THE COUNCIL OF THE NAVY RECORDS SOCIETY
2022–23
PRESIDENT
Vice Admiral Sir Adrian Johns, K.C.B., C.B.E., K.ST.J., A.D.C.
VICE PRESIDENTS
N.D. Black, M.A., Ph.D.
V. Preston, M.A., Ph.D.
C.S. Beck, M.A., Ph.D.
Professor R. Harding, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S.
COUNCILLORS
Professor N.A.M. Rodger, M.A.,D.Phil., F.B.A., F.S.A., F.R.Hist.S.
A. James, M.A., Ph.D.
P.B. Hellawell, M.A., Ph.D.
Capt K. Rowlands, Ph.D., R.N.
Professor A.D. Lambert, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S.
M. Wilcox, M.A., Ph.D.
L. Halewood, B.A., M.A.
E. Jones, M.A., Ph.D.
Professor J. Beeler, A.B., M.A., M.L.I.S., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S.
J. Dancy, M.A., D.Phil.
C. Lambert, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.
M. Schotte, A.B., M.A., Ph.D.
Professor E. Charters, M.A., D.Phil., F.R.Hist.S.
J. Davey, B.A., M.St., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S.
N. Blake, M.A.
M. Duffy, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S.
Professor C.M. Bell, M.A., Ph.D.
T. Dougall, M.A., Ph.D.
M. Crumplin, F.R.C.S., F.R.Hist.S., F.I.N.S., F.H.S.
A. Bond, M.A.
L.-J. Giles, B.A., Res.M., A.F.H.E.A.
M. Willis, B.A., M.A.
HON. SECRETARY, A. Plumbly, B.A., M.A., A.C.A. HON. TREASURER, P. Northcott, M.A.
GENERAL EDITOR, B. Jones, M.Phil., Ph.D.
MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY, Mrs. J. Gould
ONLINE EDITOR, S. Willis, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S
SOCIAL SECRETARY, Ms K. Jamieson
INTRODUCTION
This volume is the sequel to The Milne Papers , Volume 2, which covered the first two years of Alexander Milne’s command of the Royal Navy’s North America and West India Station (1860–62). 1 This one covers the final two, Milne having been retained in command a year beyond the customary three-year commission owing to the British government’s trust in his judgment. 2 The Milne Papers , Volume 2, attempted to provide readers with a representative, if not comprehensive, picture of the range of duties undertaken by the Royal Navy during the Pax Britannica , and thus included much material regarding routine matters: sailing orders, letters of proceedings from officers on detached duty, accounts of refloating grounded vessels, and the like. 3 Owing to space limitations, this volume’s scope is much more circumscribed. Gone are the sailing orders, reports on fisheries protection, navigational surveys, accounts of shipboard yellow fever outbreaks, and most of the letters of proceedings from officers on detached duty along the Caribbean littoral. Instead, the topical emphasis in this volume is Milne’s thoughts and doings – and those of his correspondents – regarding the American Civil War, and most of its contents are private, rather than public, letters. 4 Moreover, the introduction of The Milne Papers , Volume 2 deals in some detail with the circumstances surrounding Milne’s appointment to the North America and West India command and the station’s geographic limits, command structure, responsibilities, and communications. Those in search of such background information are referred to the introduction of that volume.
1For Milne’s family and service background, see The Milne Papers, vol. 1 (Aldershot, Hampshire, 2004), pp. ix–xvii, 3–7, 53–9, 157–62, 205–13, 379–88, 605–12.
2The Secretary of the Admiralty to Milne, 2 Feb 1863, National Maritime Museum (hereafter NMM), MLN/114/4. See also Docs Nos 104 and 190.
3See The Milne Papers, vol. 2 (Farnham, Surrey, 2015), pp. xxvii–xxxiii, xl–xlvii and the documents referred to therein.
4For the distinction between public and private correspondence, see ibid., pp. xlviii–lvii. Of the 370 documents in this collection, 100 are public letters, the remaining 270 private.
The Context
The Milne Papers, Volume 2, concluded with the Trent affair and its immediate aftermath – the United States government’s release of the emissaries of the so-called Confederacy removed from the RMS Trent on 8 November 1861 – and with British preparations, in conjunction with France and Spain, for armed intervention in Mexico owing to that state’s suspension of payments to foreign bondholders. The former incident brought the US and Great Britain closer to war than any other crisis during the American Civil War, and, given the devolved system for war planning used by the British government, Milne himself was largely responsible for devising the course to be followed in the event of hostilities, as revealed in several of his letters, in particular that of 24 January 1862 to First Lord of the Admiralty the Duke of Somerset.1 The Trent Affair also prevented Milne from commanding the Mexico expedition. Commodore Hugh Dunlop2 went in his stead and quickly exceeded the scope of his instructions.3 The current volume begins at the start of February 1862. By that point the Trent Affair’s denouement had played out: the Southern emissaries had arrived in Britain and Milne’s preparations for hostilities with the US had ceased. Yet new grounds for Anglo-American discord soon appeared.
Most pertained to US efforts to stem the flow of goods in and out of the blockaded ports of the South. The British government had initially instructed Milne to reconnoitre and report upon the blockade’s effectiveness, and ships from his squadron had done so during the summer and autumn of 1861,4 but by November the cordon was effectual enough to satisfy the British government that it met the criteria set forth in the 1856 Declaration of Paris, which had established formal standards to which blockades had to conform in order to be adjudged legitimate.5 Yet while
1Edward Adolphus Seymour (later St Maur), 12th Duke of Somerset, K.G. (1804–85). M.P. 1830–31, 1834–55; Junior Lord of the Treasury, 1835–39; Secretary to the Board of Control (1839–41; Undersecretary of State for Home Affairs, 1841; First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, 1850–51; First Commissioner of Works, 1851–52; First Lord of the Admiralty, 1859–66. Milne’s letter is Doc. No. 501 in The Milne Papers, vol. 2.
