Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between the States

by Raphael Semmes

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE LEGALITY OF THE EQUIPMENT OF THE ALABAMA, AND A FEW PRECEDENTS FOR HER CAREER, DRAWN FROM THE HISTORY OF THE WAR OF 1776.

Before I read my commission on the quarter-deck of the Alabama, I desire to say a word or two as to the legality of her equipment, and to recall to the recollection of the reader a few of the incidents of the war of the Revolution of 1776, to show how inconsistent our Northern brethren have been, in the denunciations they have hurled against that ship. Mr. Seward, the Federal Secretary of State, and Mr. Charles Francis Adams, who was the United States Minister at the Court of St. James, during the late war between the States, have frequently lost their temper, when they have spoken of the Alabama, and denounced her as a “pirate.” In cooler moments, when they come to read over the intemperate despatches they have been betrayed into writing, they will probably be ashamed of them themselves; since these despatches not only contradict the truth of history, and set at defiance the laws of nations, but stultify themselves in important particulars.

Great stress has been laid, by both of these gentlemen, on the foreign origin of the Alabama, forgetting entirely, not only what was done by their ancestors in the war of 1776, but what was attempted to be done by Mr. Gideon Welles, their own Secretary of the Navy, in the year of grace 1861. I will refresh their memories on both these points, and first, as to the latter. Mr. Welles attempted to do, nothing more nor less than the Confederate States Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Mallory, did in the matter of building the Alabama—that is to say, he endeavored to build some Alabamas in England himself, but failed! This little episode in the history of the Federal Navy Department is curious, and worthy of being preserved as a practical commentary on so much of the despatches of Messrs. Seward and Adams, as relates to the foreign origin of my ship. The facts were published soon after their occurrence, and have not been, and cannot be denied. They were given to the public by Mr. Laird, the gentleman who built the Alabama, and who was the party with whom the Federal Navy Department endeavored to treat.

Mr. Laird was a member of the British Parliament, and having been abused, without stint, as an aider and abettor of “pirates,” by the Northern newspapers, as soon as it became known that he was the builder of the Alabama, he made a speech in the House of Commons, in defence of himself, in the course of which he stated the fact I have charged, to wit: that Mr. Welles endeavored to make a contract with him, for building some Federal Alabamas. Here is so much of his speech as is necessary to establish the charge:—“In 1861,” said he, “just after the war broke out, a friend of mine, whom I have known for many years, was over here, and came to me with a view of getting vessels built in this country, for the American Government—the Northern Government. Its agent in this country made inquiries; plans and estimates were given to my friend, and transmitted to the Secretary of the American Navy. I will read an abstract from this gentleman’s letter, dated the 30th of July, 1861. It is written from Washington, and states:—‘Since my arrival here, I have had frequent interviews with our Department of Naval Affairs, and am happy to say that the Minister of the Navy is inclined to have an iron-plated ship built out of the country. This ship is designed for a specific purpose, to accomplish a definite object. I send you, herewith, a memorandum handed me last evening from the Department, with the request that I would send it to you, by steamer’s mail of to-morrow, and ask your immediate reply, stating if you will agree to build such a ship as desired, how soon, and for how much, with such plans and specifications as you may deem it best to send me.’ The extract from the memorandum states, that the ship is to be finished complete, with guns and everything appertaining. On the 14th of August, I received another letter from the same gentleman, from which the following is an extract:—‘I have this morning a note from the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, in which he says, “I hope your friends will tender for the two iron-plated steamers.”’ After this, the firm with which I was lately connected, having made contracts to a large extent with other persons, stated that they were not in a condition to undertake any orders to be done in so short a time. This was the reply:—‘I sent your last letter, received yesterday, to the Secretary of the Navy, who was very desirous to have you build the iron-plated or bomb-proof batteries, and I trust that he will yet decide to have you build one or more of the gun-boats.’

“I think, perhaps, in the present state of the law in America, I shall not be asked to give the name of my correspondent, but he is a gentleman of the highest respectability. If any honorable member wishes, I shall have no objection in handing the whole correspondence, with the original letters, into the hands of you, sir, [the Speaker of the House,] or of the First Minister of the Crown, in strict confidence, because there are communications in these letters, respecting the views of the American Government, which I certainly should not divulge, and which I have not mentioned or alluded to before. But, seeing the American Government are making so much work about other parties, whom they charge with violating or evading the law, when, in reality, they have not done so, I think it only fair to state these facts.”

It thus appears that the Government of the United States preceded us in the English market, having endeavored, a whole year before the Alabama was built, to contract with Mr. Laird for the building of iron-plated, and other ships, and that the only reason why the contract was not made, was, that Mr. Laird had taken already so much work in hand, that he could not take “any new orders, to be done in so short a time”—as that prescribed by Mr. Welles, for it seems that he was in a hurry. The explanation probably is, that we had offered Mr. Laird better terms than Mr. Welles, and this is the only reason why the Alabama was a Confederate, instead of a Federal ship! This speech of Mr. Laird caused no little merriment in the House of Commons, for, as before remarked, the Federal press, knowing nothing of these secret transactions between Mr. Welles and Mr. Laird, had been denouncing the latter for building the Alabama, in the coarse and offensive language to which, by this time, it had become accustomed. The disclosures could not but be ludicrous.

To dispose, now, of Mr. Seward’s objection, that the Alabama was foreign-built. The reader will see, in a moment, that there is nothing in this objection, when he reflects that a ship of war, in the light in which we are considering her, is a personification, and not a mere material thing. If her personification be true, and unobjectionable, it matters not of what materials she may be composed, whence those materials may have been drawn, or where they may have been fashioned. It is the commission which a sovereign puts on board a ship, that causes her to personify the sovereign power, and it is obviously of no importance how the sovereign becomes possessed of the ship. It can make no difference to other nations, so far as her character of ship of war is concerned, whether she is fashioned out of the pines of Norway, or of Florida, or whether the copper on her bottom comes from Lake Superior or Peru; or, finally, whether Englishmen, or Frenchmen, or Americans shall have put her frame together, in either of their respective countries. Even if she be built, armed, and equipped in neutral territory, in plain violation of the neutral duty of that territory, she is purged of this offence, so far as her character of ship of war is concerned, the moment she reaches the high seas, and is commissioned.

To apply this reasoning to the Alabama. If it be true, as stated by Mr. Seward, that she was built in England, in violation of the neutrality of that country, this might have subjected her to detention by England, or it might have raised a question between the United States and England; but the ship, having once escaped, and been commissioned, her origin is necessarily lost sight of, and neither England nor any other country can afterward inquire into it. Indeed, there can be no principle of the laws of nations plainer than this, that when a ship is once commissioned by a sovereign power, no other power can look into the antecedents of the ship. From the moment that her commission is read on her quarter-deck, she becomes the personification of the sovereign power, and the sovereign avows himself responsible for all her acts. No one of these acts can be impeached on the ground, that antecedently to her becoming a ship of war, she committed some offence against the laws of nations, or against the municipal law of some particular nation.

This point was settled years before our war, by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of the Santissima Trinidad. It was alleged that that ship had been fitted out in the United States, in violation of the neutrality laws—during a war between Spain and her colonies—and the question arose whether this invalidated her commission, as a ship of war. Mr. Justice Story delivered the opinion of the court, in the course of which he said:—