The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-16 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 16, 1864.

Sheerness Steam Reserve, has been appointed tender
to the Trafalgar, 72, screw steamship, 2,700 tons,
500 horse power. Captain Charles F. Schomberg,
coastguard ship at Queen's Ferry, in the Firth of
Forth, in the place of the Mistletoe, now at Sheer-
ness, which requires extensive repairs.
The half-yearly examination of engineers and
assistant engineer students belonging to the factory,
was held in the dockyard on Monday, Tuesday, and
yesterday, under the superintendence of the Rev,
Roland Wilson, dockyard chaplain, Mr W. Rumble,
inspector of machinery afloat, and Mr R. S. Crock-
ford, instructor of engineers and engineer students
at Sheerness. Fortyaflve engineer officers and 36
engineer students were present at the examination.
Papers of questions prepared by the Rev. J. Wool-
ley, LL.D., one of her Majesty's inspectors of
schools, were given in geography, English graoraar
and composition, French, arithmetic, al&e:ora, geo-
metry, trigonometry, statics, dynamics, hydrosta-
tics, chemistry, and on the steam engine.
The Lords of the Admiralty have ordered the
Caledonia, 35, iron-cased screw steamship, 4,124
tons, 1,000 horse power, Mr Henry S, Ley, master
in charge, now at Sheerness, to be taken to Ply-
mouth to be docked and brought forward for com-
mission in consequence of there not being a dock
large enough to take the vessel at Sheerness. The
Caledonia will leave Sheerness about the Ist of July.

helpless honesty. I am amused when I hear foreign
travellers wondering at the rashness of silversmiths
and jewellers laying their wares so openly on the
most crowded thoroughfares, and imagining how
the eyes of the nimble-fingered gentry of other
countries would gloat upon the glittering display,
and how their mouths would water ! The Dane
has no belief in thieving, and his faith makes him
proof against.

The Alabama and her Prizes,

TO THE EDITOR OF Tar ilmEs.
Sir,—Do me the fa7-unr to publish in the Times
the enclosed ee:Limunication, which I design as a
reply to numerous assaults upon me by the English
Pr,ss—not excepting an occasional " rumble" from
yourselves—on the subject of my
destroying prizes
at sea without adjudication by a Prize Court. The
London Evening Sear and kindred negrophilist
associates have been particularly virulent and abu-
sive. The term "pirate" is a favourite epithet with
them ; but as abuse is always evidence of the weak-
ness of the cause in which it is employed, and as
this little failing may be a sort of vocabulistic neces
sthemho pursue their polite
calling,
perhaps
ought
not to quarrel with it.
If
hecourse enableofray
remarks I have found it
necessary to review 80133 e of the acts of your Govern-
n
Will give me credit for doing
and fair play, and not with
this
e r mi n e
a n
spiritt ,
ou
f s
justice
u yonsne
a disposition to be querulous or censorious. I have
alleged no fact that will not be conceded, and if my
reasoning upon the premises be sound, no harm can
have been done to any one, sicce truth is never un.
the reasoning be unsound,
jyuosut .
have If, o
the
teh
probe
contrary,robe a c
apel at hand.nd
I am respectfully, &c.,
R. SEMMES, Capt, Confederate States' Navy.
Confederate States' Sieamer Alabama, on the
High Seas,April, 1864.

