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than 1,000 miles from England, and was armed for war, not within the Queen's dominions, but either in Portuguese waters or on the high seas. The guns and ammunition, which were put on board of her off Terceira, had been procured and exported from England in an ordinary merchantsteamer, which loaded them as cargo, and sailed with a regular clearance for Nassau. The clearance and departure of this steamer presented, so far as Her Majesty's government is aware, no circumstance distinguishing her from ordinary blockade-runners. No information was ever given or representation made to the government as to this ship or her cargo before she left British waters; nor does it appear that the errand on which she was employed was known to or suspected by the officials of the United States. But, even had a suspicion existed that her cargo was exported with the intention that it should be used, either in the Confederate States or elsewhere, in arming a vessel which

had been unlawfully fitted in England for warlike employment, [88] this would not *have made it the duty of the officers of customs

to detain her or have empowered them to do so. Such a transaction is not a breach of English law, nor is it one which the British government was under any obligation to prevent. Whether the cargo was sent from the same port as the ship or from a different port, and by the same or different persons, is manifestly immaterial for this purpose. The distinction is plainly not such as to create in the one case a duty which would not arise in the other.

The Alabama was commissioned by the government of the Confederate States and officered by American citizens. Of the crew a considerable number were British subjects, who were induced by persuasion and promises of reward to take service in her when she was off Terceira. Others were American citizens, and the proportion which these bore to the rest increased during her cruise.

Her Majesty's government refrains, in the case of this vessel, as in that of the Florida, from pursuing in this place the complaints made respecting the subsequent admission of her into some of the colonial ports of Great Britain. It is said, indeed, in the Case of the United States, that Earl Russell promised Mr. Adams to send orders to Jamaica (which she visited in January, 1862) to detain her for a violation of British sovereignty, and that this promise was not kept; and that "Great Britain did not, as Earl Russell had promised, send out orders for her detention," is one of the grounds on which the United States ask an award against this country. Earl Russell gave no such promise. In a conversation with Mr. Adams, immediately after she left Liverpool, and at a time when her immediate destination was unknown, he is stated to have told the latter that he "should send directions to have her stopped, if she went, as was probable, to Nassau." Orders to this effect were, in fact, sent. But the contingency contemplated as probable did not occur; the ship, as has been seen, did not go to Nassau, but to Terceira; and when she first appeared in British waters she was a commissioned ship of war, and had been received as such in a French port, as she afterward was (notwithstanding the remonstrances of the United States) in ports of Brazil. It was not the duty of the British government or of any other neutral power to cause her to be seized and detained when she entered its ports in that character. She was received there under precisely the same conditions as vessels of war of the United States, and the imputation of partiality which is cast, in the Case of the United States, on the governor of the Cape Colony, is entirely devoid of foundation. Nor is it necessary to enter into the complaints laid before Her Majesty's government by Mr. Adams respecting

acts done by the commander of the Alabama on the high seas. Mr. Adams does not seem to have remembered that a sentence of condemnation is not necessary where there is no neutral interest in ship or cargo; nor that the practice of using false colors to approach an enemy is regarded in all navies as allowable, provided the true flag be hoisted before a shot is fired. Her Majesty's government is not, however, concerned to defend the conduct of the captain of the Alabama, when out of its jurisdiction, in these or any other particulars. Whatever it may have been, Great Britain is not responsible for it; and if it furnished any reason against the admission of his ship into British ports, it would have been equally valid against her reception in the ports of France and Brazil.

It will have been observed from the foregoing statement, as well as from the fuller narrative which Her Majesty's government has pre viously presented to the arbitrators, that the cases of the Florida and Alabama differ from one another in various more or less important par ticulars. But Her Majesty's government again submit that neither in respect of the Alabama nor in respect of the Florida is Great Britain chargeable with any failure of international duty for which reparation is due from her to the United States.

[89]

*PART VII.

THE GEORGIA AND SHENANDOAH.

