Chap. XIII. and next morning (the 29th July) went to sea without a clearance, ostensibly on a trial trip, carrying with her, in order to assist this pretence, a party of visitors, who were sent back at the mouth of the river, and amongst whom were several ladies. She proceeded first to Moelfra Bay on the coast of Anglesea, where she rode at anchor until two or three o'clock on the morning of Thursday the 31st, without communicating with the shore, and took on board about forty men, who had been sent after her from Liverpool in a tug. The solicitors of the American Consulate had written on the 28th to the Board of Customs to say that they had every reason to believe that she would sail on the next day; but this letter did not reach London till the morning of the 29th. On that morning they telegraphed the information that she had actually sailed; and by the evening's post they wrote that they had every reason to believe that she had gone to Queenstown. The master of the tug which accompanied the "290" down the Mersey returned to Liverpool in the evening; and it appears that he reported his belief that she was cruising off Point Lynas, a headland west of Moelfra. This scrap of information reached the Board of Customs on the 31st. Telegrams were sent from the Board of Customs to Beaumaris, Holyhead, and Cork, directing that she should be seized, should she put in at any of those places,1 and a copy of the Law Officers' opinion was despatched by the Colonial Office to the Governor 1 The dates are stated in the following Note, published in the Customs Correspondence relating to the Alabama : "31st July 1862, at about Half-past Seven P.M. Telegrams were sent to the Collectors at Liverpool and Cork, pursuant to Treasury Order, dated 31st July, to seize the gun-boat ('290') should she be within either of those ports. "Similar telegrams to the officers at Beaumaris and Holyhead were sent on the morning of the 1st August. They were not sent on the 31st July, the telegraph offices to those districts being closed. "And on the 2nd August a letter was also sent to the Collector at Cork, to detain the vessel should she arrive at Queenstown." of the Bahamas, whither it was thought likely she Chap. XIII. might bend her course. But she left the roads at Moelfra more than twenty-four hours before the telegram reached Beaumaris, and she did not go to Nassau. She made straight for Terceira in the Azores, and arrived safely in the harbour of Porto Praya. Up to this time she was completely unarmed. She had not on board, when she left the Mersey, "so much as a signal gun or a musket," nor had she taken in any equipment at Moelfra. But she was met at Terceira by the sailing-barque Agrippina, from London, and was joined a little later by the steamer Bahama, which had cleared from Liverpool for Nassau a fortnight after the departure of the "290." These two vessels between them brought her armament, all the clothing for her crew, and an additional supply of coal, and the Bahama likewise brought her future captain and officers. Captain Semmes, formerly of the Sumter, had been appointed as early as the 2nd May to the command of the new ship: he was then at Nassau, and, finding her gone on his return to Liverpool, had followed her in the Bahama. The transhipment was effected partly at Porto Praya, partly in the bays of East and West Angra on the southern coast of the island, and partly at sea, just outside of the territorial line. What occurred when the operation was complete is thus described by a seaman who had gone out in the "290": "On the Sunday afternoon following, Captain Semmes called all hands aft, and the Confederate flag was hoisted, the band playing 'Dixie's Land.' Captain Semmes addressed the men, and said he was deranged in his mind to see his country going to ruin, and he had to steal out of Liverpool like a thief. That instead of them watching him he was now going after them. He wanted all of us to join him, that he was going to sink, burn, and destroy all his enemy's property, and that any that went with him was entitled to two 1 Surveyor's Report, 30th July, 1862. 2 24th August, 1862. Chap. XIII. twentieths' prize money; it did not matter whether the prize was sunk, or burned, or sold, the prize money was to be paid. That there were only four or five Northern ships that he was afraid of. He said that he did not want any to go that was not willing to fight, and there was a steamer alongside to take them back if they were not willing. "The vessel was all this time steaming to sea, with the Bahama at a short distance. Forty-eight men, most of them firemen, refused to go, and, an hour afterwards, were put on board the Bahama. I refused to go, and came back with the rest in the Bahama. Captain Butcher, Captain Bullock, and all the English engineers came with us and landed here on Monday morning. When we left the Alabama she was all ready for fighting, and steering to sea. I heard Captain Semmes say he was going to cruise in the track of the ships going from New York to Liverpool, and Liverpool to New York. The Alabama never steamed while I was in her more than eleven knots, and cannot make any more. We signed