order got down to Liverpool she was gone." It is not pretended that any expedition was used by the parties who came to the rescue of the government when Sir John D. Harding's "malady" assumed international importance, or that any attempt was made to delay the gunboat temporarily, until a decision could be arrived at; or that the telegraph or any extra-expeditious means of communication with Liverpool was made use of when this decision was "at last" obtained.*

It should be stated, in justice to Earl Russell, however, that he declared his intention to send to Nassau to have the vessel intercepted; but in that connection let it also be remembered that he did not send; or at least that he did not send to the British squadron to seize her elsewhere in that neighborhood, and that the Alabama has avoided that point with as much shrewdness as if her captain were possessed in advance of the intention of the British cabinet; that, although she has been cruising in British West Indian waters for months, and has been for six days of the latter portion of the time lying in the British port of Kingston, to be refitted, no attempt has been made to seize or detain her, and that no prosecutions have been instituted against any of the many parties in England who infringed the Foreign Enlistment Act and the law of nations, by conniving at her escape and perfecting her armament afterwards in Terceira.†

Having seen by this statement what the British government failed to do, let us inquire what it ought to have done. And since this country and England are bound to each other

29th of July, without register or clearance, under the command of Butcher, an English subject, who had been referred to in the deposition of Passmore. She picked up an additional fifty men off Point Lynass, and proceeded to Terceira in the Azores, where she anchored in the Portuguese waters; there she was shortly joined by a barque, the 'Agrippina,' which had sailed from the Thames with the greater portion of the privateer's guns and stores on board. The barque discharged her cargo into the 290,' which was still flying the British ensign, and when the Portuguese authorities interposed, the person Butcher, it is alleged, represented his vessel to be English, aiding the English barque, which he said was sinking. Another vessel shortly arrived from Liverpool, the steamer 'Bahama' (which was at first believed to be the U. S. steamer, Tuscarora,' causing some commotion on board), conveying the confederate officer Captain Semmes, with Bullock, and fifty additional men, and stores for the privateer. The Portuguese authorities then ordered all three vessels off, but they merely went to a secluded part of the coast, and completed the transhipment of the stores. The Bahama' cleared from Liverpool on the twelfth of August, having on board nineteen cases containing guns, gun-carriages, shot, rammers, &c., shipped by a firm of engineers and ironfounders of Liverpool. These cases were professedly shipped for Nassau. After the transfer of the cargo had been concluded Semmes took command, ran up the Confederate flag to the masthead, and christened the new steamer the 'Alabama.' He read to the crew his commission from Jefferson Davis, as captain, and then made a speech, in which he explained the kind of warfare he proposed to wage, and called for volunteers. One hundred and ten of those on board consented, and forty refused, returning in the 'Bahama' to Liverpool. Of those who remained, it is stated, in a recently published letter from a Mr. Underhill, dated St. Thomas, West Indies, and which professes to give a narrative taken down from the lips of the boatswain of the 'Alabama,' during her passage from Liverpool to the Azores, that the most part belonged to the English Naval Reserve, all trained gunners, and that the crew receive from the Confederate government half the value of every American ship and cargo destroyed. The Bahama' took out gold to pay the crew, and after transferring her cargo returned with the barque to England, while the privateer set out on its mission of destruction."

The general bad faith, or, at the very least, criminal apathy of the British government in this matter, was so greatas to draw from Mr. Adams this indignant declaration (Letter to Mr. Seward, Dip. Cor. 219): "It is very manifest that no disposition exists here to apply the powers of the government to the investigation of the acts complained of, flagrant as they are, or to the prosecution of offenders." Upon the part of Lord Russell, the correspondence is exceedingly ingenious in devising reasons for postponing the consideration of, or refusing to grant the demands of the American Minister. On the 4th of Sep. (Dip. Cor. 200) Mr. Adams, in writing to Lord Russell on the subject of the escape of the Alabama, July 29, was compelled to complain thus: "I have not yet received any reply in writing to my several notes and representations I have had the honor to submit to her majesty's government touching this flagrant case." The answer to this was at last received on the 22d, and consisted of excuses, among which Sir John D. Harding's "malady" does not appear. One may benevolently hope that Sir John D. Harding was able to forget it as easily as Lord John Russell. Let the reader contrast the churlish temper of the following letter, which is a fair specimen of Lord Russell's style, with the earnest, open, and liberal language of this government, as it will be hereinafter shown. "FOREIGN OFFICE, Oct. 16, 1862.

"SIR:-I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 9th inst, enclosing a copy of an intercepted letter which you had received from the United States government, being the further evidence with regard to the gun-boat '290;' and with reference to your observations with regard to the infringement of the Foreign Enlistment Act, I have to remark, that it is true that the Foreign Enlistment Act, or any other act for the same purpose, can be evaded by very subtle contrivances; but her majesty's government cannot on that account go beyond the letter of the existing law." (Dip. Cor 223.)