THE REASONS 'WHY CONFEDERATE CRUISERS BURN
THEIR PRIZES, AND THE REMEDY.
I had the honour to comroand the first vessel of war (the
steamer Sumter) commissioned by the Confederate States
in the present war, and, having successfully run the
blockade of New Orleans and got to sea, it early became
necessary for me to adopt some mode of disposing of my
prizes. A blockade of the entire coast of the Confederate
States had already been declared, and the enemy was busy
in collecting and arming ships to enforce it ; and I presumed
that in the course of a few months the blockade would be at
least sufficient to keep out sail vessels, and of this class,
with rare exceptions, it was probable my prizes would be.
It was clear, therefore, that I should be effectually prevented
from sending my prizes into the Confederate ports. Up to
the time of my running the blockade (June 30, 1861) I had
not seen her Britannic Majesty's Orders in Council pro-
hibiting the belligerents from bringing their prizes into
British ports; and looking to the unequal oleration of
such orders, I had strong hopes that none such would be
issued. I made my first prizes on the coast of Cuba, and
with a view to test the disposition of Spain in this matter I
sent them—seven in number—into the port of Cienfuegos.
Their arrival was telegraphed to the Captain-General at
Havannah. The Captain-General was without instructions,
the orders of neutrality of the Queen of Spain not yet
having been received. The prizes were permitted to remain
until these orders should arrive. The orders came, and the
prizes were afterwards illegally handed over to the enemy,
instead of being warned to depart. Spain, as well as
France, had followed the lead of Great Britain, and in due
time all the smaller commercial nations did the same. To
show the objects I had in view in sending in these prizes, I
quote below an extract from coy letter to the Governor of
Cienfuegos :
" The cargoes of several of these vessels are claimed, as
appears by certificates found among the papers, as Spanish
property. This fact cannot, of course, be verified, except
by a judicial proceeding in the Prize Courts of the Confede-
rate States. But while this fact is being determined, what
is to be done with the property ? I have the right to destroy
the vessels, but not the cargoes, in case the latter should
prove to be, as claimed, Spanish property; but how can I
destroy the former and not the latter 11 I cannot before sen-
tence unlade the cargoes and deliver them to the claimants,
for I do not know that the claims will be sustained; and I
cannot destroy the cargoes, for I do not know that the claims
will not be sustained. Indeed, one of the motives which
influenced me in seeking a Spanish port was the fact that
these cargoes were claimed by Spanish subjects, whom I
am desirous of putting to as little inconvenience as possible
in the unlading and reception of their property after sen-
tence, in case it should be restored to them,"
It will thus be seen that I was not only anxious to condemn
my prizes, but to put neutrals to as little inconvenience as
possible. It any prizes had been received into neutral ports,
and permitted to remain there until they could be adjudi-
cated by our Prize Courts, sitting in our own territory, no
possible inconvenience that I can perceive could have re-
suited to neutral nations, and the rights of every ono would
have been secured—the right of the captor to the full benefit
of his prize, and the right of the neutral claimant to adjudi-
cation. What inconvenience to Great Britain, for example.,
could possibly have grown out of the feet of a captured
vessel lying quietly at her duck in the port of Liverpool in
charge of a ship-keeper and prize agent until she mid be
adjudicated ; and if he should be condemned, why could she
not have been sold as quietly at public auction as if she had
been seized and sold under an execution for debt ? It was
my intention to follow the precedent set in the Cienfuegos
case—of sending all my prizes into the most convenient ports
for the parties concerned ; as, where there were English
Claimants, into English ports; French claimants, into French
ports, &c. ; but this intention was frustrated, as has been
seen, by the orders of the Queen's Government—l say the
Queen's Government, because that Government gave the
cue which was followed by the other nations. By these
orders I was deprived at the same time the right of
asylum and sale of my prizes and of the power of adjudica-
tion. What course was expected of me under these circum-
stances ? 'Was it expected that I would abandon the right
of capture altogether, or that I would be guilty of the
child's play of capturing the enemy's ships with ono hand
and releasing them with the other ? that, in short, I would
retire from the high seas, and leave the enemy to pursue his
commerce, his "innocent and peaceable commerce," as Mr
Adams plaintively and naively calls it, without molestation ?
If you did not suppose this--and I will not impute such
folly to a people who not only know the value of commerce
to a belligerent, but who have always annihilated the com-
merce of their enemies in their own wars—you must have
know that I would destroy the enemy's ships in every case
where it was possible. Why then do you complain of the
course I pursued ? Was it just to force that course upon me,
and then exclaim aganst it in pious horror ? Is this the
kind of fair play upon which Englishmen pride tnemselves ?
But your neutrality, you say, compelled you to this course.
Let us see how that is. What is neutrality ? Impartiality.
Impartiality in form or appearance merely, or impartiality
in substance ? When a nation is called upon in good faith
to perform that most solemn act of declaring her impartiality
between two belligerents is a mere jugglery of words all that
is necessary, or must she look at the practical consequences
of the rule she adopts. To this query there would seem to
be but one answer. The rule must not only speak in the
language of justice, but it must work out the ends of justice.
Otherwise it is a sham and a deceit. Let us test the orders
of British neutrality by this canon. On their face nothing
could be more fair. Whatever is ordained as to the one
belligerent is ordained as to the other. The prizes of both
belligerents are prohibited from entering British waters.
But when these orders were penned what facts and what
consequences were in the mind of the Minister ? Did he or
did he not know that he was dealing
a staggering blow at
the Confederate States at the same time that he was playing i
directly into the hands of the Federal States? Let us see

