The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-09-03

custody on the high seas or at the first
British port for violation of British Law.
bat Senmes in the whole OF his career was
permitted to set the proclamation OF
Queen Victoria at defiance. 10 take his
prizes into British ports and fit them ont
as cruisers whenever ne chose
While the war vas raging is Was great
fun for this English Tory party 70 feel
that the evasion and violation Of their
own laws had put their torch to Americas
merchant marine, but il would have been
money in their pockets had England
seized the Alabama, for England subse-
quently paid SIS, 600. 900 for the privilege of
dancing when Capt. Semmes piped all
hands on deck to seize and burn our
shipping. England will know more next
time.
In the case of the Florida there was
similar violation of the foreign enlistment
act aud her captain was permitted TO take
all the coal and whatever else he wanted
in violation of the queens proclamation.
The Georgia was allowed to get away
from England. The Shenandoah. which
destroyed as many vessels a. the Alabama.
was allowed TO repair, reft and to take all
the coal she wanted from the British port
of Melbourne. and to ship forty-three men
marine was swept from the seas and has
never recovered from this terrible blow,
for which the ruling or privileged classes
of England were responsible.
Confederate cruisers sent from English
ports in clear violation of English laws
were unquestionably legally subject to
capture by British vessels of war. The
English Tory shipbuilders built the Con-
federate navy which JEFF Davis ordered
and paid for, for of the seven principal
Confederate privateers. five were built in
British dockyards, not to mention the
rams and ironclads that were in course Of
preparation. The Alabama was built by
British shipbuilders. manned by British
crew. many of whom belonged to the royal
naval reserve; her guns and gunners were
English; she lured prizes within her reach
by flying the English flag and she was
paid for by money borrowed from British
capitalists.
AHS SohuuCs Vi atincIstOu auu husScii
was conspicuously outrageous when it is
recalled that the United States, at the out
break Of the Crimean war, gave orders that
no Russian privateer should be equipped.
victualed or admitted with its prizes into
any of the ports of the United States.
So unjust and unfriendly was the
English government, outside of Queen
Victoria, that Mr.. Roebuck had a motion
for the recognition of the Confederacy be-
fore the house of commons, which was
only prevented from being pressed to
division by the news. July 4, 1858, that
Grant had taken Vicksburg and Meade
repulsed Lee at Gettysburg.
In 1s69-70 Mr.. Gladstone entered, in the
spirit of good sense, public equity and
good feeling, into the discussion Of the
Alabama claims. Mr.. Gladstone ap-
preached home rule in the same spirit of
fairness and we are glad he has won. We
have not forgotten that he has soundly
beaten the same English Tory party that
has always iil-treated the United States
We enforced neutrality in the Canadian
rebellion of 1887; in the Fenian raids that
followed the war, but neutral rights were
trampled in the dirt by England in the
civil war. The party that gave US justice
in 1870 triumphs today in England and its
long battle is successful largely because
America has furnished Ireland with ma
terial aid in her struggle for home rule.