In January, 1863, the Alabama had fought the side-wheel steamer Hatteras, of the United States Navy, off Galveston, Tex., and injured her so that she sank soon after surrendering. The remainder of the Alabama's career, till she met the Kearsarge, had been spent in capturing merchant vessels and either burning them or releasing them under bonds. Before Captain Semmes received command of the Alabama, he had cruised in the Sumter on a similar mission, capturing eighteen vessels, when her course was ended in the harbor of Gibraltar, in February, 1862, where she was blockaded by the United States steamers Kearsarge and Tuscarora, and, as there was no probability that she could escape to sea, her captain and crew abandoned her.
A score of other Confederate cruisers roamed the seas, to prey upon United States commerce, but none of them became quite so famous as the Sumter and the Alabama. They included the Shenandoah, which made thirty-eight captures; the Florida, which made thirty-six; the Tallahassee, which made twenty-seven; the Tacony, which made fifteen; and the Georgia, which made ten. The Florida was captured in the harbor of Bahia, Brazil, in October, 1864, by a United States man-of-war, in violation of the neutrality of the port. For this the United States Government apologized to Brazil, and ordered the restoration of the Florida to the harbor where she was captured. But in Hampton Roads she met with an accident and sank. It was generally believed that the apparent accident was contrived with the connivance, if not by direct order, of the Government.
Most of these cruisers were built in British shipyards; and whenever they touched at British ports, to obtain supplies and land prisoners, their commanders were ostentatiously welcomed and lionized by the British merchants and officials.
The English builders were proceeding to construct several swift iron-clad cruisers for the Confederate Government, when the United States Government protested so vigorously that the British Government prevented them from leaving port. One or two passages from Secretary Seward's despatches to Charles Francis Adams, the American minister at London, contain the whole argument that was afterward elaborated before a high court of arbitration, and secured a verdict against England. More than this, these passages contain what probably was the controlling reason that determined England not to try the experiment of intervention. Secretary Seward wrote, under date of October 5-6, 1863:
"I have had the honor to receive and submit to the President your despatch of the 17th of September, which relates to the iron-clad vessels built at Laird's shipyards for war against the United States, which is accompanied by a very interesting correspondence between yourself and Earl Russell. The positions you have taken in this correspondence are approved. It is indeed a cause of profound concern, that, notwithstanding an engagement which the President has accepted as final, there still remains a doubt whether those vessels will be prevented from coming out, according to the original hostile purposes of the enemies of the United States residing in Great Britain.
"Earl Russell remarks that her Majesty's Government, having proclaimed neutrality, have in good faith exerted themselves to maintain it. I have not to say now for the first time, that, however satisfactory that position may be to the British nation, it does not at all relieve the gravity of the question in the United States. The proclamation of neutrality was a concession of belligerent rights to the insurgents, and was deemed by this Government as unnecessary, and in effect as unfriendly, as it has since proved injurious, to this country. The successive preparations of hostile naval expeditions in Great Britain are regarded here as fruits of that injurious proclamation.... It is hardly necessary to say that the United States stand upon what they think impregnable ground, when they refuse to be derogated, by any act of British Government, from their position as a sovereign nation in amity with Great Britain, and placed upon a footing of equality with domestic insurgents who have risen up in resistance against their authority.
| OPENING OF THE FIGHT BETWEEN THE "KEARSARGE" AND THE "ALABAMA." |
"It does not remain for us even to indicate to Great Britain the serious consequences which must ensue if the iron-clads shall come forth upon their work of destruction. They have been fully revealed to yourself, and you have made them known to Earl Russell, within the restraints which an honest and habitual respect for the Government and the people of Great Britain imposes. It seems to me that her Majesty's Government might be expected to perceive and appreciate them, even if we were henceforth silent upon the subject. When our unhappy civil war broke out, we distinctly confessed that we knew what great temptations it offered to foreign intervention and aggression, and that in no event could such intervention or aggression be endured. It was apparent that such aggression, if it should come, must travel over the seas, and therefore must be met and encountered, if at all, by maritime resistance. We addressed ourselves to prepare the means of such resistance. We have now a navy, not, indeed, as ample as we proposed, but yet one which we feel assured is not altogether inadequate to the purposes of self-defence, and it is yet rapidly increasing in men, material, and engines of war. Besides this regular naval force, the President has asked, and Congress has given him, authority to convert the mercantile marine into armed squadrons, by the issue of letters of marque and reprisal. All the world might see, if it would, that the great arm of naval defence has not been thus invigorated for the mere purpose of maintaining a blockade, or enforcing our authority against the insurgents; for practically they have never had an open port, or built and armed, nor could they from their own resources build and arm, a single ship-of-war.
"Thus the world is left free to understand that our measures of maritime war are intended to resist maritime aggression, which is constantly threatened from abroad and even more constantly apprehended at home. That it would be employed for that purpose, if such aggression should be attempted, would seem certain, unless, indeed, there should be reason to suppose that the people do not in this respect approve of the policy and sympathize with the sentiments of the executive Government. But the resistance of foreign aggression by all the means in our power, and at the hazard, if need be, of the National life itself, is the one point of policy on which the American people seem to be unanimous and in complete harmony with the President.