2Hugh Dunlop, C.B. (c.1809–88). Entered, 1821; Lt, 1828; Cmdr, 1842; Capt, 1850; Rear-Adm, 1866; Rear-Adm (Ret.), 1870; Vice-Adm (Ret.), 1873; Adm (Ret.), 1878.
3See below, pp. xl–xlii.
4See The Milne Papers, vol. 2, pp. xxxiii–xxxiv and the documents there referred to.
5The Union had at least one vessel off the nine most important ports of the so-called Confederacy by July 1861, and by the end of the year had 264 vessels in commission, a large proportion of which were engaged in blockade duty. See Nathan Miller, The U.S. Navy: An Illustrated History (New York and Annapolis, MD, 1977), p. 156 and William H. Roberts, Now for the Contest Coastal and Oceanic Naval Operations in the Civil War (Lincoln, NE and London, 2004), p. 33.
it might have met de jure requirements, for the first two and a half years of the war the US blockade was very porous, and a substantial majority of vessels attempting to evade it succeeded.1
Whether porous or not, however, the mere existence of the blockade created enormous economic incentives for shippers, for the South lacked almost all of the infrastructure needed to wage a modern industrial war, and thus was largely dependent on imported matériel to do so. At the same time, the textile mills of Lancashire, Larnark, and elsewhere in Britain were equally dependent on Southern cotton. Little surprise, therefore, that as early as the summer of 1861 enterprising ship owners and captains, lured by the glittering prospect of enormous profits, were preparing to run the blockade.2 And since the so-called Confederacy had virtually no merchant marine of its own, almost all blockade runners until late in the war, when the Southern government started to purchase vessels, were foreign-flagged.
‘Foreign-flagged,’ was, in this instance, virtually synonymous with ‘British’. This fact should come as little surprise: as of 1860 more than a third of the world’s merchant tonnage was British.3 Equally important, as the ‘workshop of the world’, Britain was the chief supplier of the munitions and other goods on which the so-called Confederacy’s war effort depended. Finally, the design characteristics of successful blockade runners – large engines, high speed, huge coal consumption, and limited stowage – mandated that they operate from ports close to the blockaded coastline. Those ports were Nassau and Bermuda, both of them British colonial possessions.4 As a consequence, not only were most blockade runners British-flagged: they were also usually captained and crewed by British mariners.
1James McPherson states that about 3/4ths of all blockade runners during the entire course of the war completed their voyages. Lest readers conclude as a consequence that it was failure, McPherson cautions that the real measure of the blockade’s effectiveness was not the number of vessels that got through, but the number that did not attempt to run it in the first place, and points to the 90 per cent reduction in the volume of cotton leaving Southern ports during the war as compared to the four years preceding it. See McPherson, War on the Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861–1865 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2012), p. 225.
2See The Milne Papers, vol. 2, p. xxxv and Docs Nos 310 and 371. See also Stuart L. Bernath, Squall Across the Atlantic: American Civil War Prize Cases and Diplomacy (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1970), pp. 4–5. Bernath notes that a merchant captain who might have made $150 a month prior to the Civil War could by 1864 earn as much as $5,000 a month by running the blockade.
3Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict, 1500–2000 (New York, 1987), p. 151.
4The one exception was Havana, which became the chief staging port for trade with Mobile, Alabama and the Mexican port of Matamoros. See below, pp. xxi–xxv for discussion of that topic.
Queen Victoria’s 13 May 1861 proclamation of British neutrality had expressly prohibited British subjects from ‘any Acts in derogation of their Duty … as for Example … by breaking or endeavouring to break any Blockade lawfully and actually established’ and that ‘all Persons so offending will incur and be liable to the several penalties and penal consequences by the said Statute or by the Law of Nations’.1 The ‘said statute’ to which the proclamation referred was the 1819 Foreign Enlistment Act which, in fact, stipulated neither ‘penalties’ nor ‘penal consequences’ for blockade running, and never during the duration of the conflict did the British government lift a finger to punish any of its subjects for violating the proclamation of neutrality, a source of much anger and hostility in the US. It was likewise a source of deep concern and frustration to Milne, who at one point remarked to First Naval Lord Sir Frederick Grey2 ‘I cannot understand the value of our Queens Proclamation, when vessels openly arrive [at] & sail … [from Bermuda] with cargoes of Arms & Powder’ [149]. Indeed, both Bermuda and Nassau became regular entrepôts for the so-called Confederacy, with ‘government’ agents and scheduled arrivals and departures from and to blockaded ports, chiefly Charleston, South Carolina and Wilmington, North Carolina.3
Belligerent Versus Neutral Rights
US resentment at this decidedly un-neutral activity took several practical forms, all of which caused friction between it and Britain. First, US Navy vessels sought to stem the flow of ships and goods bound for the so-called Confederacy by intercepting them close to their ports of departure.4 Second, this de facto blockade of British colonial ports was reinforced by the detention of merchant vessels bound to them from Britain on suspicion of carrying contraband of war ultimately destined for the South. Third, in an effort to prevent US entrepreneurs from profiting by supplying goods to the South via British colonial ports, the American government barred its own populace from shipping both
1A copy of the proclamation can be found in MLN/114/15.