articles while in Moelfra Bay for Nassau or an intermediate port. Captain Butcher got us to sign."l Captain Semmes himself writes as follows respecting the enlistment of the crew : "I had as yet no enlisted crew, and this thought gave me some anxiety. All the men on board the Alabama, as well as those who had come out with me on board the Bahama, had been brought thus far under articles of agreement that were no longer obligatory. Some of them had been shipped for one voyage, and some for another, but none of them for service on board a Confederate cruiser. This was done to avoid a breach of the British Foreign Enlistment Act; they had of course been undeceived from the day of their departure from Liverpool. They knew that they were to be released from the contracts they had made; but I could not know how many of them would engage with me for the Alabama. "The Alabama had brought out from the Mersey about sixty men, and the Bahama brought about thirty more. I got eighty of these ninety men, and felt very much relieved in consequence.' 112 He elsewhere describes his crew as having been "picked up promiscuously about the streets of Liverpool." Four of them were afterwards traced as belonging to the Naval Reserve, and their names were struck off the list. 1 Affidavit of Henry Redden, Boatswain's Mate. This account is substantially corroborated by the Chap. XIII. affidavit afterwards sworn by Yonge, the paymaster, a hostile witness : Captain Bullock wrote a letter of instructions to me before we left Liverpool, directing me to circulate freely among the men, and induce them to go on the vessel after we got to Terceira. I accordingly did circulate among the men on our way out, and persuaded them to join the vessel after we should get to Terceira. Low did the same." Referring to the 24th August, he adds: "I had two sets of articles prepared, one for men shipping for a limited time, the other for those willing to go during the war. The articles were then re-signed, while the vessel was in Portuguese waters but under the Confederate flag." Yonge was dismissed from the ship at Jamaica. He afterwards came to England and furnished evidence to the American Legation. Mr. Adams had at the beginning of July ordered the Tuscarora, then stationed at Gibraltar, to England, in the hope, should other means fail, of intercepting the obnoxious steamer at sea. Captain Craven reached Southampton as early as the 9th July, and received all the information that Mr. Adams could give him. He continued there, making repairs, till the 29th; when, on being apprised that the Alabama had sailed, he weighed anchor hastily and went to Queenstown. Here, on the 31st, he received information from Mr. Adams by letter and telegraph that she was believed to be off Point Lynas. He does not appear, however, to have put to sea till the following day, when he "sailed up St. George's Channel," without descrying the object of his search. His ill-success drew on him a sharp reproof from the Minister. "It may have been of use to the Tuscarora to have obtained repairs at Southampton to put her in seaworthy condition. But, had I imagined the Captain did not intend to try the sea, I should not have taken the responsibility of calling him from his station. I can Chap. XIII. only say that I shall not attempt anything of the kind again." 1 This is the history of the building and fitting-out of the Alabama. We will now return to the Oreto. The Oreto, as we have seen, sailed from Liverpool on the 22nd March, with a clearance for Sicily. Early in April she made her appearance at New Providence, where she remained nearly four months, lying during the earlier part of that time at an anchorage eight or nine miles from Nassau. The United States' Consul complained to the Governor that she was fitting out for war-which appears to have been a mistake; the senior naval officer on the station was directed to keep watch on her movements, and she was more than once examined. She had been consigned, "as a merchant ship," by Fraser, Trenholm, and Co. to their correspondents at Nassau; and application was made on their behalf for leave to ship a cargo; but no cargo was taken on board, and she finally cleared in ballast for Havana. Her crew, however, refused to weigh anchor, insisting that they had been deceived; the vessel, they said, not having touched at Palermo, there had been a deviation, which entitled them to be discharged, and they would not sail unless guaranteed against Federal cruisers. They were summoned before a magistrate and obtained their discharge. The naval officers who examined her reported that her construction and internal fittings were clearly those of a ship-of-war; and the Governor, yielding to the representations of Captain Hickley, of Her Majesty's ship Greyhound, ultimately directed that she should be seized and libelled in the Vice-Admiralty Court of the colony for a violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act. This occurred in June. On the 2nd August, after a long trial, the Judge of the Court decreed the release of the ship, on the ground that no proof had been given of any 1 Mr. Adams to Captain Craven, 6th August, 1862. |