, page 104.
1. Huse to Gorgas, 4th August, 1862, Vol. VI, page 93.
2. Gorgas to Randolph, 1st November, 1862, Vol. VI, page 103.
3. Gorgas to Huse, 1st January, 1863, Vol. VI, page 107.
4. Gorgas to Huse, 9th February, 1863, Vol. VI, page 111.
1. Vol. VI, page 185.
2. Dudley to Edwards, Vol. III, page 17.
3. Dudley to Seward, Vol. VI, page 186.
4. Dudley to Seward, Vol. II, page 593.
5. Report of Board of Customs, Vol. II, page 605.
6. Captain Hickley’s affidavit, Vol. VI, page 263.
7. Heyliger to Randolph, 2d May, 1862, Vol. VI, page 76.
8. Dudley to Edwards, Vol. III, page 17.
9. Vol. II, pages 595 and 604.
10. Dudley to Seward, Vol. III, page 1.
1. Dudley to Edwards, Vol. III, page 18.
2. Dudley to Adams, Vol. III, page 6.
3. Report of Board of Customs, Vol. III, page 7.
4. Earl Russell to Mr. Adams, 29th September, 1864, Vol. III, page 299.
5. Sprague to Adams, 9th December, 1862, Vol. II, page 507.
6. Sprague to Freeling, Vol. II, page 511.
7. Sprague to Adams, Vol. II, page 515.
1. Mallory to Memminger, 26th May, 1862, Vol. VI, page 84.
2. Memminger to Mallory, 27th May, 1862, Vol. VI, 85.
3. Mallory to Memminger, 27th May, 1862, Vol. VI, page 85.
4. Vol. VI, page 96. See also, on the same point, Mallory to Mason, 30th October, 1862, Vol. I, page 573.
5. Bernard to Seward, Vol. II, page 485.
6. Journal of Confederate-Steamer Florida, Vol. VI, page 335.
1. Seward to Adams, Vol. I, page 546.
2. Adams to Russell, Vol. I, page 562.
3. Vol. I, page 578.
4. Adams to Russell, Vol. I, page 30.
5. Russell to Adams, Vol. I, page 533.
6. Russell to Adams, Vol. I, page 667.
1. Adams to Seward, Vol. I, page 668.
2. Vol. I, page 585. See also Mr. Hammond’s letter to Messrs. Lamport and Holt and others, Vol. I, page 602; also Lord Palmerston’s speech already cited, Vol. IV, page.
1. Vol. I, page 668.
2. Mallory to Mason, Vol. I, page 573.
3. Memminger to Spence, Vol. I, page 574.
4. Memminger to Fraser, Trenholm & Co., Vol. I, page 574; and same to same, Vol. I, page 575.
5. Memorandum No. 11, in Vol. I, page 572.
6. Benjamin to Mason, Vol. I, page 564. Memminger to Mason, Vol. I, page 565. Memminger to Spence, Vol. I, page 574. Memminger to Fraser, Trenholm & Co., Vol I, page 574.
7. It is supposed to be a principle of English law that a person accused of crime has the right to have the witnesses against him subjected to a personal cross-examination. The absurdity of Earl Russell’s position is shown by the fact that every witness whose correspondence was inclosed in Mr. Adams’s note of February 9, 1863, was then in Richmond, behind the bayonets of General Lee’s army.