2Frederick William Grey, C.B., K.C.B., G.C.B. (1805–78). Entered, 1819; Lt, 1825; Cmdr, 1827; Capt, 1828; Rear-Adm, 1855; Vice-Adm, 1861; Adm, 1865; First Naval Lord, 1861–66.
3See Docs Nos 83, 91, 95, 101, 154–5, 161 and 255 relative to Nassau, and Docs Nos 228, 233, 251, 296, and 327–28 regarding Bermuda. See also Regis A. Courtemanche, No Need of Glory: The British Navy in American Waters, 1860–1864 (Annapolis, MD, 1977), pp. 92–3, 95–6.
4See Docs Nos 114–15, 122, 137, 139, 154–5, 160, and 161, and below, pp. xxii-xxviii.
foodstuffs, coal, and manufactured goods, initially to Nassau and Bermuda, and eventually to ports as distant as Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Kingston, Jamaica.1
Continuous Voyage
The seizure of the British merchant vessel Adela off Abaco Island in the Bahamas on 7 July 1862 appeared to manifest both the first and second of those US initiatives, for the ship was bound from Liverpool to Nassau via Bermuda and its Master claimed that it was detained in British territorial waters [78]. The case was fraught less for the location of its detention – the US claimed that it had taken place more than three miles from Abaco – than for it having occurred when the Adela was bound from one British (i.e., neutral) port to another, a fact which raised the contentious doctrine of ‘continuous voyage’.
Thanks to the monopolistic and autarchic tenets of the economic theories and premises today known as mercantilism, during the early modern era imperial powers such as Britain, France, and Spain barred outsiders from participating in trade between metropole and colonies. The British Navigation Acts might be regarded as ‘Exhibit A’ of this policy. Owing to British naval supremacy during the conflicts of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, continental states, chief among them France, along with cooperative, if not downright eager, neutral countries sought to circumvent British naval blockades which impeded the flow of goods to and from overseas possessions by transshipping goods from colony to parent country, or vice versa, in neutral vessels and via neutral ports. Most prominently, during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars the American merchant maritime – then the world’s second largest – was deeply involved in carrying French colonial produce to France itself, and the US government steadfastly maintained that, by sailing first to a neutral port and from thence onward to their final destination, American merchant ships were not subject to detention and adjudication.
The British strenuously disagreed. The British prize rule of 1756 –the notorious ‘Rule of 1756’ – unilaterally barred neutral vessels from engaging in wartime in trade from which they were excluded in peacetime.2 From it followed the concept of ‘continuous voyage’, for the British government maintained that touching at a neutral port en route did
1See Docs Nos 78, 259, 261, and 296.
2On the Rule of 1756, see Bernard Semmel, Liberalism and Naval Strategy: Ideology, Interest, and Sea Power during the Pax Britannica (Boston, 1986), pp. 14–16.
not render a vessel travelling from one enemy port to another exempt from seizure. As an ancillary, Britain (and other states, for that matter) prohibited neutral vessels from conveying anything designated ‘contraband of war’ to an enemy. ‘Contraband of war’ was an elastic term, capable of almost unlimited redefinition, but to the US government it clearly encompassed not only munitions but other goods of potential military value, including steam engines, railroad iron, boots, and even grey-coloured cloth, which could be used for army uniforms.
In 1856 the British, for reasons still not wholly clear, abandoned the Rule of 1756 and the concomitant doctrine of continuous voyage and instead acceded to the 1856 Declaration of Paris, which enshrined in international law the concept that ‘free ships make free goods’ or, put another way, ‘the flag covers the goods’.1 Of equal irony, just the British had until 1856 been the chief (perhaps sole) advocates for the doctrine of continuous voyage, until the American Civil War the US was, along with the Netherlands, one of the most vocal proponents of the argument that ‘the flag covers the goods’.2 From 1861 to 1865, however, their roles were reversed, and the British became the most vociferous defenders of neutral rights as the US appeared to expand the doctrine of continuous voyage well beyond that which Britain had employed in the past.3
Therefore, Milne’s initial response to the Adela’s seizure focused on its having taken place when bound from one neutral port to another which, as he told Somerset, ‘is certainly a violation of the Law of Nations’, although he acknowledged that ‘there can be no doubt that this Trade is for the purpose of giving indirect aid to the Southern States’, and thus that international laws relative to contraband of war might be applicable [79].4
What most troubled Milne about the capture, however, was information he subsequently received from one of his subordinates, Commander William Hewett5 of HMS Rinaldo. Following the Adela’s detention,
1On Britain’s adherence to the Declaration of Paris, see Semmel, Liberalism and Naval Strategy, pp. 56–9. Various explanations have been put forward for Britain’s volte-face, among them the widespread belief that the adoption of free trade and other tenets of liberalism would reduce, if not eliminate outright, the causes of wars, and the realisation that Britain was becoming increasingly dependent on food imports to feed its rapidly growing population, for which recourse to neutral shipping might be necessary in a future conflict.
2In a further irony, the US was not a signatory to the Declaration of Paris.
3The expansion was more apparent than real, as the following paragraphs make clear.
4The Adela’s detention is also addressed in Docs Nos 78, 82–5, 89–90, 92, 94–5, 99, 113, and 123.
5William Nathan Wrighte Hewett, V.C., K.C.B., K.C.S.I. (1834–88). Entered, 1847; Lt, 1852; Cmdr, 1858; Capt, 1862; Rear-Adm, 1878; Vice-Adm, 1884. Naval Lord of the Admiralty, 1885.