It will be admitted that the two belligerents had the right
to use against each other all the modes of warfare recog-
nised by the international code, and that no nation had the
right to prohibit to either of them the use of any of those
modes. Privateering was one of those modes, and the cir-
cumstances of the two parties to the war were such that this
mode of offence was peculiarly valuable to the Confederate
States. The Federal States had a large commerce and a
very respectable navy, they having retained possession of
all the ships of war of the old service, while the Confederate
States had little or no commerce, and were just beginning to
improvise a navy. (And here it may not be out of place to
mention a fact highly creditable to the parties concerned

—every ship of war in the command of a Southern naval
officer at the date of the secession of his State was duly
handed over to the Federal Government before the officer
resigned his commission and returned to his State). A
large proportion of the wealth of the Federal States con-
sisted in their commerce, and if this could be destroyed an
important blow would be struck in the war. Tho Volun-
teer Corps of the sea—as legitimate as the Volunteer
Corps of the land—was the most effective weapon with
which to strike this blow, and accordingly in the first days
of the war several privateers were commissioned, and others
were being rapidly fitted out, when the Queen's orders
appeared and knocked the whole scheme on the head. As
if by magic, tho privateers which had already been com-
missioned disappeared from the seas, and all work was sus-
pended on those in course of preparation, and the little
Sumter, afterwards assisted by two or three other small
vessels, was obliged to undertake the task of destroying a
commerce second only to that of Great Britain, and which
covered every sea. The reason of the disappearance of these
private armed ships is obvious. They are prepared at the
cost of individuals, and depend upon their captures for
success. If these cannot be made available the enterprise
becomes abortive, and the capital invested in it is sunk;
and they could not be made available by reason of the
Queen's orders referred to denying them the right of asylum
in British ports, the British Foreign Secretary well know-
ing that they could not be made available in the Confederate
ports because of the blockade, the blockade having been
proclaimed on the 16th April, 1861, and the orders in Coun-
cil not having been issued until the Ist of the following June.
So far as results Were concerned the British Government

might as well have said to the Confederate States, in the
word of the Declaration of Paris, " Privateering is mid re-
mains abolished," although the said States were not bound
by the said declaration, the United States, then the Federal
mouthpiece, having declined to accede thereto before the

