About this time the Alabama escaped from the Mersey through a want of vigilance on the part of the British authorities; and, inasmuch as her evasion led to such momentous consequences, we propose to narrate in some detail the circumstances connected with that event. There can be no doubt that, on the part of those who ordered and paid for her, the Alabama was intended from the first for a Confederate vessel of war. She was built in the yard of the Messrs. Laird, Birkenhead. Of course, her armament was not put into her till after she had left the Mersey. But that she was being built and fitted for a vessel of war no one who knew anything about naval architecture could doubt. Indeed, the matter was notorious at Liverpool, where the sympathies of the mercantile community ran strongly in favour of the Confederates. While she was building much correspondence passed between the Federal Consul at Liverpool and his Government and the American Minister in London; but Mr. Adams desired to wait until he could lay before Earl Russell sufficient evidence to justify him in attaching the vessel and prosecuting the builders under the Foreign Enlistment Act. Meanwhile, on the 15th of May, the vessel was launched under the name of the "290."
On the 23rd of June Mr. Adams thought that he had acquired sufficient proof. On that day he wrote to Earl Russell, saying that a new and powerful vessel was being fitted out at Liverpool "for the especial and manifest object of carrying on hostilities by sea," and soliciting such action as might "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." Before replying, Earl Russell obtained a report on the subject from the Customs department at Liverpool, which, on the 4th of July, he enclosed to Mr. Adams. The report stated that there had been no attempt on the part of the builders of the "290" "to disguise, what is most apparent, that she is intended for a ship of war." It proceeded to recommend that the American Consul at Liverpool should submit such evidence as he could obtain to the collector there, who would thereupon take such measures as the Foreign Enlistment Act would require, and concluded by saying that the officers at Liverpool would keep a strict watch on the vessel. Mr. Adams then instructed the consul to follow the course indicated in the Customs officials' report. The consul accordingly submitted a statement on the 9th of July, but the collector replied that the details given were not, in a legal point of view, sufficient to justify him in taking upon himself the responsibility of the detention of the ship. Mr. Dudley (the consul) then directed his utmost endeavours to obtaining direct legal proof, and in this he at last succeeded, laying it, in the form of affidavits, before the collector on the 21st of July. The affidavits were on the same day transmitted by the collector to the Board of Customs at London, with a request for instructions by telegraph, "as the ship appeared to be ready for sea and might leave any hour."
Up to this point, if the action of our authorities had not been all that the Federal Government might have desired, at any rate it had been neither unfriendly nor inefficient. The collector at Liverpool could not proceed to detain the vessel without legal evidence; but as soon as such evidence was supplied, he immediately sent it to the head of his department and, while requesting instructions, indicated the extreme urgency of the case. But now there unfortunately occurred an act of gross administrative laches, of which the American Government and people had just reason to complain. From the Board of Customs at London the affidavits and the collector's letter were sent to the Treasury. This must have been done—at any rate, ought to have been done—on the 22nd of July, and the Treasury, seeing the urgency of the case, should, if unwilling to act on its own responsibility, have laid the affidavits immediately before the law officers of the Crown and requested their opinion. Nor was it by this channel only that the affidavits showing the true character of the Alabama reached Government. Copies of the most material among them were sent by Mr. Adams to Earl Russell on the 22nd of July, together with the opinions of an eminent counsel, Mr. Robert Collier, and again on the 24th. One would have thought that here, again, either immediate action would have been taken or the opinion of the law officers obtained with all practicable expedition. But what happened? The affidavits were considered by the law officers of the Crown on the 28th of July, six days after the letter from Liverpool had reached London, stating that the vessel might leave any hour. They soon made up their minds and their report was in Earl Russell's hands on the morning of the 29th. Orders were then immediately sent to Liverpool to stop the vessel. But it would appear that in some mysterious manner intelligence of the intention of the Government to detain the vessel had reached the persons at Liverpool who had charge of her. The Customs department at Liverpool, on receiving the order for detention, telegraphed that "the vessel '290' came out of dock last night, and left the port this morning." Even then she might have been detained by the British authorities in other ports. Lord Russell advocated this proceeding in the Cabinet, but none of his colleagues, except the Duke of Argyll, supported him, and the project was most unfortunately dropped.
In a conversation with Mr. Adams, two days afterwards, at the Foreign Office, Earl Russell remarked that a delay in determining upon the case of the "290" "had most unexpectedly been caused by the sudden development of a malady in the Queen's advocate, Sir John D. Harding, totally incapacitating him for the transaction of business. This had made it necessary to call in other parties, whose opinion had at last been given for the detention of the gunboat, but before the order got down to Liverpool the vessel was gone." Such an excuse could not be expected to satisfy the American Government, but neither is it satisfactory from a British point of view. The matter being known to be urgent, if, on its being referred to Sir John Harding, that official was found to be incapacitated by ill health or any other cause, what was done ultimately should have been done at first—"other parties" should have been called in. This too easy-going, laissez aller mode of conducting public business on the part of Government departments in 1862 cost the United Kingdom three millions sterling in 1873.
HINDOOS BRINGING COTTON THROUGH THE WESTERN GHAUTS. (See p. [336].)