1. Mr. Adams to Earl Russell, Vol. II, page 666.
2. Underwood to Seward, 16th July, 1863, Vol. VI, page 503.
3. Dudley to Mr. Seward, Vol. II, page 665.
4. Vol. II, page 666.
5. Mahon’s affidavit, Vol. II, page 673.
6. Mr. Adams to Earl Russell, 7th July, 1863, Vol. II, page 677.
7. Dudley to Seward, 11th March, 1863, Vol. II, page 258.
8. See Vol. V, pages 1 to 470.
9. “The evidence as to the building and fittings of the ship proved that she was strongly built, principally of teak-wood, her beams and hatches, in strength and distance apart, was greater than those in merchant vessels; the length and breadth of her hatches were less than the length and breadth of hatches in merchant vessels; her bulwarks were strong and low, and her upper works were of pitch-pine. At the time of her seizure workmen were employed in fitting her with stanchions for hammock nettings; iron stanchions were fitted in the hold; her three masts were up, and had lightning conductors on each of them; she was provided with a cooking apparatus for 150 or 200 people; she had complete accommodation for men and officers; she had only stowage room sufficient for her crew, supposing them to be 32 men; and she was apparently built for a gun-boat, with low bulwarks, over which pivot-guns could play. The commander of Her Majesty’s ship Majestic, stationed at Liverpool, said that she was not intended for mercantile purposes.” (Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War, by Mountague Bernard, M. A., page 353, note 1.)
10. Vol. V, page 128.
1. Vol. V, page 129.
2. Dudley to Seward, Vol. II, page 201.
3. Dudley to Seward, Vol. II, page 315.
4. Dudley to Seward, Vol. II, page 316.
5. Younge’s deposition, Vol. II, page 330.
5. Younge’s deposition, Vol. II, page 330.
1. Younge’s deposition, Vol. II, page 331.
2. Chapman’s affidavit, Vol. II, page 333.
2. Chapman’s affidavit, Vol. II, page 333.
3. Adams to Russell, Vol. II, page 325.
4. Adams to Russell, Vol. II, page 338.
5. Adams to Russell, Vol. II, page 341.
6. Vol. II, page 346–’7.
7. Adams to Russell, Vol. II, page 358.
8. Adams to Russell, September 4, 1863, Vol. II, p. 358.
9. Russell to Adams, Vol. II, page 360.
1. Adams to Russell, Vol. II, page 365.
2. Eussell to Adams, Vol. II, page 366.
3. Layard to Stuart, Vol. II, page 363.
1. Mr. Moreau, counsel for the United States, in a suit pending before the cour d’appel de Paris, growing out of these transactions, so states: “Ill nous reste maintenant à indiquer à la cour ce que fit M. Arman, et des navires qu’il construisait et des capitaux qu’il avait reçus de M. Bullock, capitaux dont le montant, suivant le dire de M. Arman lui-même, ne s’élève pas à moins de 5,280,000 francs.”
2. Bullock to Ellmore, July 3, 1853, Vol. VI, page 129.
1. Mallory to Elmore, June 25, 1863, Vol. VI, page 126.
2. Maffitt to Bullock, September 3, 1863, Vol. II, page 639.
3. Mallory to Memminger, September 12, 1863, Vol. VI, page 132.
4. Walker to the Secretary of the Admiralty, Vol. IV, page 216; Vol. VI, page 456.
5. Mountague Bernard’s Neutrality of Great Britain, &c, page 421, note 1.
6. vol. IV, page 217; Vol. VI, page 458.
7. Walker to Wodehouse, Vol. IV, page 218; Vol. VI, page 459.
1. Wodehouse to Walker, Vol. IV, page 219; Vol. VI page 459.
2. Walker to Wodehouse, Vol. IV, page 219; Vol. VI, page 460.
3. Wodehouse to Duke of Newcastle, Vol. VI, page 220; Vol. IV, page 460.
4. Bernard’s Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War, page 425, See also Vol. III, page 207, and Vol. VI, page 463.