Hewett paid a visit to Key West, where its fate was to be determined by the American Prize Court sitting there. While at Key West he spoke with Commodore James L. Lardner,1 commanding the US Navy’s East Gulf of Mexico Blockading Squadron, who informed him that US warships ‘had orders to seize any British vessels whose names were forwarded them from the Government at Washington, and that being bound from one British port to another would not prevent United States’ officers from carrying out these orders’.2
Numerous Union agents – spies might be a more apposite descriptor –were active in Britain, keeping tabs on, among other things, orders placed with British firms by suspected Southern agents, and the shipment thereof. Their reports, including the names of vessels suspected of carrying contraband of war to Nassau and Bermuda for transshipment through the blockade, were sent to Washington and a list of them compiled for the information of US Navy officers. The captor of the Adela, as Lardner’s admission made clear, was acting on such information. Moreover, the seizure was evidently made without first having ascertained, by examining the ship’s manifest and bill of lading and by inspecting the cargo itself, whether contraband was actually on board, and it was this precipitous, not to say reckless, a priori manner of proceeding that most aroused Milne’s concern [79].
That concern was set forth in a public letter to chargé d’affaires William Stuart,3 then heading the British Legation in Washington in the temporary absence of Ambassador Lord Lyons.4 In it Milne observed that the instructions under which US Navy officers were acting were ‘so entirely at variance with the recognized principles of international law’ that he put Stuart in possession of them without delay. Moreover, while deferring to the latter’s judgment as to whether to raise the matter with the US government, he made clear his own opinion: that the chargé should make ‘an early representation … with a view to these orders, if really issued to their cruizers, being at once recalled, and serious complications possibly
1James L. Lardner (1802–81). American naval officer. Entered, 1820; Lt, 1828; Cmdr, 1851; Capt, 1861; Cdre, 1862; Rear-Adm (Ret.) 1866.
2Hewett to Milne, 1 Aug 1862, printed in ‘North America. No. 5. (1863.) Correspondence respecting instructions given to naval officers of the United States in regard to neutral vessels and mails’, Parliamentary Papers [hereafter cited as PP], 1863, vol. 72, p. 450.
3William Stuart, K.C.M.G., C.B. (1824–96). Diplomatist. Secretary of the Legation to Brazil, 1856–59; to Naples, 1859–61; to Greece, 1861–62; to the US, 1862–64; to the Ottoman Empire, 1864–66; to Russia, 1866–68; minister to Argentina, 1868–72; to Greece, 1872–77; to the Netherlands and Luxembourg, 1877–88.
4Richard Bickerton Pemell Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., D.C.L. (1817–87). Diplomatist. Minister to Tuscany, 1858; Ambassador to the United States, 1858–64; to France, 1867–87.
averted’.1 Not content with that warning, Milne added ominously ‘I am enjoined to abstain from any act likely to involve Great Britain in hostilities with the United States, yet I am also instructed to guard our Commerce from all illegal interference …’2
The threat – not to put too fine a point on it – was unmistakable, and Stuart spoke officially to US Secretary of State William Seward3 the same day he received Milne’s letter (8 August 1862). Seward in turn was sufficiently alarmed to inform President Lincoln4 and following that meeting to write immediately to US Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles,5 whom he told:
I am directed by the president to ask you to give the following instructions explicitly to the naval officers of the United States, namely … That … [when any foreign vessel is stopped, it] is not then to be seized without a search carefully made so far as to render it reasonable to believe that she is engaged in carrying contraband of war to the insurgents … or otherwise violating the blockade; and that if it shall appear that she is actually bound and passing from one friendly or so-called neutral port to another … then she cannot be lawfully seized …6
There matters should presumably have rested regarding the seizure of British vessels stopped en route from one neutral port to another, but they did not, owing to subsequent instances of ‘backsliding’ by US Navy officers.7 Thus Milne found it necessary to address the subject again in
1Milne to Stuart, 2 Aug 1862, printed in ‘North America. No. 5. (1863.) Correspondence respecting instructions given to naval officers of the United States in regard to neutral vessels and mails’, PP, 1863, vol. 72, p. 450.
2Ibid. In his original letter to Stuart he added ‘Should therefore a collision be unhappily brought about, the US Government would alone be responsible from having issued instructions to their Cruizers to seize Neutral Vessels under circumstances which the law of nations does not justify.’ This sentence was not printed in the Parliamentary Papers. See Milne to Stuart, 2 Aug 1862 in ADM1/5787.
3William Henry Seward (1801–72). American lawyer and politician. Member of the Senate of New York, 1830–34; Governor of New York, 1839–42; US Senator for New York, 1849–61; US Secretary of State, 1861–69.
4Abraham Lincoln (1809–65). American lawyer and politician. Member of the Illinois House of Representatives, 1834–42; US Representative for Illinois, 1847–49; US President, 1861–65.
5Gideon Welles (1802–78). American lawyer, journalist, and politician. Member of the Connecticut House of Representatives, 1827–35; Connecticut State Controller of Public Accounts, 1835; Chief of the US Navy’s Bureau of Provisions and Clothing, 1846–49; Secretary of the Navy, 1861–69.
6Seward to Welles, 8 Aug1862, printed in ‘North America. No. 5. (1863.) Correspondence respecting instructions given to naval officers of the United States in regard to neutral vessels and mails,’ PP, 1863, vol. 72, p. 452.
