commander in Her Majesty's Navy soon after the occurrence said, "had I met the Oreto at sea, armed and having a pennant, I should have taken her for one of our ships." i

2

coals, supplies, and recruitments.

She remained at Mobile until the 15th of January, and then ran the blockade outwards. Stopping at Havana on the way for At Nassau, January forty-eight hours, she arrived again at Nassau early in the 25, 1863; receives morning, about day-break, of the 25th. She steamed in over the bar without a pilot and cast anchor without permission of the gov ernor. On his attention being called to the proclamation which required permission before coming to anchor, Captain Maffitt "expressed his regret for having unwittingly violated the regulations of the port," and was taken on shore by the adjutant of the fort in the Government boat to make his explanations to the Governor.3

He called at the Government House between eight and nine o'clock, and not seeing the Governor, addressed him a note as follows: "As this vessel is in distress for want of coal, I very respectfully request permission to anchor in the harbor for the purpose of obtaining the same." Permission was given and she "took on board coal and provisions to last us for several months."5 Her bunkers were filled with coal, and some placed on deck and in every place that could hold it. The coal was taken from wharves and vessels lying in the harbor. The money for coaling her was paid from Mr. Henry Adderly's store. She remained in the harbor until afternoon of the 27th, and at sunset was outside of the bar, opposite the entrance of the harbor, "within a mile of the lighthouse, running up and down under slow steam, with just steerage-way on her, apparently waiting for something." Eleven men were obtained there and shipped. Adderly & Co. paid the account for shipping the men, which was signed by Captain Maffitt.R

8

At Barbados Feb

ceived coals and re

She arrived at Barbados, also within the jurisdiction of Her Majesty's Government, on the 24th of February, and applied, in consequence of her having met with severe weather, to be ruary 24, 1863: reallowed to ship some coal and some lumber for repairs." pairs. Her commander assured the Governor "he was bound for distant waters."9

Under these circumstances she was permitted to take in ninety tons. of coal. On going into Barbados the bark Sarah A. Nickels ran in before to avoid capture. The Consul of the United States, after the arrival of the Florida, requested that she might be detained until 5 p. m. of the 25th, in order to give the bark her start of twenty-four hours. This was granted.i0

At Pernambuco.

On the 8th of May she arrived at Pernambuco. A representation was made that her machinery was out of order, and that it would not be possible to proceed with safety in less than three or four days. Permission to remain and repair was granted, and she sailed at 2 p. m. of the 12th. 11

From there she went to Bermuda, where she arrived on the 15th of July, and where salutes were exchanged with the fort. "This

At Bermuda. Juno

coals.

is the first salute which the flag of the Confederate States 15, 1863: repairs and has ever received in a foreign port, and consequently we dwellers in the little island of Bermuda think very proudly of it.'12

2 Brit. App., vol. i, p. 79.

3 Ibid., p. 80.

4 Brit. App., vol. i, p. 77.

7 Affidavit of Jackson, ibid.

8 Affidavit of Solomon, ibid., p. 312.

9 Brit. App., vol. i, p. 91.

10 Ibid., p. 95.

5 Private Journal, Am. App., vol. vi, p. 335. "Brit. Case, p. 69; App., vol i, p. 106.

* Affidavit of Demerith, ibid., p. 336.

12 Walker to Huse, Am. App., vol. vii, p. 52:

Captain Maffitt "stated that he had been at sea seventy days, with the exception of two visits to Havana and Barbados, each of which occupied less than twenty-four hours, and a visit of shorter duration to a port in the Brazils; that he was last from the immediate neighborhood of New York, within sixty miles of which he had been harassing the United States commerce; that he was in want of repairs to the hull and machinery of his ship, and a small supply of coal."

2

Applications were made for leave to purchase coal from and repair at the Government dock-yard, which were refused. She was permitted, however, to remain in port until the 25th, when her repairs were completed, and she took in "a full supply of best Cardiff coal brought here from Halifax by steamer Harriet Pinkney." 77 3 This vessel was one of the insurgent "transports."4 The conduct of the Governor was approved by the Government September 16.5

At Brest; receives recruits and new ma

pool.