5. Wodehouse to Newcastle, Vol. IV, page 229; Vol. VI, page 465.
6. Vol. IV, page 230.
7. Duke of Newcastle to Sir P. Woodhouse, Vol. IV, page 241; Vol. VI, page 468.
8. Same to same, March 10, Vol. IV, page 242; Vol. VI, page 469.
1. Memminger to Fraser, Trenholm & Co., 28th March, 1863, Vol. VI, page 128.
2. Memminger to Mallory, Gth May, 1863, Vol. VI, page 119.
3. Seddon to Seixas, 7th April, 1863, Vol. VI, page 113.
4. Walker to Huse, 18th April, 1862, Vol. VI, page 115.
5. Gorgas to Huse, 1st January, 1863, Vol. VII, page 48.
6. Same to same, 26th February, 1863, Vol. VII, page 48.
7. Same to same, 8th March, Vol. VII, page 48.
8. Same to same, 9th March, Vol. VII, page 49.
9. Gorgas to Huse, Vol. VII, page 51.
10. Same to same, 6th May, Vol. VII, page 51.
11. Gorgas to Walker, Vol. VII, page 54.
12. Same to same, Vol. VII, page 54.
1. Walker to Huse, 21 March, Vol. VII, page 50.
2. Same to same, Vol. VII, page 50.
3. Same to same, 16th May, 1803, Vol. VII, page 52.
4. Same to same, Vol. VII, page 53.
5. Same to same, Vol. VII, page 55.
6. Same to same, Vol. VII, page 56.
7. Walker to Huse, Vol. VII, page 57.
8. Memorandum made in London, 23d July. 1863, Vol. VI, page 136.
9. Stringer to Mason, 16th September, 1863, Vol. VI, page 134.
10. Mason to Stringer, 19th September, 1863, Vol. VI, page 138.
1. Vol. VI, page 140.
2. Vol. VI, page 144.
3. Vol. VI, page 143.
4. Bay ne to Seixas, September 29, 1863, Vol. VI, page 139.
5. Bayle to Lawton, November 13, 1863, Vol. VI, page 147.
6. Fraser, Trenholm & Co. to Lawton, November 26, 1863, Vol. VI, page 149.
7. Furguson to Lawton, December 23, 1863, Vol. VI, page 149.
8. Vol. I, page 735.
9. Vol. I, page 738.
1. Vol. I, page 739.
2. Vol. I, page 740.
3. Vol. I, page 746.
4. Adams to Russell, Vol. I, page 745.
5. Russell to Adams, Vol. I, pages 749–’51.
6. Adams to Russell, Vol. I, page 756.
7. Russell to Adams, Vol. I, page 757.
1. 11 Jurist N. S., 400.
2. Law Reports Admiralty and Ecclesiastical Courts, Browning, Vol. I, page 1.
3. McRae to Seddon, July 4, 1864, Vol. VI, page 163.
3. McRae to Seddon, July 4, 1864, Vol. VI, page 163.
3. McRae to Seddon, July 4, 1864, Vol. VI, page 163.
4. Mallory to Trenholm, September 21, 1864, Vol. VI, page 171.
5. Same to same, September 22, 1864, Vol. VI, page 172.
6. Bullock to McRae, November 1, 1864, Vol. VI, page 173.
7. Gorgas to Seddon, October 5, 1864, Vol. VI, page 172.
8. Ferguson to Lawton, November 26, 1864, Vol. VI, page 175.
9. Trenholm to Fraser, Trenholm & Co., December 24, 1864, Vol. VI, page 177.
1. Trenholm to Mallory, December 17, 1864, Vol. VI, page 176.
2. Adams to Russell, Vol. I, page 709.
3. Russell to Adams, Vol. I, page 714.
1. Vol. II, page 725.
2. Bernard’s Neutrality of Great Britain, page 357.
3. Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward, Vol. II, page 726.
4. Vol. II, pages 727, 735, 738, 747, 751, 754, 771, 776, 787.
5. Vol. IV, page 583.
6. Bernard’s British Neutrality, page 359.
7. Vol. III, page 319.
1. Dudley to Seward, Vol. III, page 319.
2. Wilson’s affidavit, Vol. III, page 326.
3. Dudley to Seward, Vol. III, page 316.
4. Dudley to Adams, Vol. III, page 317.
5. Dudley to Seward, Vol. III, page 318.
6. Wilson’s affidavit, Vol. III, page 325.
7. Vol. III, pages 393, 394, 396, 398.
8. Vol. III, pages 384–444.
9. Bullock to Waddell, Vol. III, page 457.
10. Hammond to Mark, Vol. III, page 459.
1. Bernard’s Neutrality, page 352.
1. Bernard’s Neutrality of Great Britain, 378–380.