excite prejudice against him, and charged him with breaking the municipal law, and endangering the peace of France by taking part in an attempt to cause a violation of her neutral duties, the court gave judgment in his favour, and even compelled the United States to give security for the costs of the suit.

Mr. Slidell also had a personal interview with the Minister of Marine, about the 25th of June, 1864, and was informed by that functionary that the affair of our ships no longer appertained to his department, but had been referred to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, a proceeding which fulfilled the prediction I had ventured to make in regard to the action of the Imperial Government, should the Confederate cause appear to be losing ground at the time when the ships were near completion, an intimation which I made to the Navy Department in a despatch dated November 30th, 1863, which has been given already in this chapter.

My last report to the Secretary of the Navy on the subject of the attempt to build ships in France was dated August 25th, 1864, and concludes as follows:

'It would be superfluous for me to comment further upon the unfortunate termination of our French operations. I have laid all the circumstances connected with them fully before you. There was never any pretence of concealing them from the Emperor's Government, because they were undertaken at its instigation, and they have failed solely because the policy or intentions of the Emperor have been changed.'

The fortunes of war, it is well known, exercise a strong influence over the policy of neutrals, and there can be no doubt that the relative position of the two belligerents in America had greatly changed when the

Emperor of the French caused Mr. Slidell to be informed that it was no longer possible for him to remain quiescent, and that the Confederate ships in France must be sold to some other nation, as he could not permit them to go to sea, either armed or unarmed, unless the United States were satisfied in regard to their destination. There is no denying the fact that up to about midsummer of 1863, the Confederates were able to keep the Federal armies well at bay, and on several occasions Washington was in more danger of capture than Richmond, to wit, after the battle of Bull Run, the defeat of General McClellan on the Chickahominy, and of General Hooker at Chancellorsville. This is manifest from the panic created at the North by the fear of invasion at those times, and the alarm and uneasiness were forcibly exhibited in the telegraphic calls made by the authorities at Washington upon the Governors of the various Northern States, to hurry forward the militia for the defence of the capital, and the excited, urgent, well-nigh agonizing appeals of some of the Governors, notably Mr. Curtin, of Pennsylvania, and Andrews, of Massachusetts, to the courage and patriotism of the citizens in order to arouse their zeal.

In a volume entitled 'Report of the Secretary of the Navy in Relation to Armoured Vessels' (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1864), there appear a number of letters from official persons at Boston and New York, urgently beseeching the Secretary of the United States Navy, Mr. Gideon Welles, to place and maintain Monitors in those harbours for their protection. Under date of November 12th, 1862 (p. 596 of volume referred to), the Committee of the Boston Board of Trade called Mr. Welles's attention to the comparatively defenceless state of the harbour of Boston,' and added:

'In view of the recent reckless depredations of the piratical steamer Alabama, and her reported near proximity to our bay, and also the apparently well authenticated fact recently made public that powerful rams are now partially constructed in England to be used by the rebels in an attack upon our principal cities on the northern coast. . . . it cannot be regarded strange that this community should be pervaded by deep solicitude as to the absence of immediate means to make any adequate defence,' etc. The Committee express their unwillingness to embarrass the Government, or to make the claims of Boston harbour for protection unduly prominent,' but they nevertheless affirm that the harbour of the third commercial city in the Union ought no longer to be allowed by its weakness to invite the aggression of a desperate enemy.' The situation at Boston must have been alarming, and the Committee seem to have been determined to spur Mr. Gideon Welles's energies to the utmost. They were not content with stating the facts of the case, but they supplied him with the opinion of experts. 'It is believed by practical men' (they wrote) that through Broad Sound' (one of the principal entrances to this harbour) a reckless and daring piratical ironclad steamer might enter without serious injury and lay our city under contribution.'

Governor Morgan, in November, 1862 (p. 597), informed Mr. Welles that the municipal authorities of New York 'have already taken some measures for raising a fund to protect the harbour by private subscription.'

On November 18th, 1862, the Boston Marine Society took alarm (p. 598), and they backed the appeal of the Board of Trade by a still more urgent petition for protection. Their Committee wrote in the following terms: Our citizens are deeply concerned on the sub

ject, and look to the Government . . . . to make such arrangements as will afford that protection which shall allay their fears and anxieties.' In the same letter they made a statement which looks very like a confession that Boston had earned a special claim to a little retributive vengeance from the South. The statement is as follows: There are obvious reasons in the history and condition of the city of Boston which might tempt an audacious and ambitious foe to lay it under contribution or to waste the property of its people. . . . The applause with which such an act would be hailed by the enemies of the Union in the Southern States would nerve the invader to run the risk, while the moral effect abroad, should it be unfortunately successful, might be disastrous to the cause in which our country is engaged.'

When General Lee advanced into Maryland after defeating General Hooker at Chancellorsville, the panic at the North revived, and in June, 1863, General John E. Wool and Mr. George Opdyke, the Mayor of New York, again wrote most urgently to the Navy Department on the subject of the inadequate defences of that city. General Wool was at that time the Military Commander at New York, and on the 28th of June, 1863, he wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Navy (p. 604), which contains the following startling statements:The volunteers and militia of this city are being sent to Pennsylvania to aid in the defence of that State. We shall be at the mercy of any privateer that may think proper to assail this city. The temptation is indeed great, for the want of men to man the guns in the forts of the harbour.'

It appears manifest from the official appeals, reports, and statements of high civil and military functionaries who were charged with the care and protection of the

chief cities of the North, that for more than two years after the beginning of hostilities, those cities were harassed by an oppressive consciousness of danger, and that extreme efforts were necessary not wholly to capture Richmond, but to keep the so-called 'rebels' out of Pennsylvania. Although the full extent of the fears entertained by the Governors of some of the Northern States and the people of New York and Boston was not generally known abroad, yet all who read the accounts of the war perceived that the Federal Government had no mere rebellion to deal with; and during the year 1862, and even up to the middle of 1863, it was very generally believed in Europe that if the Southern ports could be kept open so as to admit a sufficient quantity of arms and other military supplies, the Confederate Government would be able to maintain a successful defence, and finally to win a separate and independent position.

If the rams built at Birkenhead had not been interfered with and then stopped by her Britannic Majesty's Government, they would have got to sea a month or two before the time when General Wool was impressing upon the United States Navy Department the defenceless condition of New York, and while Governor Curtin was appealing for help from all quarters to repel General Lee's threatened advance into Pennsylvania. The weak and accessible points along the Northern coast were well known to the Confederate naval authorities, and the Liverpool rams would have been sent to them, and there can scarcely be a shadow of doubt that they would have fulfilled in great part the predictions of General Wool and the Committee of the Boston Board of Trade.

The invitation to build ships in France was given during the period of successful resistance at the South, and of apparent doubt and trepidation at the North. It