While at Cienfuegos, Wilkes heard of the arrival of the Theodora on the north coast, and made haste ineffectually to reach Havana to intercept her. But while he failed to catch the Theodora he learned at Havana that the Confederate envoys were to sail in the Royal mail line steamer Trent for the island of St. Thomas, where, in the regular course of the line’s business, they would be transferred to a steamer bound to England. Having failed to learn when the Trent would sail—failed because of “the notorious action of her British Majesty’s subjects in doing everything to aid and abet the escape of these four persons”—Wilkes went to “where the old Bahama Channel contracts to the width of fifteen miles, some 240 miles from Havana, and in sight of the Paredon del Grande lighthouse.” The Trent must pass through that neck of water, and “at 11.40 on the 8th her smoke was seen.” “We were all prepared for her, beat to quarters, and orders were given to Lieut. D. M. Fairfax to have two boats manned and armed to board her and make Messrs. Slidell, Mason, Eustis, and McFarland prisoners, and send them on board.” Eustis and McFarland were the secretaries. “The steamer approached and hoisted English colors, our ensign was hoisted, and a shot was fired across her bow; she maintained her speed and showed no disposition to heave to; then a shell was fired across her bow, which brought her to. I hailed that I intended to send a boat on board, and Lieutenant Fairfax, with the second cutter of this ship, was despatched.” The quotations are from official reports.
On arriving beside the Trent, Fairfax went on board alone, “leaving two officers in the boat with orders to wait until it became necessary to show some force.” He met the captain on the quarter-deck and asked “to see the passenger list,” but “he declined letting me see it.” Fairfax then said he had learned that the Confederate envoys were on board, and should satisfy himself “whether they were on board before allowing the steamer to proceed.”
“Mr. Slidell, evidently hearing his name mentioned, came up to me and asked if I wanted to see him. Mr. Mason soon joined us, and then Mr. Eustis and Mr. McFarland, when I made known the object of my visit. The captain of the Trent opposed anything like the search of his vessel, nor would he consent to show papers or passenger list.” This is from the report of Lieutenant Fairfax, and it adds that “there was considerable noise among the passengers just about this time.” The fact is the passengers were, to a man, in ardent sympathy with the Confederates. “The passengers and ship’s officers were making all kinds of disagreeable and contemptuous noises and remarks.” “Did you ever hear of such an outrage?” and “Did you ever hear of such a piratical act?” were two of the expressions that were heard by the officers waiting in the boat. “Mr. Fairfax appeared to be having an altercation with some one,” and at last one waiting officer “heard some one call out, ‘Shoot him!’”
At this some armed marines were sent on board, and when they “advanced the passengers fell back.” The most insolent of all on board was a retired commander of the British navy, who was in charge of the mails. According to Lieut. James A. Greer, “the mail agent, (a man in the uniform of a commander in the royal navy, I think,) was very indignant and talkative, and tried several times to get me into discussion of the matter. I told him I was not there for that purpose. He was very bitter; he told me that the English squadron would raise the blockade in twenty days after his report of this outrage (I think he said outrage) got home; that the northerners might as well give up now,” etc., etc. The Confederate envoys, in their letter to Captain Wilkes, say that “it must be added here, omitted in the course of the narration, that before the party left the upper deck an officer of the Trent, named Williams, in the naval uniform of Great Britain, and known to the passengers as having charge of the mails and accompanying them to England, said to the lieutenant that, as the only person present directly representing his government, he felt called upon, in language as strong and as emphatic as he could express, to denounce the whole proceeding as a piratical act.”
Further than that, “nearly all the officers of the vessel showed an undisguised hatred for the northern people, and a sympathy for the Confederates. I will do the captain of the vessel the justice to say that he acted differently from the rest, being, when I saw him, very reserved and dignified. The officers and men of our party took no apparent notice of the remarks that were made, and acted with the greatest forbearance.”
However, in spite of the bluster and the determination of the envoys to go only when compelled to do so by force, the four were taken on board the American warship. The force used was not violence, of course. “Three officers laid their hands on an envoy, after which the envoy walked down a ladder to the boat.” It is conceded on all hands that Lieutenant Fairfax and his men acted in a manner entirely becoming to gentlemen of the navy.
Having taken the Confederate envoys, Captain Wilkes permitted the Trent to proceed on her voyage. He says:
“It was my determination to have taken possession of the Trent, and sent her to Key West as a prize, for resisting the search and carrying these passengers, whose character and objects were well known to the captain; but the reduced number of my officers and crew, and the large number of passengers on board, bound to Europe, who would be put to great inconvenience, decided me to allow them to proceed.”
It is worth noting, as illustrating the character of Wilkes and his officers, that they were absolutely certain that if they took the ship to Key West she would be sold as a good prize for a sum that would have given many thousand dollars to the San Jacinto’s crew. But for the sake of the convenience of the passengers, they allowed her to go on.
After the Trent started on her way to St. Thomas, the San Jacinto headed for Boston. “Why he did not go into New York or Hampton Roads, where he could have communicated with the Government, is unexplained, but the information of the capture was kept from the Department four days longer than it should have been.”