Passing to the cases of the Georgia and Shenandoah, the tribunal has next to deal with two vessels, as to both of which it is PART VIL-The not only clear that the British government had not, before Georgia and Shenanthey respectively departed from its jurisdiction, any reason

doah.

able ground to believe that they were intended to cruise or carry on war against the United States, but it is also clear that they were not within its jurisdiction armed, fitted out, or equipped or specially adapted, either wholly or in part, to warlike use.

THE GEORGIA.

The Georgia.

66

and

The Georgia, as the arbitrators are aware, was a vessel built at Dumbarton, in Scotland, and sent to sea from the port of Greenock in April, 1863. She had undergone, when completed, the customary surveys by the proper officer of the port of Glasgow, is described by him as appearing to be intended for commercial purposes. Her frame-work and platings were of the ordinary sizes for vessels of her class. The tide-surveyor at Greenock, in like manner, saw nothing on board which could lead him to suspect that she was intended for war purposes." The collector at Greenock adds, from his own observation, that she "was not heavily sparred; indeed, she could not spread more canvas than an ordinary merchant-ship." In short, she was built, fitted up, and rigged as a ship of commerce, and not as a ship of war. Indeed, when the endeavor was afterward made to employ her as a cruiser, she was found upon trial to be not adapted for this purpose, and she was for that reason dismantled and sold before the end of the war, after having been at sea altogether about nine months. She was registered under the name of the Japan, in the name of a Liverpool merchant, and was entered outward, and cleared in the customary way, for a port of destination in the East Indies. She was advertised at the Sailors' Home in Liverpool as about to sail for Singapore; and her crew were hired for a voyage to Singapore or some intermediate port, and for a period of two years. The men, when they were hired, believed this to be the true destination of the ship, and her voyage to be a commercial .one; and they appear to have continued under this belief until after the vessel had arrived off the coast of France. The number of her crew appears, from depositions furnished on the part of the United States, to have been about fifty. In the Case of the United States a description of the ship is given, without referring to the evidence on which it is founded. She is described, in one of the depositions obtained and produced by Mr. Adams, as "an iron vessel, very slightly built." There

21 A-II

1 Appendix to British Case, vol. i, p. 404.

2 Appendix to Case of the United States, vol. vi, p. 512.

is no reason whatever to believe that when she sailed from Greenock she had a magazine, or that her cabins or interior fittings were of any unusual strength. She had on board joiners who were fitting up her cabins when she left her anchorage. She was, therefore, when she left this country, a ship to which the first three rules mentioned in the sixth article of the treaty would not apply; nor was she a ship with which Her Majesty's government were under any obligation to interfere, according to any known rule or principle of international law.1

The assertion is repeated in this case that the service for which the vessel was constructed was "notorious." In proof of this the arbitrators are furnished with two anonymous letters published in an English newspaper in February, 1863, one of which contained no reference whatever to this or any vessel building or supposed to be building for the Confederate States, while the other declared that upwards of fifty were being built for the government of those States, and mentioned a "fine

screw-steamer," lying in the Clyde and called the Virginia, as re[90] ported to be partly owned by the confederates and *partly by in

dividuals at Nassau; adding, "It is publicly announced that she is soon to be employed on the line between Nassau and Charleston." An anonymous letter, mentioning a report that a particular vessel was destined for a blockade-runner, and was partly owned by the confederate government and partly by private individuals at Nassau, is thus adduced as proof that it was notorious that the same vessel was intended for a confederate cruiser. "Her destination," it is added, " rendered it certain" that she was to carry on war against the United States. Her destination, as we have seen, was Singapore.

In this case again, as in others, the inquiry arises why no information of an enterprise described as having been so "notorious," and of such serious consequences to the United States, was furnished to Her Maj esty's government or to the local authorities by the United States consul on the spot, or by Mr. Adams. The latter, it subsequently appeared, had "long been in possession of information about the construction and outfit" of the ship; but "nothing had ever been furnished to him of a nature to take proceedings upon." At all events he remained perfectly silent till nearly a week after the vessel had sailed; and the arbitrators are now asked to decide that because the British government did not take, with respect to a vessel about which it was in entire ignorance, proceedings which Mr. Adams himself knew of no facts to support, Great Britain is guilty of a failure of international duty, and responsible for the consequences of it to the United States.