war,

There was no occasion for Mr Seward to endeavour to
sneak into this declaration after the war, in the hope that
by becoming a party to it Great Britain would illogically
hold that the Confederate States, now acknowledged as bel-
ligerents, would be bound by the act of their enemy. The
British Foreign Secretary knew his business better than
this. With the most commendable sagacity he took care of
his logic and his friend Mr Seward at the same time, and
accomplished the object of the Federal Government by his
orders in Council, without permitting its Minister to humi-
liate himself.
This was one result of the declaration of neutrality—An-
y/ice partiality—put forth by Great Britain. But the mis-
chief did not end here. The Confederate States being com-
pelled to restrict their operations upon the high seas to their
ships of war, those ships were also seriously embarrassed by
this declaration. Their inability to adjudicate their prizes
has already been referred to. As a consequence of this ina-
bility they could make no beneficial use of them. Not only
so, they were compelled in many instances to release them on
ransom bond for the benefit of neutrals—that is to say, to
give neutral claimants of cargoes an opportunity after the
war, when the bonds should be sued upon, to vindicate their
claims in a court of justice, which opportunity their own
Governments had denied to them during the war byrendering
it impossible for them to gu before a Confederate price court.
The release of these vessels operated strongly, too, in favour
of the enemy. For it amounted to a loan to him of so
-much property, of which ho had been rightfully deprived.
with which to carry on the war—his bonds in the meantime
being of no use to the captors, as it was impossible to col-
lect them until after the war. This double mischief, there-
fore, ensued in these bond cases—the enemy continued to
carry on his commerce, and commerce to a belligerent is
strength; while the captor's means, quoad the war, were
not increased by his captures. The reader will now see why
as few of these ships as possible were released on bond, the
release being confined to those cases in.which an apparent
bona file natural claim was presented on the face of pro-
perly prepared papers, Nevertheless, to show the good
faith with which the captor must have acted towards neu-
trals in this matter, every ship destroyed by him was so
much property destroyed against his own interest—for the
ship being destroyed, no prize money could be realised,
whereas the bond would be valuable to him at the end of
war. And although it was to be presumed that every officer
would, from a sense of duty, destroy as many of his prizes
as possible, yet we see that at least he had no private inte-
rest to urge him to destroy them when there was a question
of neutral rights, his leaning being, in fact, the other way.
Tnis, then, is the working of those British orders in
Council which, on the face of them, appear to be entirely
unexceptionable. Stripping off the diplomatic disguise of
language, which is so thin and transparent that the wonder
is that it should have been resorted to at all with the hope i
of concealment—more unjust, oppressive, and unneutral
orders could not have been devised. It' the practical effect
of these orders is euoh as I have stated, what excuse can be
offered for adopting them ? Can it be said that no other
course was open to the British Government under the laws
of nations ? If so, that would be a sufficient excuse—for
where a Government has no alternative it would certainly be
unjust to bold it responsible for all the consequential damages
of its acts. It might be said with truth, in reply to our com-
plaints, " We were obliged, under the laws of nations, re-
gulating and controlling our neutrality, to exclude your
prizes from our ports ; and, if by reason of your inferior
naval force, and the consequent blockade of your ports, the
rule operates more harshly upon you than upon the enemy,
that is your misfortune, not our fault." But the fact is,
there is no such excuse to offer. It was, at least, equally as
open to Great Britain to admit as to exclude our prizes, as
I will now proceed to show. The practice of nations has been
various on this point, and it rests in the discretion of each
nation to admit prizes into its ports or to exclude them, as
it may think fit. This seems to be the general understanding
of the law on this question, although there is very respectable
authority for the opinion that a nation cannot lawfully
exclude the prizes of a belligerent without previous treaty
stipulations to that effect.—" Loccenius de Jure Maritime,"
L '2, c4,s 7. As a general rule, belligerent nations have
not favoured the carrying of their prizes into neutral ports,
and the reasons are obvious, It is much more convenient
for the prize courts that they should have the actual custody
of the prize to be adjudicated. And the bringing in of prizes
to the home ports gives the subjects of the captor an oppor-
tunity of dealing in prize property, an object of no small
importance in a maritime war where many valuable captures
are made. It gives the Government, too, the advantage of
buying in such ship i as it may wish to equip for the
purposes of war, an advantage of which the Federal States
have frequently availed theruerives during the present war.
Hence, belligerent nations have generally required their
cruisers to bring their prizes into the home ports. Still, in
cases where the contrary practice was convenient, nations
have freely availed themselves of it, without let or hindrance
from neutrals, unless there was a treaty in the way. In
former wars in which Great Britain has been concerned,
Leghorn and Lisbon were frequently;rnade use of for this
purpose; the prizes being condemned and sold without
ever reaching the home ports at all. But taking the modern
practice to be for the neutral to admit or exclude prizes at
pleasure, the presumption always is, previous to the issue
by the neutral of nny order on the subject, in favour of
the admission—this having been the more common
practice, On this point see " Wheaton's Elements (Law-
rence, p. 428 ; sic also 3, " Phillimore's International
Law," p. 498, sec. 363. The treaties between nations on
this subject have been as various as the practice. In 1778
a treaty was entered into between France and the United
States, whereby no ship of the enemy of either party was
allowed to sell her prize, or discharge her cargo, or buy
more provisions than immediately indispensable, in the ports
of the other.
In 1800 a similar treaty was entered into by the same

