Chapter IX. Washington And Geneva. (1870-1872)
Although I may think the sentence was harsh in its extent, and unjust in its basis, I regard the fine imposed on this country as dust in the balance compared with the moral value of the example set when these two great nations of England and America—which are among the most fiery and the most jealous in the world with regard to anything that touches national honour—went in peace and concord before a judicial tribunal rather than resort to the arbitrament of the sword.—Gladstone.[254]
I
One morning in the summer of 1862 a small wooden sloop, screw and steam, of a little over a thousand tons register dropped slowly down the waters of the Mersey. The decks were rough and unfinished, but guests on board with bright costumes made a gay picture, flags were flying, and all wore the look of a holiday trial trip. After luncheon in the cabin, the scene suddenly changed. At a signal from the vessel a tug came alongside, the cheerful visitors to their surprise were quickly transferred, and the sloop made off upon her real business. She dropped anchor in a bay on the coast of Anglesey, where she took twenty or thirty men mostly English on board from a tug sent after her from Liverpool, with or without the knowledge of the officials. Thence she sailed to the Azores, where a steamer from London and a steamer from Liverpool brought officers, armaments, and coal. As soon as these were trans-shipped, the British ensign was hauled down, the Confederate flag run up, and the captain opened sealed orders directing him to sink, burn, or destroy, everything that flew the ensign of the so-called United States of America. These orders the captain of the [pg 394] rover faithfully executed, and in a few months the Alabama—for that was henceforth her memorable name—had done much to sweep the commercial marine of America from the ocean.
Escape Of The Alabama
On the day on which she sailed (July 29), the government made up its mind that she should be detained, on the strength of affidavits that had been almost a week in their hands. The bird of prey had flown. The best definition of due diligence in these matters would seem to be, that it is the same diligence and exactness as are exercised in proceedings relating to imposts of excise or customs. We may guess how different would have been the vigilance of the authorities if a great smuggling operation had been suspected. This lamentable proceeding, for which the want of alacrity and common sense at the foreign office and the bias or blundering of the customs agents at Liverpool, may divide the grave discredit, opened a diplomatic campaign between England and the United States that lasted as long as the siege of Troy, and became an active element in the state of moral war that prevailed during that time between the two kindred communities. Mr. Gladstone, like other members of the Palmerston administration, held for several years that the escape of the Alabama was no wrong done by us. Lord Russell admitted (1863) that the cases of the Alabama and the Oreto were “a scandal and in some degree a reproach to our laws,” though he stated in the same sentence that the cabinet thought the law sufficient where legal evidence also was sufficient. It was true that Britain is the greatest shipbuilding country in the world; that to interfere with ships or any other article of commerce is in so far to impose on a neutral some of the calamities of a belligerent; and that restriction of trade was no element in the policy and spirit of foreign enlistment acts either here or in America, which was the first country that by positive legislation sought to restrain its citizens within definite limits of neutrality. By a law of this kind parliament intended to forbid all subjects within its jurisdiction to make war on people at peace with the British sovereign. It is only, in the words of Canning, when the elements of armament are combined, that they [pg 395] come within the purview of such law. This is not by way of controversy, but to define an issue. Chief Justice Cockburn, an ardent champion of his country if ever there was one, pronounced in his judgment at Geneva, when the day for a verdict at length arrived, that the cruiser ought to have been detained a week before; that the officials of customs were misled by legal advice “perhaps erroneous”; and that the right course to take was “plain and unmistakable.” Even Lord Russell after many years of obdurate self-defence, at last confessed in manly words: “I assent entirely to the opinion of the lord chief justice that the Alabama ought to have been detained during the four days I was waiting for the opinion of the law officers. But I think that the fault was not that of the commissioners of customs; it was my fault as secretary of state for foreign affairs.”[255]
Before the Alabama some ten vessels intended for Confederate service had been detained, inquired into, and if released, released by order of a court for want of evidence. After the Alabama, no vessel on which the American minister had made representation to the foreign office succeeded in quitting a British port. But critical cases occurred. Emboldened by the successful escape of the Alabama, the Confederate agents placed two ironclad rams upon the stocks at the Birkenhead shipyard; Mr. Adams, the American minister in London, renewed his bombardment of the foreign office with proof of their object and design; the foreign office repeated its perplexed pleas against interference, made still more difficult by a colourable transfer of the rams to a French owner; and the whole dreary tragi-comedy of the Alabama seemed likely to be acted over again. By the autumn of 1863 the rams were ready to take the water, and the builders were again talking of a trial trip. This time Lord Russell gave orders that the rams were to be stopped (Sept. 3). He felt the mortification of an honourable man at the trick, of which he had allowed himself to be made the dupe in the case of the Alabama. Perhaps also he had been impressed by language used by Mr. Adams to a member of the cabinet, and more formally to himself, to [pg 396] the effect that the departure of the rams would mean the practical opening to the Southern Confederates of full liberty to use this country as a base for hostile expeditions against the North. “This,” said Mr. Adams, “is war.”[256]
The affair of the rams was followed by Mr. Gladstone with absorbed attention. He confessed to the Duke of Argyll (Sept. 30, 1863) that he could not get the ironclads out of his head, and his letter shows with what exhaustive closeness he argued the case. The predicament was exactly fitted to draw out some of his most characteristic qualities—minute precision, infinite acuteness, infinite caution, the faculty of multiplied distinction upon distinction, an eye for the shadows of a shade. The points are no longer of living interest, but they exhibit a side of him that is less visible in his broader performances of parliament or platform.
As might have been expected, Mr. Adams was instructed to solicit redress for the doings of the Alabama. Lord Russell (Dec. 19, 1862), declaring that government had used every effort to stop her, refused to admit that we were under any obligation whatever to make compensation. Two years later (Aug. 30, 1865) he still declined both compensation and a proposal for arbitration. This opened a long struggle of extreme interest in the ministerial life of Mr. Gladstone, and, what was more, in the history of civilised nations. It was arbitration upon these issues that now began to divide politicians both inside the cabinet and outside, just as mediation and recognition had divided them in the earlier stages of the American conflict.
American Claims
In 1863 Mr. Adams was the first to point to what after a long struggle became the solution of these difficulties, by assuring Lord Russell that there was “no fair and equitable form of conventional arbitrament or reference” to which America would not be willing to submit. In 1865 (Sept. 2) Mr. Gladstone wrote a letter to Lord Russell, the reply to which has already been published.[257] Always jealous for cabinet authority, he began by submitting to Lord Russell that he had no idea that a despatch refusing arbitration was to be written, without a cabinet being held upon a subject [pg 397] so important. As it was, they had not disposed of the question or even discussed it. On the merits, he inclined to believe that the demand for arbitration was highly unreasonable; still though not disposed to say “Yes” to the demand, he doubted “No.” The proper course would be to lead the Americans to bring out the whole of their case, so that the cabinet might have all the pleas before them previously to coming to “a decision of great delicacy and moment.”
Lord Russell stood to his guns. “The question,” he said, “has been the principal object of my thoughts for the last two years, and I confess I think that paying twenty millions down would be far preferable to submitting the case to arbitration.” England would be disgraced for ever if a foreign government were left to arbitrate whether an English secretary of state had been diligent or negligent in his duties, and whether an English law officer was partial and prejudiced in giving his opinion of English law. There the matter stood, and the moral war smouldered on.