It is next made a matter of complaint that, when informed that the Georgia had sailed, the government did not send a ship of war in pur suit of her. "The sailing and destination of the Japan," it is said, "were so notorious as to be the subject of newspaper comment. No time, therefore, was required for that investigation. It could have been very little trouble to acertain the facts as to the Alar," (the merchantvessel which carried out for her arms, officers, and men.) "The answer to a telegram could have been obtained in a few minutes. Men-of-war might have been dispatched on the 8th from Portsmouth and Plymouth to seize these violaters of British sovereignty." "This was not done." The sole evidence produced in proof that the sailing and destination of the Japan were notorious on the 8th of April is an extract from a Liverpool paper published on the 9th, which mentioned a report that the ves

1 British Case, p. 122.

2 Case of the United States, pp. 392, 408; Appendix to ditto, vol. vi, p. 503.

sel was intended for the confederate service, and had sailed "for unknown destinations."

If recourse had been had to the navy, "it is probable," the arbitrators are told, "that the complaints of the United States might not have been necessary." They might have not been necessary if Mr. Adams had communicated in good time such information as he possessed, instead of keeping it undisclosed until six days after the sailing of the Georgia, and more than three days after the departure of the Alar, and if that information had tended to prove an actual or contemplated violation of the law. As it was, the intelligence of the departure of the Georgia, and the assertion (a bare assertion unsupported by any proof at all) that she was intended for the confederate service, were first communicated to the government on the 8th, coupled with the statement that "her immediate destination is Alderney, where she may be at this moment." That the Alar had sailed from Newhaven tor Alderney and Saint Malo was at this time known to the board of customs, though not known at the foreign office. "No investigation," the case proceeds, "was necessary." Mr. Adams's information ought to have been at once assumed to be right-though it was very frequently wrong, and indeed was materially erroneous in the present instance. The cargo and destination of the Alar might have been ascertained "by telegraph in a few minutes." Months had been insufficient, apparently, to enable Mr. Adams to acquaint himself with facts "of a nature to base proceedings on;" Her Majesty's government is to be allowed only a few minutes." The Alar, assumed to be putting to sea on a secret and illicit errand, would naturally, it appears to be supposed, leave the particulars of her cargo and true destination in the possession of the revenue officers at Newhaven. A vessel of war dispatched from Portsmouth or Plymouth on the 8th to Alderney (the place designated by Mr. Adams) would, it is further assumed, have been able to find the Georgia at Ushant, which is not less than 150 miles off and in a very different direction, and to find her before she left that coast on the 9th or 10th. Her Majesty's government must be permitted to observe that a celerity and activity of movement are by this hypothesis attributed to Her Majesty's ships which would be nothing less than extraordinary. But it seems, besides, to be forgotten that Ushant and its territorial waters are not within the dominions of Her Majesty. They are close to the coast of France, and within the dominions of that power; and, even if it had been the duty of the British Government to institute a pursuit on the high seas of vessels not shown to have committed any offense either against British law or against the law of nations, a seizure of them in French waters would have been as plain a violation of the sovereignty of [91] France, as that of the Chesapeake in December, 1863, *within the waters of Nova Scotia, by a United States cruiser, was a violation of the sovereignty of Great Britain. That an error had been committed in the latter case was acknowleged by the United States; the British government would certainly decline in a like case to commit a similar error.

But the arbitrators are already aware that the British authorities did the very thing which they were accused of not having done. Earl Russell did not order inquiries only; he did order action, A ship of war was in fact sent to Alderney, not indeed from Portsmouth or Plymouth, but from Guernsey, to prevent any attempt which might be made to

1 Case of the United States, p. 395.
2 Appendix to ditto, vol. vi, p. 50).

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