The National tribune., 1901-07-04
H. M. S. SCORPION
A Relic Of British Love.
CThe Pilot.)

His Majesty's Ship Scorpion, the
armored coast defense ship at Bermuda,
is being sacrificed like the Bellisle, to gum
merry experiment, being fired at by the
cruiser Crescent with shells loaded with
a new explosive. 1t is curious, says the
London Leader, that the Scorpion shoSid
thus survive but a few months her Gre
ator, Capt. J. NJ. Bullock, the Confeder-
ate States Agent in Liverpool, who died
there 4 few months ago. This vessel was
nearly the cause of a war between Great
Britain and the United States. She and
her sister ship afterwards the Wiven,
We're christened the Ell Tousson and Ell
Monassir, but were even more widely
known as the Confederate rams.
The Alabama and other Confederate
commerce destroyers had safely got away
from Liverpool, but the Confederates
wanted some ironclads to enable them to
break the very stringent Federal block
ade of their ports, and thus to introduce
supplies by means of blockade-runners
The achievements of that very hastily
constructed ironclad. the Merrimac,
showed what might be done, and accord
ingly the Lairds OF Birkenhead were
commissioned early in 1868 to build two
screw ironclads. They were 23O feet long
and 40 feet broad, with armored sides
Of four and a half inch iron plates, rest
ing on heavy beams of teak. Each had
powerful ram, and two large armored
turrets, fitted for heavy guns. They were
notoriously intended for the Confederates,
and Capt. Bullock, the Confederate Naval
Agent, was experimenting their construc-
tion from the start.
But when, in July and August, 1853,
the American Minister began to pour in
affidayits and protests against the rams
being allowed to depart, very curious
counter representations were made to the
Ds.At AteL - n
that they were being built for the French
Government, and time was occupied in
obtaining from Napoleon III an official dis
avowal of any knowledge of them Then
the vessels were claimed by NJ. Brayay, a
French merchant and member OF the
Chamber of Deputies in Paris, as having
been ordered through him by the late
khedive of Egypt Bravay, of course,
was merely a dummy, but to keep up the
farce the vessel till then known merely
as Nos. 294 and 295) were christened Ell
Tousson and Ell Monassir, and Lord
Palmerston, in the House of Commons,
affected to believe that Egypt was their
real destination.
Mr.. Adams, the American Minister,
was most vehement in his protests. He
showed that NJ. Bravay could produce no
written contract with the late Khediye,
and that he had been trying in vain to
induce his successor, Ismail, to take over
nominally the ownership of the ironclads
with the Egyptian names. Meanwhile,
the vessels had been launched, one on July
4, and one on August 30, and were in
Messrs. Laird's wet dock, being rapidly
prepared for sea. On the night of Sept.
3, one of the rams was taking in coal, and
it was suspected that, like the Alabama,
she would go off on trial trip" and
never return.
On Sept. Mr.. Adams recorded his
'last solemn protest against the commits
sion of such an act of hostility against a
friendly nation" as permitting these YES
sells to escape, and then at the last moment
on Sept. 8, Earl Russell stopped them. 1t
| was an exciting time in Liverpool, which
swarmed with Confederate naval officers
| and Federal spies, and about 80 of the
| crew of the Confederate priyateer Florida,
then laid up in Brest for repair, had been
| brought over it was suspected to carry
| off the rams, which would have been of
| inestimable value to the Confederates. An
other scheme was to sell the vessels to the
Danish Government, and to then arrange
that they should be carried off by their
crews while on the passage. But the
British Government. aroused at last, sent
man-of-war to see that the vessel did
not escape, and they never reached the
| Seutherners or the Khedive of Egypt
| Ultimately they were sold to the Brit
ish Navy, and their names altered. They
are now quite obsolete in these days OF
steel,