66

Customs authorities, directing every precaution in their power to be taken against the possibility of the commander of that vessel in any degree extending its armament or rendering the present armament more effective." These orders were transmitted by the Head of the Customs Department to the Harbor Master, (February 6, 1865,) with a direction that "the proceedings on board the Shenandoah must be carefully observed, and any apparent abuse of the permission granted to that vessel with respect to repairs at once reported." These orders were strictly acted upon.

On the 7th February leave to land "surplus stores" from the Shenandoah was refused, under the advice of the Attorney-General; and, on the same day, Captain Waddell was informed that "the use of appliances, the property of the Government, could not be granted nor any assistance rendered by it, directly or indirectly, toward effecting the repairs of the Shenandoah."

So matters stood, the most scrupulous and anxious care being taken to prevent any breach of neutrality, till the 10th of February, when Cousul Blanchard forwarded to the Governor an affidavit of one John Williams, a colored man, who had joined the crew of the Shenandoah from the captured ship D. Godfrey, in which he stated that on Monday, the 6th February, when he left the ship, "there were fifteen or twenty men concealed in different parts of the ship, who came on board since the Shenandoah arrived in Hobson's Bay, and who told him they came on board to join the ship; that he had cooked for these men; and that three others, who had also joined the Shenandoah in the port, were at the same time working on board in the uniform of the crew of the Shenandoah." On the 13th another affidavit of one Madden, who had also belonged to the crew of the D. Godfrey, was added, in which Madden said that, "when he left the vessel on the 7th February, there were men hid in the forecastle of the ship, and two working in the galley, all of whom came on board the vessel since she arrived in the port; and that the officers pretended they did not know that these men were so hid."3 The letter of the 10th February was the first intimation which the Governor ever received of any attempt at a recruitment of men. On the next day, the 11th February, Detective Kennedy was directed to make inquiries on that subject; and he, on the 13th February, reported "that twenty men have been discharged from the Shenandoah since her arrival at this port. That Captain Waddell intends to ship forty hands here, who are to be taken on board during the night and to sign articles when they are outside the Heads;" adding, "it is said that the captain wishes, if possible, to ship foreign seamen only, and all Englishmen shipped here are to assume a foreign name.” He also mentioned certain

persons said to be engaged in getting the requisite number of men; and he named one man, who stated, "about a fortnight ago," that Captain Waddell had offered him £17 to ship as carpenter, and another, as "either already enlisted or about to be so." But, as to the persons so named, no evidence was then, or at any time afterward before the departure of the ship, produced by any person in support of the information which had been so given to the detective officer.

To this Report Mr. Nicolson, the Superintendent of Detectives, made the following important addition on the same 13th February :

Mr. Scott, resident clerk, has been informed-in fact, he overheard a person represented as an assistant purser state-that about sixty men, engaged here, were to be

1 British App., vol. i, p. 519. The same as to supplies. British App., vol. i. p. 517. British App., vol. v, pp. 76, 77.

3 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 606, 608.

shipped on board an old vessel, believed to be the Eli Whitney, together with a quantity of ammunition, &c., about two or three days before the Shenandoah sails. The former vessel is to be cleared out for Portland or Warnambool, but is to wait outside the Heads for the Shenandoah, to whom her cargo and passengers are to be transported.1

This statement of Mr. Nicolson, while suggesting that the number of intended recruits might be even larger than that of which Detective Kennedy had received information, pointed to certain definite means, viz, transshipment from another vessel, (the Eli Whitney being named,) as those by which the recruitment was intended to be made.

