The Lafayette was burned.
The decree of the “Confederate Prize Court,” which seems to have comprehended neither more nor less than the Alabama’s commander, was in this case as follows:
The ship being under the enemy’s flag and register, is condemned. With reference to the cargo, there are certificates, prepared in due form and sworn to before the British consul, that it was purchased, and shipped on neutral account. These ex parte statements are precisely such as every unscrupulous merchant would prepare, to deceive his enemy and save his property from capture. There are two shipping houses in the case; that of Craig & Nicoll and that of Montgomery Bros. Messrs. Craig & Nicoll say that the grain shipped by them belongs to Messrs. Shaw & Finlay and to Messrs. Hamilton, Megault & Thompson, all of Belfast, in Ireland, to which port the ship is bound, but the grain is not consigned to them, and they could not demand possession of it under the bill of lading. It is, on the contrary, consigned to the order of the shippers; thus leaving the possession and control of the property in the hands of the shippers. Farther: The shippers, instead of sending this grain to the pretended owners in a general ship consigned to them, they paying freight as usual, have chartered the whole ship, and stipulated themselves for the payment of all the freights. If this property had been, bona fide, the property of the parties in Belfast, named in the depositions, it would undoubtedly have gone consigned to them in a bill of lading authorizing them to demand possession of it; and the agreement with the ship would have been that the consignees and owners of the property should pay the freight upon delivery. But even if this property were purchased, as pretended, by Messrs. Craig & Nicoll for the parties named, still, their not consigning it to them and delivering them the proper bill of lading, passing the possession, left the property in the possession and under the dominion of Craig & Nicoll, and as such liable to capture. See 3 Phillimore on International Law, 610, 612, to the effect that if the goods are going on account of the shipper or subject to his order or control, they are good prize. They cannot even be sold and transferred to a neutral in transitu. They must abide by their condition at the time of the sailing of the ship.
The property attempted to be covered by the Messrs. Montgomery Bros, is shipped by Montgomery Bros., of New York, and consigned to Montgomery Bros., in Belfast. Here the consignment is all right. The possession of the property has legally passed to the Belfast house. But when there are two houses of trade doing business as partners, and one of them resides in the enemy’s country, the other house, though resident in a neutral country, becomes also enemy, quoad the trade of the house in the enemy’s country, and its share in any property belonging to the joint concern is subject to capture, equally with the share of the house in the enemy’s country. To this point see 3 Phillimore, 605. Cargo condemned.
The next batch of prizes consisted of the Crenshaw, captured on the 26th of October, the Lauretta captured on the 28th, and the Baron de Castine on the 29th. The Crenshaw brought New York papers containing resolutions denouncing the “pirates,” which had been introduced in the New York Chamber of Commerce by a Mr. Low, who was a member of that body, and had lost considerable property on account of the depredations of the Alabama. The cargoes of the Crenshaw and Lauretta were covered by certificates of foreign ownership, but these were bunglingly gotten up, and evidently made only for the purpose of avoiding condemnation, and Captain Semmes, being well versed in international law, was able to pick flaws in all of them. The Baron de Castine was an old and not very valuable vessel, bound with lumber from the coast of Maine to Cuba. She was released on a ransom bond, and carried the crews of the Lafayette, Crenshaw, and Lauretta, together with the derisive compliments of Captain Semmes to Mr. Low, into the port of New York, then distant only two hundred miles. The other prizes were burned.
The advent of the Baron de Castine carried fresh dismay to the shipping interests along the Atlantic coast. The news that a foreign consular certificate could not be relied upon to furnish protection seemed to sound the death knell of trade carried on in American ships. The representatives of the foreign governments whose seals had been defied were appealed to for assistance in putting an end to the career of the “pirate.” The New York Commercial Advertiser published the following article:
Some important facts have just been developed in relation to the operations of the rebel privateer Alabama, and the present and prospective action of the British and other foreign governments, whose citizens have lost property by the piracies of her commander. The depredations of the vessel involve the rights of no less than three European governments—England, Italy and Portugal—and are likely to become a subject of special interest to all maritime nations.