7This ‘backsliding’ was almost certainly the consequence of Gideon Welles’s deeprooted hostility towards Great Britain for making no effort to prevent flagrant violations of the proclamation of neutrality. See for instance, Welles, The Civil War Diary of Gideon
the spring of 1863 in letters regarding the seizure of the merchant vessels Dolphin [225, 228, 229, 238, 251, 253, 259]1 and Peterhoff [225, 229, 251, 259].2 Again, he warned Lord Lyons that should US warships persist in seizing British merchantmen ‘merely because their names are included in a list of suspected vessels … they can hardly fail to give rise to very serious complications, the responsibility of [sic: ‘for’] which would rest with the United States Government…’ [enclosed in 225].3 And again the warning was sufficient for the US government to reiterate the instructions issued the previous August, thus averting a crisis between the two countries on this account.4
As for the larger issue of continuous voyage, however, Milne himself was under no illusions. On 15 October 1862 [115] he informed Frederick Grey that in his opinion both vessels and cargoes outward bound from blockaded ports were ‘liable to capture until they complete their voyage[,] that is [reach] their destination[,] which is England’.5 Grey disagreed [111], but the Law Officers of Crown unequivocally sided with Milne [143].6 Not only were vessels breaking the blockade liable to seizure and condemnation until they reached their final destination: cargoes transshipped to another vessel at an intermediate neutral port remained equally liable to that fate, as did vessels receiving such cargoes. Finally, vessels breaking the blockade were liable to seizure and condemnation until reaching their bona fide destination even if their cargo was removed at an intermediate port and transshipped in another vessel.
Territorial Limits
While a crisis over seizures of ‘blacklisted’ British vessels was averted, there was, however, no shortage of other accounts on which one might have erupted. First of all, as demonstrated by the Adela’s detention within sight of Abaco Lighthouse, it was widely alleged by British colonial officials and commercial interests that US Navy warships routinely violated
Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy, ed. William E. and Erica L. Gienapp (Urbana and Chicago, 2014), pp. 163–4.
1The Dolphin is also mentioned incidentally in one of the enclosures in Doc. No. 252.
2The Peterhoff is also mentioned in passing in Docs Nos 231, 246, 249, 283, 289, and 342.
3See also Doc. No. 233.
4The issue of seizing vessels without first conducting a search of the cargo resurfaced with the US detention of the British vessels Sir William Peel, Science and Dashing Wave off Matamoros, Mexico in Nov 1863 (Doc. No. 354 and its enclosures), but those instances also involved several other points of international law, and are discussed below in the section dealing with British trade to and from Matamoros.
5See also Doc. No. 117, in which Milne asked officially for the Law Officers’ judgment on the question, and Docs Nos 123 and 142.
6Their opinion was also summarised by Grey in Doc. No. 128.
British territorial waters, in particular within the Bahama archipelago, lying in wait for vessels bound to Nassau carrying contraband of war or departing from that place, bound for a blockaded port. Indeed, no less a personage than Charles Bayley,1 Governor of the Bahamas, appeared to Milne to maintain that no US Navy vessel was to anchor in a Bahamian port or roadstead, or even to enter Bahamian waters, without his sanction. In this belief he was fortified by a 31 January 1861 letter by British Foreign Secretary Earl Russell.2 Given that the Bahamas comprised more than 700 islands and islets, many of them uninhabited, spread over 180,000 square miles of ocean, Russell’s policy was plainly unenforceable, as Milne observed bluntly in a private letter of 16 December 1862 to Lord Lyons: ‘[t]he attention of the US Gov. might be called to the subject, and any flagrant violation should be represented to the officer acting contrary to rule, should he be found in the neighbourhood. In fact we need to be guided by the Spirit of the Instructions and not by the Exact Letter’ [154].
To lend weight to his opinion, Milne wrote officially to the Admiralty on the subject on 24 December 1862 [161], stating that, unless specifically instructed otherwise, he was not ‘disposed to scrutinize too minutely proceedings dictated by a natural and not unreasonable anxiety to check the vast contraband trade of which these Islands are the focus … [and] I shall act up to what I conceive to be the spirit though not perhaps the very letter of Her Majesty’s Instructions’.3 Milne’s commonsensical approach carried the day: on 16 February 1863 the Admiralty informed him ‘Earl Russell … concurs in your views.’4
Milne was also confronted with several claims that US warships fired on British merchant vessels within British or other neutral waters. The
1Charles John Bayley, C.B. (c.1815–73). Colonial administrator. Governor of the Bahamas, 1857–64.
2Lord John Russell, from 1861 1st Earl Russell, K.G., G.C.M.G. (1792–1878). Whig/ Liberal politician. MP 1813–17, 1818–19, 1820–30, 1831–61; Paymaster of the Forces, 1830–34; Home Secretary, 1835–39; Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, 1839–41; Prime Minister, 1846–52, 1865–66; Foreign Secretary, 1852–53, 1859–65; Lord President of the Council, 1854–55; Colonial Secretary, 1855. Russell’s letter appears in ‘North America. No. 1. Correspondence relating to the Civil War in the United States of North America’, PP, 1862, vol. 62, pp. 148–9.
3For other documents on dealing with the limits of authority in waters around British territories, see Nos 78–79, 81–84, 91, 95, 99, 103, 113, 115, 117, 127, 134, 141, 152–5, 160–61, 163, 165, 167–8, 173, 180, 186, 255, 258–9, 266–7, 269, 277, and 354.
