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[549] nothing had been further from its intentions during the war than the “recognition” of the Confederate States. The demand was made as follows
The consequence of this menace was that the Messrs. Laird were forbidden to allow these vessels to leave their yard “without an ample explanation of their destination and a sustainable reference to the owner or owners for whom they are constructed.” It was outrageously held by Lord Russell that “Messrs. Laird were bound to declare-and sustain on unimpeachable testimony such declaration — the Governments for whom the steam rams have been built.” In other words, without an affidavit or other legal foundation for proceedings against them, these gentlemen were required to come forward and prove their innocence, a thing opposed to all the law of Coke and Blackstone, and practised for the first time in British dominions at the dictation of powers in Washington. We return to a brief chronicle of the cruise of the Alabama. She arrived at Porto Praya on the 19th August. Shortly thereafter Capt. Raphael Semmes assumed command. Hoisting the Confederate flag, she cruised and captured several vessels in the vicinity of Flores. Cruising to the westward, and making several captures, she approached within two hundred miles of New York; thence going southward, arrived, on the
1866.
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