CHAPTER II.

Misconception by the United States of the attitude of the English and French Governments.-Repurchase of the Sphinx from Denmark.-Precarious condition of the Confederate Cause at that period. Correspondence concerning the despatch of the Stonewall (Sphinx) from Copenhagen in conjunction with the City of Richmond from London.-The Stonewall's challenge to the United States ships Niagara and Sacramento.-Surrender of the Stonewall to the Cuban Government at the end of the War.-Her subsequent delivery to the United States.

FROM the contents of the preceding chapter, it will be perceived that the French Imperial Government wholly changed its attitude of tacit encouragement to the Confederate States just at the time when the secret pledges were ripe for effective fulfilment, and when the possession of the ships built under cover of official connivance might have supplied a great and pressing need, and would have measurably increased the power of the Southern States to continue the unequal contest.

One of the strangest features in the retrospect of these Confederate operations in Europe is the evidence we have of the misapprehension of the United States in regard to the feeling of the two great maritime PowersEngland and France-towards the American belligerents. In the diplomatic correspondence of the United States during the war there often appear commendatory ac

knowledgments of the friendly neutrality of France and other Continental Powers, and in the Case of the United States' presented to the Tribunal of Arbitration at Geneva, the proceedings against M. Arman's vessels are cited as a proof of the fidelity with which the Imperial Government maintained the neutrality which it imposed upon its subjects.' Her Britannic Majesty's Government, on the contrary, is denounced by Mr. Seward for its partiality to the Confederate States, and is charged in both the official despatches and in 'the Case' with the gravest offences against international law and neutral duties, and the complaints and insinuations were often expressed in such offensive language, and were sometimes so personal, that in reading them now it is impossible to suppress a feeling of surprise that they were borne so meekly, and answered with so much forbearance.

Whether the Government of the United States ever suspected the secret encouragement which the Emperor of the French gave to the South, does not appear in the printed correspondence, and cannot be now known. What Mr. Seward and the compiler of the Case' commended, was the prompt, energetic action of the Imperial Government at the critical moment, and they probably cared very little about the original promises or intimations to Mr. Slidell, even if those promises were known to them. The indignation, one might even say the contempt, with which they speak of the British Government of that date, appears to have been the outcome, not of animosity against Great Britain, but of irritation produced by the vacillation of her Majesty's Ministers.

If General Lee had won the battle of Gettysburgh and had been able to hold the line of the Potomac through the winter of 1863-64, and if, meanwhile, affairs had

gone on smoothly with Bazaine and the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico, the answer to Mr. Dayton in reference to the Arman ships would have been very different to the reply which was actually given, and Mr. Seward was no doubt conscious of that probability. He knew that there would be a decided answer to a categorical demand one way or the other, and that official action would be prompt and effective, and he was impressed with the respect which energy and promptness in action always inspire, whatever the motive.

The Confederate Government had greater cause to complain of the uncertain and hesitating policy of the British Ministry than that of the United States, because the injury to the former was far greater than to the latter; but I can find nothing in the despatches of Mr. Secretary Mallory, or in any other official document from Richmond, approaching to the acrimony of Mr. Seward's angry expostulations.

It has been impossible to give a clear and comprehensive account of the Confederate operations in England without pointing out and demonstrating the deceptive character of British neutrality during the American Civil War; but I have not confounded the disappointment which resulted from vacillation with the chagrin and vexation which was provoked by a broken pledge. It has been necessary to comment upon the difference between the neutral duties of Great Britain, as expounded by several Cabinet Ministers, and the manner in which they were practised by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but no responsible Confederate authority has ever intimated that her Majesty's Government held out the least hope that anything would be permitted which was not in accordance with law, and with the conditions of the Queen's Proclamation of Neutrality.

If the Confederate States had gained their independence, the only complaint they could have urged against Great Britain would have been somewhat in this form: -You called attention to your municipal law, and announced the purpose to maintain a strict and impartial neutrality. You warned us not to infringe the specified statute, nor to expect any favour which would imply a departure from your neutral duties; but in point of fact you "strained the law "* against our agents, and as regards your declaration of neutrality, you practically helped our enemy by restricting our means of getting supplies, which were freely furnished to him.' The case against France would have been very different, say in this form:-'We had not the least purpose to come to you for the supply of our special wants. We preferred to use the dockyards of England, and to rely upon the manifest meaning of British law and the constitutional mode of applying it, than upon the personal feeling of the highest persons in the State; but you invited us to come to you, gave us pledges, and even suggested the pretence upon which the apparent purpose

of

your neutral declarations might be evaded. Then at the critical moment you withdrew the promises, and acted just as if you were repelling an infringement of your neutral rights, giving us a diplomatic repulse, whose sting was not softened by the pleasant and sympathetic phrases in which it was communicated to us.'

The Confederate Government fully comprehended this difference between the conduct of England and France, and Mr. Mallory's despatches on the subject comment upon the hostility of the United States to the Mexican policy of the Imperial Government, and the improbability of that hostility being in the least degree modified by

* Vide speech of Solicitor-General quoted in another chapter..

the suppression of M. Arman's efforts to supply the Confederate Navy Department with a fleet of ships.

The desire to retain a hold upon the French ships was so great that every possible plan was suggested and discussed. Mr. Slidell even had private unofficial interviews with one or two of the Ministers, with the purpose to obtain leave to complete the vessels leisurely, on the condition that no attempt should be made to remove them from the ports of construction without special permission, or until the end of the war. The object was to maintain such a lien upon the vessels that we could regain possession of them if circumstances should at any time induce the Imperial Government to return to its original policy of encouragement to the South. Some concessions were offered to Mr. Slidell which had at first a hopeful appearance, but the ultimate conditions attached to them were found upon reflection to be impracticable; and meanwhile the builders had gone so far in fulfilling the peremptory orders to sell, that the vessels were no longer within their unlimited control.

About the 1st of August, 1864, all efforts to come to any arrangement with the Government were abandoned, and we had the mortification to know that officers and agents of those who had bought the ships were superintending their completion. When the corvettes and the rams built at Bordeaux were sold to Prussia and Denmark, those Powers were at war about the SchleswigHolstein Provinces, and during an armistice the Prussian ships were, I believe, hurried off to their destination. M. Arman reported this to me at the time. I continued to keep up communication with M. Arman, because he had promised that if any change in the progress of the Prusso-Danish War should induce either of the purchasers to dispose of one or more of the ships, I might again get possession.