4The Secretary of the Admiralty to Milne, 16 Feb 1863, MLN/114/3. As a means of reducing the potential for friction regarding British territorial waters, Milne later suggested that the US government might be furnished with a copy of Russell’s 31 Jan 1861 letter with an eye to apprising its naval officers of British regulations. See Docs Nos 161 and 168.
first of these was the blockade runner Herald, which was fired upon by the USS Adirondack off Nassau at the end of July 1862. Milne, however, quickly ascertained that the report was erroneous, the Herald having been more than five miles from the shore of New Providence Island when Adirondack ceased firing at it. Indeed, he was irritated with his subordinate, Commander Henry Hickley,1 and by extension, Governor Baylay for their mistaken belief that the increased range of modern artillery had ipso facto altered international law regarding the three marine mile limit of territorial jurisdiction [82].2 Indeed, Milne was sufficiently concerned that such mistaken views were widely held by his subordinates that he took the precaution on 8 August 1862 of issuing a memorandum for the guidance of the senior officer at Nassau [81].
Another sort of ambiguity surrounded the next instance of alleged American violation of neutral waters. On 7 October 1862 the US warship Montgomery fired upon, boarded, and apparently set fire to a merchant ship, the Blanche, 300 yards off the coast of Cuba. That the vessel was destroyed in Spanish waters was beyond dispute, and the US Navy officer commanding the Montgomery was court martialled, convicted, and dismissed from the service for his actions.3 Whether or not the vessel, although sailing under British colours, was bona fide British property was not. Indeed, while William Stuart’s initial response to news of the Blanche’s destruction was that it ‘appears to exceed all other outrages in aggravation’, it eventually emerged that it was an American vessel captured by the so-called Confederacy and illegally transferred to British registry [123].4
On 22 May 1863, the captain of the British blockade runner Sirius wrote to Milne, claiming that the US warship Rhode Island pursued his vessel into British waters off Nassau [enclosed in 255]. According to
1Henry Dennis Hickley (1826–1903). Entered, c.1840; Lt, 1847; Cmdr, 1858; Capt, 1864; Rear-Adm, 1880; Vice-Adm, 1886; Adm (Ret.), 1892.
2For other documents on the Herald incident, see Nos 78, 81, 83, 111, 113, and 115. For the Herald’s blockade running, see Docs Nos 154 and 199.
3Charles Hunter (d. 1873). American naval officer. Entered, 1831; Lt, 1841; Cmdr, 1862; Capt (Ret.), 1866. The court recommended executive clemency in view of his long service and zeal for the Union cause, but President Lincoln refused to accede. He was subsequently reinstated by Act of Congress. For Hunter’s court martial and the circumstances surrounding it, see Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (hereafter cited as ORN) (Washington DC, 1903), ser. 1, vol. 19, pp. 268–77. For an historical take, see Albert Gleaves, ‘The Affair of the Blanche (October 7, 1862)’, in US Naval Institute Proceedings, vol 40 no 10 (Oct 1922), pp. 1661–76.
4For other documents pertaining to the Blanche, see Nos 134 and 164. The question of its nationality is raised in the latter. For a summary of the Blanche affair, see Bernath, Squall Across the Atlantic, pp. 100–107.
Commander George Malcolm1 of HMS Barracouta, then at Nassau, the Rhode Island ceased firing at the Sirius when three miles from the shore, causing Milne to answer the allegation with the curt observation ‘Neutral Ships attempting to evade the exercise of the legitimate Belligerent right of visit and search on the High Seas naturally create a suspicion as to their being bonâ fide honest Traders and therefore it is to be expected that the Belligerent Cruizers will employ force on such occasions since they have a perfect right to do so’ [enclosed in 255].2
Six days later, the USS Juniata detained the Victor, formerly an American merchant ship but provisionally registered as British, shortly after it left Havana, bound for Matamoros. It was alleged, by both British and Spanish authorities, that the Victor was in Spanish waters at the time of its detention. Second, both countries also claimed that the Juniata was illegally using Havana as a base for its operations.3 Third, the Victor’s officers alleged they were severely mistreated while in American custody [enclosed in 281]. Finally, although Milne was apparently the only one to raise the issue, the British Merchant Shipping Act of 1854 was so worded regarding provisional registrations as to risk ‘some grave question arising with the Belligerents from the facility now afforded by … [the] Law for changing ownership and nationality’ [281].4 Like almost all5 of the previous allegations of US violation of neutral waters, however, there turned out to be less than met the eye in the case of the Victor No unequivocal evidence of its having been seized in Spanish waters was produced, the claimed mistreatment of the crew was emphatically disputed by the US authorities, as was the charge that the Juniata was
1George S. Malcolm (c.1828–84). Entered, c.1842; Lt, 1849; Cmdr, 1859; Capt, 1866; Rear-Adm (Ret.), 1882.
2For other documents dealing with the Sirius incident, see Nos 258, 259, 266,
3Similar claims were made with regard to US warships making use of St Thomas, in the Danish West Indies. On this subject see Docs Nos 117, 225, 237, 253, 259, and 261. See also Bernath, Squall Across the Atlantic, pp. 110–12 and Courtmanche, No Need of Glory, p. 112. As was the case with Havana, there was little the British government could do other than protest, since neither port was a British possession.
4For other documents. relating to the Victor, see Nos 269–70, 277, 286, and 346. The incident and its aftermath generated a voluminous correspondence between Lord Lyons and William Seward, much of which can be found in Papers relating to foreign affairs, accompanying the annual message of the president to the second session thirty-eighth congress, (hereafter cited as FRUS) (Washington, 1863), pt 1, pp. 666–71, 701–4, and 1864, pt 2, pp. 387–9, 395–6, 398–9, 454–5, 497, 501–3, 512–13. See also ORN, ser. 1, vol. 2, pp. 222–32.