The Alabama steamed down the Mersey and proceeded to Moelfra Bay, on the coast of Anglesey, where she lay two days. The American Government considered, and it is difficult to contravene their opinion, that there was culpable negligence somewhere in permitting a ship, the seizure of which had been ordered, to lie unmolested in British waters for two whole days. From Moelfra Bay the vessel proceeded to the Azores, and remained at Terceira till the arrival of a vessel from London, having on board six guns, ammunition, coals, etc., for the new cruiser. Two days afterwards the screw-steamer Bahama arrived, having on board Commander Raphael Semmes, of the Confederate navy, and other officers, besides two more guns. The transfer of the guns and stores having been completed without hindrance from any one, Captain Semmes hoisted his flag on the 24th of August, and the Alabama, now first known by that name, sailed from Terceira with twenty-six officers and eighty-five men.
The British Government was all the more unpopular with the North Americans because the operations of the war were by no means decisive. General Grant, after a severe battle at Pittsburg, cleared Tennessee of the Confederates and they slowly lost ground in Arkansas. On the other hand, the Federal general McLellan was driven out of Virginia by General Lee, who also routed with great loss the covering army under Pope, and, though Lee could make no impression upon Maryland, he carried off the honours of the campaign by driving Burnside from before Richmond. In Kentucky Bragg foiled the Northerners at every point. The capture of New Orleans in April by the gallant Farragut was undoubtedly a serious blow to the Confederates, but one that might have been retrieved had resources been equal to demands. As the world now knows, they were not; but to close observers at the time, for instance the Emperor Napoleon, the cause of the Southerners appeared to be still in the ascendant.
A revolution, more akin to the ridiculous than to the sublime, took place this year in Greece. In October, while King Otho and his queen were absent from Athens, the people rose, the troops mutinied, the Bavarian dynasty was declared to have ceased to reign, and a provisional Government installed itself in office, with Demetri Bulgari at its head. A plebiscite was decreed, in humble imitation of the Napoleonic prototype, for the election of a king of Greece; every Greek above twenty years of age was to have a vote. The result of the voting was, that Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria, was chosen king by an overwhelming majority. But it had been previously agreed between the plenipotentiaries of the protecting Powers, Britain, France, and Russia, that all members of the reigning families of these nations should be excluded from the Greek succession. The election of Prince Alfred was thus nullified. The further progress of the Greek revolution belongs to a later year; nevertheless, it will be convenient to give at this place a connected view of the whole series of transactions, so that it will be unnecessary hereafter to return to the subject. At the end of December, 1862, Mr. Henry Elliot was commissioned by the British Government to inform the provisional Government at Athens that England was disposed to cede the Ionian Islands (over which she had exercised a protectorate since the Congress of Vienna) to Greece, provided that the form of government remained monarchical; that Greece abstained from aggression against neighbouring States; that the king selected were a prince "against whom no well-founded objection could be raised;" lastly, that the cession were shown to be in accordance with the unanimous, or nearly unanimous, wish of the Ionian population. The Greeks and Ionians accepted the proffered terms with enthusiasm. After long consideration and discussion, a suitable occupant for the throne was found in Prince George, son of the King of Denmark, and brother to the Princess of Wales. A Greek deputation, proceeding to Copenhagen in June, 1863, tendered the Crown to Prince George, who accepted it and soon afterwards went to Greece, where he was received with general enthusiasm. Britain, thoroughly satisfied with this selection, proceeded to carry out her promise. Sir Henry Storks, the Lord High Commissioner, dissolved the Ionian Parliament in August, and summoned a new one, on which the express mandate should devolve of taking into consideration the contemplated re-union of the islands to Greece. The new Parliament met, and unanimously ratified the cession. One difficulty, however, still remained. Greece was a weak State: Corfu possessed a capacious and important harbour and, by the care of the protecting State, had been converted into a formidable fortress: were the fortifications handed over intact, it might be apprehended that, in some future European war, a great Power allying itself to Greece would employ the fortifications of Corfu for the purpose of strengthening its own position in the Mediterranean. The British Government, therefore, in concert with the four other great Powers, decided that the Ionian Islands should, from the time of their cession to Greece, "enjoy the advantages of a perpetual neutrality," and that the fortifications that had been constructed in Corfu, as no longer required after the concession of such neutrality, should be demolished previously to the evacuation of the island by the British garrison. This was in November, 1863; the demolition was at once proceeded with; but it was not till far on in 1864 that the troops finally quitted the island, and the annexation to Greece was consummated.
The year 1862, during which the truce of politics continued, was marked by a second grand display, on a scale of colossal magnitude, of the products of the material and artistic civilisation of the age, contributed by the industry of all countries, but especially by that of Britain and her colonies. The Society of Arts, a body through whose exertions the Exhibition of 1851 in great measure originated, began, with the countenance of the Prince Consort, to take preliminary measures in 1858 and 1859 for the purpose of ascertaining whether a sufficiently strong feeling existed in the country in favour of decennial repetitions of that great experiment to justify the prosecution of the scheme. The Continental war of 1859 caused a temporary suspension of proceedings; but on peace being restored, the Society resumed the consideration of the question, although at a period too late to allow of the Exhibition being ready by the year 1861, which was their original desire. The Society obtained decisive proof of the existence of a general desire for a second Great Exhibition in the most satisfactory form—namely, the signatures of upwards of 1,100 individuals for various sums of from £100 to £10,000, and amounting in the whole to no less than £450,000, to a guarantee deed for raising the funds needed for the conduct of the Exhibition. The scheme having thus been started, the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, in the most liberal spirit, placed at the disposal of the managers of the new undertaking, free of all charge, a space of nearly seventeen acres on their Kensington Gore Estate, and afterwards, when the original area was found insufficient, an additional plot of eight acres, being all the land that could be made available for the purpose. In this way was the scheme originated, the cost of the necessary buildings provided for, and an eligible site obtained.