Perhaps Lord Russell means that to decide in time is to go beyond the letter of the law; for it is of the failure to do that that Mr. Adams complains. The decision, as it was "at last" given, was entirely satisfactory, and had it been made known before instead of after the departure of the "290," the "letter" of the law, as Lord Russell understands it, might have been a little shattered, but the spirit of the law, which now lies wickedly violated, would have been preserved.

in mutual obligations of neutrality, arising from the same general law of nations, and from legislative enactments almost entirely similar, it is fair to show, first, how we conducted ourselves toward her at a time when our present positions were reversed.

America had scarcely taken upon herself the habitudes of a nation before she was called to perform her international obligations of neutrality. The circumstances involved great embarrassment. One belligerent was our friend, benefactor, and sister republic, France; the other was our enemy and late tyrant, England. We were weak and but poorly prepared to resist the importunities of our friend, to whom we owed so large a debt of gratitude. We were also entangled by treaty stipulations with her, under which she enjoyed certain privileges in our waters to the exclusion of England; and this again, together with a strong public sympathy for her, caused President Washington and his advisers great difficulty in securing for England an impartial observance of neutrality in the matters not touched by the treaty.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, President Washington, in the inaugural speech of his second term, proceeded to declare a strict rule of neutrality, under the law of nations, which has been faithfully observed to this day. (Speech to Congress, American State Papers. Foreign Relations, vol. 1. p. 21.) On the 22d of April, 1793, he issued his proclamation containing these words:

"I have given instructions to those officers to whom it belongs, to cause prosecutions to be instituted against all persons who shall, within the cognizance of the courts of the United States, violate the law of nations [we had no statute at that time] with respect to the powers at war, or any of them." (Ibid., 140.)

This was followed by written instructions from Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, to the collectors of the customs, requiring "the greatest vigilance, care, activity, and impartiality," in searching for and discovering any attempt to fit out vessels and expeditions, or send men, to the aid of either party (ibid. 140); and so strict were these requirements that Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, the great champion of neutrality, was compelled to denounce them as "setting up a system of espionage destructive to the peace of society." (Jeff. Works, vol. 9, 556; 3 ib. 556.) While Mr. Jefferson

declared in Cabinet Council (9 Jeff. W. 154), "It is inconsistent for a nation which has been patiently bearing for ten years the grossest insults and injuries from their late enemies, to rise at a feather against their friends and benefactors; and at a moment, too, when circumstances have kindled the most ardent affections of the two people towards each other;" he still wrote to the French representative, M. Ternant, demanding the cessation of the fitting out of certain privateers in Charleston (3 Jeff. 561); and to his successor, Citizen Genet (whom we afterwards sent home for endeavoring to make use of our harbors for such illegal purposes), "The fitting out of armed vessels against nations with whom we are at peace" is "instrumental to the annoyance of those nations, and thereby tends to compromit their peace," and "it is the duty of a neutral nation to prohibit such acts as would injure one of the warring parties." (Ibid. 571.)

One of the first cases demanding action by the government was that of the Little Sarah. Upon the suggestion by Mr. Hammond, the British representative, that she was being fitted as a French privateer, she was seized, and being found to contain a suspicious armament, was prevented from sailing. About the same time the British ship Grange was taken in American waters by the French war vessel L'Embuscade. The act was considered a breach of our sovereignty, and the prize seized and restored to her British owners. Numerous prizes were, on proof that the capturing vessels had been fitted out in the United States, restored to their owners. The government did not wait for action by the British representative, but held its own officers to the duty of vigilance. The governors of the States were frequently called upon to arrest vessels about departing (Hamilton's W., vol. 2, 463). In one case we find this language used:

"The case in question is that of a vessel armed, equipped and manned in a port of the United States, for the purpose of committing hostilities on a nation at peace with us.

"As soon as it was perceived that such enterprises would be attempted, orders to prevent them were despatched to all the States and ports of the Union. In consequence of these the governor of New York, receiving information that a sloop heretofore called the Folly, now the Republican, was fitting, arming and manning, to cruise against a nation with whom we were at peace, seized the vessel."

The President being apprized, ordered her and the persons engaged to be delivered over to the tribunals for punishment. (3 Jeff. W. 386.) Such seizures were frequently made, the government entering into it as a matter of honor, not appearing to suppose that its duty would be performed by sitting coldly by until the British minister, under all the embarrassments of being a stranger, should produce irrefragable proof of infractions of its own laws. Gen. Washington seems to have considered it a shameful and humiliating excuse for a government to plead that it "is ignorant of what is carried on daily and repeatedly in its own country." It was impossible, however, with our limited navy, to prevent entirely such expeditions, and at last, at the risk of a war with our friend, it was resolved in Cabinet Council, on the 15th of August, 1793, "That the Minister of the French Republic be informed that the President considers the United States as bound by positive assurances given in conformity to the laws of neutrality, to effectuate the restoration of, or make compensation for, prizes which shall have been made of any of the parties at war with France, subsequent to the 5th day of June last, by privateers fitted out in their ports. That it is consequently expected that he will cause restitution to be made of all prizes taken and brought into our ports subsequent to the above-mentioned day by such privateers; in defect of which the President considers it incumbent upon the United States to indemnify the owners of those prizes; the indemnification to be reimbursed by the French nation." (4 Hamilton's Works, 468.) At the same time Mr. Jefferson's important letter to Mr. Hammond was written.*