5One instance in which a British vessel was clearly seized within the territorial waters of the Bahamas was that of the Mont Blanc, detained in Dec 1862. It was released by the Prize Court at Key West for that reason. None of the documents in this volume relate to the Mont Blanc case. See, however, Bernath, Squall Across the Atlantic, pp. 112–14
operating illegally from a neutral port. Finally, they claimed the Victor was bound for a blockaded port.1
Two days after the Victor’s seizure, the Margaret and Jessie, a merchant vessel owned by the so-called Confederacy, was chased and run aground on Eleuthera, one of the Bahamas, by the Rhode Island. Several of the latter ship’s shells struck the island rather than the Margaret and Jessie. The incident was denounced as a ‘ferocious outrage’ by the British press, and upon learning of it Milne wrote Lord Lyons that ‘it appears to be a Serious case and one which if true will be resented by our Government and reparation demanded not only for the insult but also for the damage illegally inflicted on the Steamer’ [267].2 He cautiously added, however, that ‘the Nassau papers, are not always correct, but the facts are so clearly stated that I am inclined to look upon them as true’. The same day Milne wrote to Lyons (22 June 1863), the latter was writing to Milne ‘I have nothing official about the Margaret & Jessie from the Bahamas but Mr Seward has anticipated a complaint, by assuring me beforehand that the Commander of the Rhode Island reports that he did not fire at the chase after she was in neutral water’ [266].3 This claim appears to have been hyperbolic, since Eleuthera was unquestionably struck by gunfire, but a US court of inquiry determined that the warship never got closer to the island than about four miles, and thus never violated British waters proper.4
In this instance, as well as that of the Victor, Milne seems to have accepted, at least initially, the ex parte claims made by the vessels’ crews. In the case of the Margaret and Jessie he informed Lord Lyons ‘I have seen letters from Nassau with the clearest statements of the Officers, Crew & passengers of the English steamer, and she was fired into by the Rhode Island when 300 yards from the Shore and her Armed Boats came into to [sic] the Shore when the steamer was aground …’ [270]. Lyons himself appears to have been more sceptical of such allegations. As he wrote to Milne, also regarding the Margaret and Jessie, ‘[i]n most of the Blockade cases there appears to be a great deal of hard swearing on both sides, though I am afraid I must confess that the Blockade Runners lie most and swear hardest’ [277].5
1See Thomas Boynton to Edward Bates, 6 Aug 1863, printed in FRUS, 1864, pt 2, p. 399.
2For the circumstances surrounding the Margaret and Jessie’s destruction, see Bernath, Squall Across the Atlantic, pp. 114–15. The newspaper quotation appears on p. 114.
3For other documents relating to the Margaret and Jessie incident, see Docs Nos 269, 270, 272, and 277.
4Bernath, Squall Across the Atlantic, pp. 114–15.
5See also Doc. No. 342.
Matamoros
The biggest point of contention between the British and US governments over neutral rights concerned trade with the Mexican port of Matamoros, which lies directly across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, about thirty miles up the river from the Gulf of Mexico.1 This hitherto insignificant port became, owing to the American Civil War, its proximity to Texas, and to the conflict between Mexico and France, a boom town, one US observer going as far as to claim that ‘[t]he entire Confederate Government is greatly sustained by resources from this point’.2 This assessment was hyperbolic, if the reports of Milne’s subordinates on the spot are accurate indicators,3 but there can be no doubt that both foreign – and US, for that matter4 – merchant vessels flocked to the town on the news that, as Frederick Grey put it at the end of October 1862, ‘[i]t seems that an attempt is now about to be made to export Cotton from Matamoros’ [127].
By the time Grey wrote those words, British trade with Matamoros had already been a source of tension between the British and US governments for many months. The causes were several. First and most obviously, its proximity to Texas and its neutral status meant that Southern-grown cotton had only to cross the river and it could then be legally shipped, thus evading the Union blockade of Southern ports. To further complicate matters, the exact location of the line between Mexican and US waters at the mouth of the Rio Grande caused great confusion on all sides, so much so that Milne eventually requested that the British consul at Matamoros keep a running record of the bearings of all vessels anchored in the roadstead [334].5 Finally, Matamoros lay at the far southwestern end of the US West Gulf Blockading Squadron’s theatre of operations, some 600 nautical miles from its chief base at Pensacola, Florida, and more than 500 from the supply depot at Ship Island, Mississippi. As a consequence, the blockade of the Texas side of the river’s mouth was intermittent, and thus open to legal challenge.
1Docs Nos 29, 33, 39, 40, 46, 127, 139, 142, 146, 150–52, 177–8, 191, 204–5, 224–6, 233, 237, 244, 247, 281, 286, 298, 325, 327, 334–7, 340–42, 344, 349–50, 354, 357, 360, and 368 all address British trade with Matamoros.
2S.S. Brown, quoted in Bernath, Squall Across the Atlantic, p. 35.
3See the enclosures in Docs Nos 178, 191, and 244.
4On 1 Jan 1863 George Randolph reported that ‘[a]bout 30 vessels of different nations were in the Roads, but principally American Schooners under English Colours’ [enclosure in Doc. No. 178]. Frederick Grey also informed Milne (31 Oct 1862) that ‘it is stated that Cotton has … been sent … [from Matamoros] to New York’ [127]. See also Robert M. Browning, Jr, Lincoln’s Trident: The West Gulf Blockading Squadron during the Civil War (Tuscaloosa, AL, 2015), p. 165.
5See also Docs Nos 33, 54 and 342, and Bernath, Squall Across the Atlantic, pp. 36–8.