The Governor in Council on the same day took these Reports, and also Consul Blanchard's letter of the 10th February, and Williams's affidavit, into consideration. The Law-Officers of the Colonial Government had already directed informations to issue, and warrants to be obtained, against such persons as Williams could identify as being on board the Shenandoah for the purpose of enlistment; and it was resolved that the movements of the Eli Whitney (then lying in the bay) should be carefully watched by the Customs Department. This watch was successful in preventing the accomplishment of the suspected design by means of that vessel, if it had, in fact, been entertained.2

A circumstance which occurred on the following day, the 14th of February, was calculated to confirm the impression that, if any such purpose really existed, its accomplishment was likely to be attempted by means of some auxiliary vessel lying outside the line of British jurisdiction. Captain Waddell on that day inquired by letter of the Attor ney-General in what precise way the line of British jurisdiction at Port Philip was considered to be measured by the authorities. An answer to this inquiry, without explanation of the purpose with which it has been made, was most properly refused.3

A warrant having been issued for the apprehension of one of the men, said to be on board the Shenandoah and passing by the name of Charley, Mr. Lyttelton, Superintendent of Police, went on the 13th February on board the ship to execute it, but was met by the objection of the privi leged character of the vessel as a public ship of war. Captain Waddell was then absent; but on the next day, the 14th, when Mr. Lyttelton returned, he repeated this objection, adding:

I pledge you my word of honor, as an officer and a gentleman, that I have not any one on board, nor have I engaged any one, nor will I while I am here.” 4

The Governor then considered it right, since Captain Waddell refused to permit the execution of the warrant on board the ship, to suspend the permission which had been given for her repairs, and to take care that a sufficient force was in readiness to enforce that order of suspension. This was done, by a public notice, on the same day, (14th Febru ary, 1865.) Captain Waddell thereupon remonstrated by letter of that date.6

5

The execution [he said] of the warrant was not refused, as no such person as the one specified was on board; but permission to search the ship was refused. Our Shipping Articles have been shown to the Superintendent of Police. All strangers have been sent out of the ship, and two commissioned officers were ordered to search if any such have been left on board. They have reported to me that, after making a thorough search, they can find no person on board except those who entered this port as part of the complement of men. I, therefore, as Commander of the ship, representing my Government in British waters, have to inform his Excellency that there are no persons on board this ship except those whose names are on my Shipping Articles, and that no one has been enlisted in the service of the Confederate States since my arrival in this port; nor have I, in any way, violated the neutrality of the port.

1 British App., vol. v, p. 523. * Ibid., p. 521.

3 British Appendix, vol. v, pp. 78, 79.
Ibid., vol. i, p. 524.

4

5 Ibid., p. 525.

Ibid., p. 644.

On the next day, however, (the 15th,) certain men who had been on board, as described in Williams's and Madden's affidavits, left the Shenandoah, four of whom, being observed, were captured on landing; and among these was Charley, for whose apprehension the warrant had been issued. An officer of the Shenandoah was seen at the gangway of the ship, apparently directing the boatmen who took those four men on shore; and the men themselves stated to the Superintendent of Police "that they had been on board a few days unknown to the Captain: and that, as soon as he found they were on board, he ordered them on shore.”1 Captain Waddell, when informed by the head of the Customs Department (15th February, 1865) of the arrest of these men, and reminded by him that they were thus proved to have been on board on the two previous days, when their presence was denied by the officer in charge, and by himself, "necessarily without having ascertained by a search that such men were not on board," answered thus:

The four men alluded to in your communication are no part of this vessel's complement of men; they were detected by the ship's police, after all strangers were reported out of the vessel, and they were ordered and seen out of the vessel by the ship's police immediately on their discovery, which was after my letter had been dispatched informing his Excellency the Governor that there were no such persons on board. These men were here without my knowledge, and I have no doubt can properly be called stowaways; and such they would have remained, but for the vigilance of the ship's police, inasmuch as they were detected after the third search; but in no way can I be accused, in truth, of being cognizant of an evasion of the Foreign-Enlistment Act.