parties.
In 1791 a treaty of exclusion was made between England
and the United States.
In 1806 a treaty was made between the same parties, con-
taining similar provisions.
In 1782 a treaty was entered into between the United
States and Holland, then one of the principal maritime
Powers, whereby the sale of prizes brought by either party
into the ports of the other was legalized.
In 1742 a treaty was made between Spain and Denmark
authorizing the reception and sale of prizes reciprocally
and so late as 1829 a treaty was ratified between Holland
and the Republic of Colombia authorizing the reception of
prizes into each other's ports.
Now, if the treaties between Great Britain and the United
States were still in existence, there is no doubt that Great
Britain would be obliged under those treaties to apply the
rule of exclusion to the Confederate States ; but it will be
remembered that a war occurred between the two contract-
ing parties in 1812, subsequently to the format'on of those
treaties, which abrogated them ; and the subject has not
since been renewed either in the Treaty of Ghent, which
put an end to that war, or in any subsequent treaty. The
ignoring of such a question, after it had once been made
the subject of a treaty, places in a very strong light the in•
tention of the parties to remain perfectly free to exercise
their discretion for the future. Great Britain, then, has no
excuse for the unjust and unneutral course she has pursued,
She can neither affirm that she had no alternative under the
laws of nations, nor that she was bound by any treaty obli-
gation.

One more question, which has already been incidentally
noticed, remains to be disposed of. If Great Britain had
permitted the entry of prizes into her ports, would this
have enabled the captors to condemn them so as to give an
indefeasible title to the purchaser ? Without doubt. Not-
withstanding Lord Stowell, in the casoof the " Fled Oyen"
(1 Rob., pp. 139-142), declared the practice (he was cow.
menting on the practice of the French courts, in the heat
of a French war, and every lawyer knows the rim with
which his lordship assailed everything French) to be "in-
frequent and irregular," it is now well settled that a belli-
gerent Prize Court, sitting in its country, may adjudicate a
prize lying in neutral waters, provided the possession of the
captor remains. And this position seems to bo as unanwer-
able in principle as it is well settled in practice. The pro-
ceeding in a prize case is in rem, and to give the court
jurisdiction it is only necessary that it should have possession I
of the prize, But this need not bo actual possession by the
officers of the court, as by the marshal and his bailiffs. It
is sufficient if the captor, or his duly appointed agent, has
possession, because his possession is that of the Government
under whose authority the court sits, as effectually as would
be that of the marshal; and no principle is better settled
than that a neutral Government has no right to interfere
with the captor's possession of his prize—the case only
excepted of the capture having been made within the waters
of the neutral territory. So that if the prizs be admitted
into the neutral port at all--and the argument proceeds
upon that hypothesis—the captor's possession remains as
firmly established as if ho and his prize were in his own
country. In support of this jurisdiction of the Prize Court
I quote the following authorities : —ln 111, Phillimore's
International Law, p. 482, it is said ;—" An attentive
review of all the cases decided in the Courts of England
and the North American United States during the last war
(1812) leads to the conclusion that the condemnation of a
capture by a regular Prize Court, sitting in the country of
the belligerent, of a prize lying at the time of the sentence
in a neutral port is irregular, hut clearly valid. It appears
to be the inclination of the English Prize Court during
the present war (Russian) to limit to cases of necessity
the condemnation vessels lying in a neutral port.
It is scarcely necessary to add, after what has been said as
to the former French law on condemnations by judges of
the belligerent in neutral ports (that is, the judge, and the
prize both being in the neutral port), that such condemna-
tions of vessels lying in neutral ports are holden valid by
the French Prize Courts," Again, in the volume already
quoted, p. 426, it is said, " The courts of the North Amen.
can United States allow that property may be
condemned
in the courts of the captor while lying in a
neutral country,
but still they hold that it can only be so adjudicated .
upon
while the possession of the captor, remains ; for if be
divested, either in fact or by operation of law, that posses-
sion is gone which can alone sustain the jurisdiction. And
it is to be observed that, a fortiori, where the property is
already in the custody of a neutral tribunal, and the title is