The Florida arrived at Brest, France, on the 23d of August, "in order that her engines and copper sheathing might be re<hinery from Liver paired.” She remained until the 9th of February, 1864. 7 Captain Maffitt, on the 3d of September, sent to Captain Bullock, "Confederate States Navy, Liverpool," a list of men discharged from her with their accounts and discharges. Many of them asked for "transportation, and others for reference to you [Bullock] or to a Confederate agent." These men went to Liverpool, and were paid off in October, 1863.9

At Brest, Captain Maffitt left the ship and Captain Barney took command. On the 22d of September, Frazer, Trenholm & Co. and J. R. Armstrong wrote from Liverpool to the new Captain as follows:

We beg to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 18th instant, the contents of which we have noted, and will have our best attention. We are informed by Messrs. Fawcett, Preston & Co., the builders of the engines of the Florida, that the spare machinery to which you refer was sent to Havre some time ago, and is now lying there subject to an order for delivery, which they have given to Captain Bullock. We are also informed by the same parties that they sent a blower, but they believe it is not the sort required, and they are now endeavoring to procure a more suitable one. As regards the engineers, we must await Captain Bullock's return to know who the men are. We have requested Messrs. Fawcett, Preston & Co. to engage two or three good, steady firemen; and as soon as Captain Bullock arrives (on the 24th) we will endeavor to have engineers,firemen, and machinery sent to you, and by the route you suggest." 10 The same parties were in frequent correspondence with the paymaster of the vessel at Brest in respect to her finances.11 A full crew was sent to her from London and Liverpool in January, and "two steel Blakely rifled-guns with steel-pointed elongated shot to fit them.”12 She sailed from Brest under the command of Captain Morris. On the 26th of April she was at Martinique for coal and provisions. On the 13th of May she stopped at Bermuda to land a sick officer and to obtain news.13 On the 18th of June she ap peared at that port again, when she asked permission to take in coal and effect some repairs.14 Permission was given her to remain five days after the 21st. She quitted the harbor on the 27th, but remained cruising about the island until the 5th of July, when she was seen from the land.1

At Martinique.

1 Gov. Ord. to Duke of Newcastle, Brit. App., vol. i, p. 108.

2 Brit. Case, p. 69; App., vol. i, p. 111.

3 Am. App., vol. vi, p. 347; Brit. Case, p. 70; App., vol. i, p. 108.

4 Am. App., vol. i, p. 732.

5 Brit. App., vol. í, p. 111.

6 Brit. Case, p. 70.

? Ibid., p. 72.

8 Am. App., vol. vi, p. 349.

9 Brit. App., vol. i, pp. 118, 122.

10 Am. App., vol. vi, p. 352.

11 Ibid., p. 354.

12 Ibid., p. 353.

13 Brit. App., vol. i, p. 132.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid., p. 133; Am. App., vol. vi, p. 356.

15

While there, on the 27th of June, 135 tons of coal were paid for by G. P. Black, who was temporarily acting as the agent for the "Confederate States." 1

A draft for £8,500 sterling on Captain Bullock was discounted by this same agent, and money to the amount of more than £600 expended for repairs and supplies.2

From Bermuda she went to Bahia where she ended her cruise in the month of October.

At Bahi

It will thus be seen, that the first port which was visited by the Florida after her escape from Nassau was under the jurisdiction of the government of Spain. At this port she escaped seizure for a violation of the sovereignty by "repudiating" the act.

After leaving Mobile she touched at Havana, but does not appear to have taken in coal or supplies. Then she went to Nassau, then to Barbados, then to Pernambuco, then to Bermuda, then to Brest, within. reach of her base of supplies at Liverpool; then to Martinique, then to Bermuda, and then to Bahia. After leaving Mobile, she visited once the ports of Spain, twice those of France, twice those of Brazil, and four times those of Great Britain.

During her cruise she commissioned at different times three tenders, the Clarence, the Tacony, and the Archer. For their acts she is liable as for her own. She was the principal, and

their acts were her acts.

Her tenders

1 Am. App., vol. vi, p. 359; Acting Governor Monroe to Mr. Cardwell, British App., vol. i, p. 133.

2 Am. App., vol. vi, p. 358, et seq.

VII.---THE ALABAMA.

The Alabama. Her not disputed.

As to this vessel, Her Majesty's Government admits, "that at the time when she sailed from England in July, 1862, she was, as adaptation to war is regards the general character of her construction, specially adapted for warlike use; that the adaptation had been effected within British jurisdiction;" 1 and that "the general construction of the vessel was such as to make it apparent that she was intended for war and not for commerce." 2

The drawings found among the archives of the insurgents signed by the Messrs. Laird, as early as the 9th October, 1861, copies of which are part of the documents and evidence filed by the United States with their Counter Case, show conclusively that she never was intended for anything else than a vessel of war.

The question to be decided.

