In the summer
of 1861, Jefferson Davis tested the neutrality of the British. He sent a naval
officer, one James D. Bulloch (Secret Service of the Confederate States), to
England for the object of procuring warships and naval supplies in the ports of
Great Britain. Bullock procured eminent counsel, who submitted a series of
propositions in interpretation of these laws. The law to be interpreted was the
Act of Parliament of the 59th George III, chapter 69, entitled, in common
parlance, the Foreign Enlistment Act. Its exact title was “an Act to Prevent
the enlistment or engagement of His Majesty’s subjects to serve in foreign
service, and the fitting out or equipping in his Majesty’s dominion of vessels
for warlike purposes:’ and its seventh section provided that “if any person
within the United Kingdom should equip, furnish, fit our, or arm, or attempt or
endeavour to equip, furnish, etc. or procure to be equipped, etc, or should
knowingly aid, assist, or be concerned with equipping, etc., with intent that
such ship should be employed in the service of any foreign state, etc., as a
transport or store ship, or with intent to cruise or commit hostilities against
any state, etc. should be guilty of a misdemeanour.” These learned British
lawyers advised him that it was no offence, under the act, for British subjects
to fit out and equip a vessel outside of Her Majesty’s dominions, if it were
not with a warlike intent against a friendly state to Great Britain; that the
mere building of a ship within Her Majesty’s dominions by any person was no
offence, under the act, no matter what might be the intent with which it was
done. Furthermore, they drew the conclusion that “any shipbuilder may build any
ship in Her Majesty’s dominions, provided he does not equip her purchasers done
within Her Majesty’s dominions without his concurrence, or without Her
Majesty’s dominions even with his concurrence.” Armed with this legal option
from high authority, Mr. Bulloch found little difficulty on persuading the
shipbuilders on the Mersey and Clyde to undertake the construction of
war-vessels for the Confederate navy. In truth, there would have been little
problem in convincing the British shipbuilders to agree to the construction of
privateers for the Confederacy without such eminent legal authority. The
history of Britain and British industry was ample proof that profits would
control their decisions.
. . .
By June 1862,
there were plans already drawn, and contracts made with the Laird Brothers at
Liverpool, for the building of two vessels far more dangerous than the Alabama
to the Northern cause. These were the so-called Laird rams. They were to be
two hundred and thirty feet long, have a beam of forty feet, be armoured with
four and one-half inch iron plate to be provided with a “piercer” at the prow,
about seven feet long and of great strength. This “piercer” would be three feet
under the surface of the water. This was the distinguishing feature of the two
ships; it was unusual construction, nearly impossible for us in an ordinary battle
at sea, but highly dangerous to wooden ships maintaining a close blockade at
Southern ports. (Alfred
Grant, The American Civil War and the British Press [Jefferson, N.C.:
McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, 2000], 82-83)
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