In the depositions of Williams and Madden, taken before the magistrate on the 16th February, it was stated that certain of the subordinate officers of the ship (not Captain Waddell) were cognizant of the presence of Charley in the forecastle of the ship; but these statements were not confirmed by the other witnesses; and no similar evidence was given as to the rest of the prisoners. The particular officers of the Shenandoah, as to whom these statements were made by Williams and Madden, published on the same day in the Argus, a Melbourne newspaper, declarations, signed with their names, most positively denying all the statements affecting them; and one of them, Acting-Master Bullock, said that he had been often asked by persons on board if they could be shipped; and had invariably answered: "We can ship no man in this port, not even a Southern citizen." +

This was the position of matters when the 17th of February arrived: the reports of the detective officers had preceded, not followed, the investigations with respect to the men alleged to be actually on board for the purpose of enlistment, and the solemn and repeated declarations and promise of Captain Waddell, on the word of a gentleman and an officer, confirmed by the declarations of the other officers of the ship. The Eli Whitney had been strictly watched. No further definite information had reached the Government, who believed that all the men who had been secreted on board the Shenandoah had actually left the vessel. Mr. McCulloch, the Chief Secretary of the Government, and Mr. Harvey, the Minister of Public Works, expressly so stated in the Debates of the Legislative Council of the 15th and 16th February, the British App., vol. v, pp. 527, 542, 545, 572. 2 Ibid., pp. 645, 646. 3 Ibid., pp. 537, 545. British Appendix, vol. i, pp. 547-548. It appears from the depositions that there were at this time (and, indeed, until the vessel left the port) many men working on board; and it may be collected also from the depositions that the four prisoners came or remained on board of their own accord, being desirous of going to sea in her; although the fact that they were there may subsequently have come to the knowledge of some of the officers.

5 See, also, Lord Canterbury's dispatch of November 6, 1871; British Appendix, vol. v, p. 61.

1

latter minister saying, (15th February :) "It was now known that several men who shipped in Hobson's Bay had escaped, in addition to the four who were captured." And although, on the 17th February, Consul Blanchard again requested attention to the statement contained in the affidavits originally sent, (and in certain other affidavits of persons who were also produced as witnesses against the four prisoners,) that there had been, at the dates when those witnesses left the vessel, ten or more persons on board under similar circumstances, (the witnesses speaking with wide variations as to the number;)2 this was not inconsistent with the belief of the Government that all such persons had afterward left the ship, especially as, in the depositions of the same witnesses before the magistrate, (except that of Williams in one case, on cross-examination,) no mention whatever was made of any such other persons; which was also the case on the subsequent trial, in March following. It is further to be remembered that on the 17th February the prosecutions against these four men (who were not tried till the 17th March) were actually pending.

As matters then stood, however unsatisfactory some of the circumstances might have been, it would be very difficult for any candid mind to draw a sound distinction between the position of Captain Waddell with respect to the men alleged by him to be "stowaways," and that of Captain Winslow, of the United States ship Kearsarge, with respect to the sixteen or seventeen men taken in that ship from Queenstown to the coast of France. If Captain Winslow, as a man of honor, was properly exonerated, upon his own solemn assurance, from responsibility for that act, in which some of his subordinates must have, to some extent, participated, and as to which his own conduct on the French coast, before he sent the men back, was certainly not free from indiscretion, can it be imputed as a want of due diligence to the Government of Melbourne (whose good faith and vigilance had otherwise been so manifestly proved) that, although not entirely satisfied with Captain Waddell's demeanor or conduct, they accepted the solemn assurances of not one, but several officers, of the same race and blood, and with the same claims to the character of gentlemen as the officers of the United States! In the memorandum sent home by Lord Canterbury on the 6th of November, 1871, signed by the gentlemen who were the Chief Secretary, Commissioner of Customs, Minister of Justice, and Attorney-General of the Colony when the Shenandoah was at Melbourne, it is thus stated:

While the Shenandoah was in port there were many vague rumors in circulation that it was the intention of a number of men to sail in her; but although the police anthorities made every exertion to ascertain the truth of these rumors, yet (with the exception of the four men alluded to) nothing sufficiently definite to justify criminal proceedings could be ascertained; indeed, at the best, these rumors justified nothing more than suspicion, and called only for that watchfulness which the Government exercised to the fullest extent in its power. It was not until after the Shenandoah had left the waters of Vietoria that the Government received information confirming in a manner the truth of these rumors.5

In the report from the oflice of the Chief Commissioner of Police, dated October 26, 1871, it is also stated that "on the 16th February repre sentations were again made to the Government that the Foreign Enlistment Act was being violated; and the police were instructed to use their utmost efforts to prevent this; but, as no visitors were allowed on

British Appendix, vol. i, pp. 633, 636.

3 Ibid., pp. 537, 545, 558, 571.

* Ibid., pp. 605, 611, 615.

4 See United States Appendix, vol. ii, pp. 419-454; particularly pp. 429, 430, 434, and 448.

6 British App., vol. v, p. 62.

board the Shenandoah, under any pretense, for three days before she sailed, and in the absence of any of Her Majesty's ships in our waters at the time, the efforts of the water-police were necessarily of little avail."1

Late in the afternoon (about 6 p. m.) of the 17th February, the United States Consul received information from one Forbes, which was afterward, on the same evening, reduced into the shape of an affidavit, and intrusted to a Mr. Lord, with a view to being placed in the hands of the water-police, too late, however, (in Mr. Lord's judgment,) to be so acted upon. From the haste with which the Consul was obliged to act in this matter, and the inability of the Crown Solicitor to take the affidavit, some misunderstanding arose, which, however, ceases to be in any way material, when the substance of the information is regarded. What was that information? That five persons, named by Forbes, standing on the railway pier at Sandridge, at 4 o'clock p. m., on the 17th of February, admitted to him (by the statement of one of them, made in the presence of the rest) that they were "going on board the Maria Ross, then lying in the bay ready for sea ;" and that, "when the Shenandoah got outside the Heads, the boats from the Maria Ross were to come to take them on board at 5 o'clock;" adding, "that there were many more, besides his party, going the same way.”

This statement, so far as it may be considered to have reached any officer of the Government in time for action, directed their attention positively and exclusively to the Maria Ross as the medium intended. to be used for the apprehended recruitment. The Government did their duty vigilantly with respect to this ship, the Maria Ross. She was twice searched; once by the crew of the Customs boat and once again at the Heads; and it was proved to the satisfaction of Detective Kennedy (nor is there any reason now to doubt the fact) that, when she sailed on the morning of the 18th February, there were no men on board her, except her crew.3

The information which had thus been given as to the supposed intention to transfer men to the Shenandoah from the Maria Ross may perhaps supply an intelligent reason for the fact that, on the night of the 17th, the police-boat, instead of remaining off shore, pulled in the direction of that part of the bay in or near which the Shenandoah was lying.. Of the shipment of men, which did undoubtedly take place on the night of the 17th February just before the Shenandoah left, whatever may have been its real amount, and of the means by which it was accomplished, the Government of Victoria had neither knowledge nor means of information. The best evidence of the facts relating to it is that which was collected shortly after the Shenandoah had sailed by the Government of Melbourne itself, and which was published at the time, without the least disguise, by Her Majesty's Government. The substance of that evidence shall here be concisely stated; and some remarks must afterward be made on the affidavit of Temple, sworn at Liverpool in December, 1865, and on that of Ebenezer Nye, sworn in the United States on the 22d September, 1871.

The Melbourne newspapers of the 20th February, 1865, spoke of certain rumors (which were believed to be partially true, though exaggerated as to number) that the Shenandoah had taken away with her "about eighty men." These reports were at once ordered to be investigated by the police. It appeared that seven men of Williamstown,

1 British App., vol. v, p. 121.

Ibid., vol. i, p. 555.

3 Ibid., vol. v, pp. 120, 121.

Ibid., vol. i, p. 551.