It is also admitted in the British Counter Case that "the question for the arbitrators is, whether the British Government had, according to the fair and just sense of those words, reasonable grounds to believe that she was intended to carry on war against the United States; and having it, failed to use such diligence as any international obligation required to prevent her departure from Great Britain, or to prevent her equipment within its jurisdiction." 3

The United States will now proceed to consider the facts necessary to a decision of that question, and for that purpose will use almost excusively the evidence presented to the Tribunal by Her Majesty's Government.

As has been seen, the Florida sailed from Liverpool, without any attempt at her detention by the Government, ou the 22d of March, 1862. The attention of Earl Russell had been called to her by Mr. Adams more than a month previous to her departure, and in so doing he declared that his opinion as to her destination for war against the United States was based upon the "evidence furnished in the names of the persons stated to be concerned in her construction and outfit.” These persons named were Fawcett, Preston & Co., and Frazer, Trenholm & Co. As late as the 9th of May, the Foreign Office appears to have been in correspondence with the officers of the Treasury in respect to her escape. She arrived at Nassau on the 28th of April, and her arrival at that port became known in Liverpool and was announced in the Liverpool Journal of Commerce on the 27th of May. It must have been apparent, at that time, to the officers of the customs at Liverpool, that she had not been intended for the Italian Government, but for the insurgents, and that any pretense of Italian destination was false.

4

Under these circumstances, on the 23d of June, Mr. Adams, in a note to Earl Russell, said:

Some time since, it may be recollected by your Lordship, that I felt it my duty to

make a representation touching the equipment from the port of Liverpool of the gunboat Oreto, with the intent to make war upon the United States. Mr. Adams gives Notwithstanding the statements returned from the authorities of that information of, June place, with which your Lordship favored me in reply, touching a dif- 23, 1862. ferent destination of that vessel, I have the strongest reason for believing that that vessel went directly to Nassau, and that she had been there engaged in completing her armament, provisioning, and crew for the object first indicated by me.

* * *

I am now under the painful necessity of apprising your Lordship, that a new and still more powerful war-steamer is nearly ready for departure from the port of Liverpool on the same errand. This vessel has been built and launched from the dock-yard of persons, one of whom is now sitting as a member of the House of Commons, and is fitting out for the especial and manifest object of carrying on hostilities by sea. The parties engaged in the enterprise are persons well known at Liverpool to be agents and officers of the insurgents in the United States, the nature and extent of whose labors are well explained in the copy of an intercepted letter of one of them, which I received from my Government some days ago, and which I had the honor to place in our Lordship's hands on Thursday last. I now ask permission to transmit, for your consideration, a letter addressed to me by the Consul of the United States at Liverpool in confirmation of the statements here submitted, and to solicit such action as may tend either to stop the projected expedition or to establish the fact that its purpose is not inimical to the people of the United States.1

66

The intercepted letter referred to was from Caleb Huse, "Captain of Artillery," to Major J. Gorgas, "Confederate States Artillery, War Department." It is said in the Case presented by Her Majesty's Government,2 that the copy of the intercepted letter referred to was a paper purporting to be a copy of a letter or report from a Confederate officer of artillery, addressed to some person unknown," and what purports to be a copy of the letter itself is printed in British Appendix, vol. i, p. 178, without the name of the party to whom it was addressed. The same letter is printed by the United States in their Appendix, vol. i, p. 538, where the name of the person to whom it was addressed appears. It was transmitted by Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams with a dispatch under date of June 2, in which he says

3

There has just now fallen into our hands a very extraordinary document, being a report made by Caleb Huse, who calls himself a captain of artillery, and who is an agent of the insurgents in Europe, to the chief of the artillery of the War Department of the insurgents.

4

The letter was "placed in the hands" of Earl Russell by Mr. Adams on the Thursday which preceded the 23d of June, and inasmuch as the dispatch of Mr. Seward transmitting it stated in terms to whom it was addressed, there can scarcely be a doubt that if the copy omitted his name, the proper explanation was made by Mr. Adams at the time. So that it is hardly to be supposed that the party addressed was unknown to Earl Russell at the time he received Mr. Adams's letter of the 23d of June, although it may have been to the persons who prepared the British Case.

5

The letter is found in the British Appendix, vol. i, p. 178. It bears date April 1, 1862, at Liverpool, a few days after the sailing of the Oretc, and does, as is stated in the British Case, relate "to purchases of military supplies for the Confederate army and to vessels employed in blockade running." It also states that "Messrs. Frazer, Trenholm & Co., of this city, placed at my disposal a fine ship, the Bahama, which I supposed would take all the batteries." This is the same vessel which, as has been seen, took out the armament of the Oreto, and which afterward took out that of the Alabama.

In the letter of the consul of the United

States at Liverpool, trans

4 Brit. Case, p. 81.

5 Page 81.