Nonetheless, the indirect trade to and from Matamoros for the socalled Confederacy via was galling to US authorities, and some officers on the spot found irresistible the temptation to interdict commerce that so clearly benefited the so-called Confederacy. The first of these was Samuel Swartwout,1 commanding USS Portsmouth, who seized the British merchantman Labuan on 1 February 1862, shortly after his arrival off the Rio Grande.2 Swartwout’s grounds for detaining the vessel were dubious. Not only had he failed officially to proclaim the institution of a blockade on his arrival and given any vessels there adequate time to depart before its imposition: he also informed the British consul at Matamoros that he seized the ship for loading Texas-grown cotton, and its having been transshipped via Matamoros was of no consequence to him.3
Unsurprisingly, the British government took umbrage, and a yearslong dispute over the Labuan’s detention ensued.4 Milne’s first news of the incident came via a 29 March 1862 letter from the Duke of Somerset, which informed Milne ‘any [further] such seizure … should not be permitted’ [29]. Milne himself was never sent the official papers dealing with the Labuan’s detention [see 54] and information as to the proceedings at Matamoros had to await the arrival of a 12 March 1862 letter from Joseph Crawford,5 British Consul-General at Havana, which Milne forwarded to the Admiralty on 7 April 1862 [33].
News of the Labuan’s seizure prompted Hugh Dunlop to order HMS Phaeton to Matamoros and Edward Tatham,6 Phaeton’s captain, threatened to fire into a US warship there if it interfered with neutral merchant vessels in neutral waters.7 Nonetheless, another British vessel, the Will o’ the Wisp was detained on 3 June 1862 for having gunpowder, presumably destined for the so-called Confederacy, concealed in barrels labelled ‘codfish’.8 The ship was subsequently released by the prize court, however, on the grounds that, regardless of its final destination,
1Samuel Swartwout (d. 1867). American naval officer. Entered, 1820; Lt, 1837; Cmdr, 1855.
2The Labuan’s seizure is addressed in Docs Nos 29, 33, 39, 40, 45, 46, 48, 50 53–4, 58, and 114 and in passing in Docs Nos 49, 50, and 334.
3See Bernath, Squall Across the Atlantic, p. 37, and Browning, Lincoln’s Trident, pp. 166–7.
4A lengthy summary of the seizure and its immediate aftermath can be found in Seward to Lyons, 9 April 1863, printed in FRUS, 1863, pt 1, pp. 557–62. See also ORN, ser. 1, vol. 17, pp. 99–115. For a synopsis of the incident, see Courtemanche, No Need of Glory, p. 99. Bernath also devotes an entire chapter to the Labuan case in Squall across the Atlantic, pp. 34–46.
5Joseph Crawford (d. 1864). British Consul-General at Havana 1842–64.
6Edward Tatham, C.B. (1811–80). Entered, 1825; Lt, 1838; Cmdr, 1846; Capt, 1854; Rear-Adm (Ret.), 1870; Vice-Admiral (Ret.), 1876.
7Browning, Lincoln’s Trident, p. 169.
8The Will o’ the Wisp’s detention is addressed in Docs Nos 73 and 178. See also ‘North America. No. 12. (1863.) Correspondence respecting the seizure of the British schooner “Will o’ the Wisp” by the United States’ ship of war “Montgomery” at Matamoros, June
the cargo had been consigned to Matamoros, the judge ruling that ‘there could be no thing such as contraband of war in a trade between neutral ports’.1 Following this judgment the Commander-in-Chief of the US Navy’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron, Rear-Admiral David Farragut,2 instructed his subordinates to exercise prudence and caution in their actions at Matamoros.3
Nonetheless, the news that the South was to make a concerted effort to export cotton via Matamoros prompted the Admiralty to instruct Milne to dispatch a substantial force to the port [see 139]. Accordingly, the large frigate HMS Immortalité and the even larger HMS Orlando4 were ordered there, as Milne put it in a private letter to Captain George Randolph5 of the Orlando, ‘for the special protection of British vessels conveying Cargoes of Cotton to New York’ [146]. If a confrontation was to occur with the US Navy at Matamoros, the Royal Navy would be ready.
None did. As Randolph reported on 1 January 1863, ‘ [n]o American Cruizer had been seen [at Matamoros] for three months, nor had any interference with any vessel been known to occur since the “Will of the Wisp” was taken, many months ago’ [enclosed in 178]. Subsequent reports [Hancock6 to Hugh Dunlop, enclosed in 191; and Preston7 to Milne, enclosed in 226] reiterated the point. Moreover, both Randolph’s and Hancock’s reports laid bare the logistical and climatic obstacles that prevented the trade at Matamoros from developing to any significant degree: the reason that up to 80 merchant ships might be off the Rio Grande at any given point was owing to the near impossibility of loading them with bulk cargoes. On his arrival at Matamoros the former learned that many of the vessels then loading ‘had been there for three months’. As a consequence, by late March 1863 Milne had decided that 3, 1862’, PP, 1863, vol. 72, pp. 513–62. For a summary of the case, see Bernath, Squall across the Atlantic, pp. 47–9.
1Bernath, Squall Across the Atlantic, p. 48.
2David Glasgow Farragut (1801–70). US Navy officer. Entered, 1810; Lt, 1825; Cmdr, 1841; Capt, 1855; Rear-Adm, 1862; Vice-Adm, 1864; Adm, 1866.
3Browning, Lincoln’s Trident, p. 220.
4Along with its sister, HMS Mersey, one of the two longest wooden ships built by the Royal Navy.
5George Granville Randolph, C.B., K.C.B. (1818–1907). Entered, 1830; Lt, 1838; Cmdr, 1846; Capt, 1854; Rear-Adm, 1872; Vice-Adm, 1877; Adm (Ret.), 1884.
6George Hancock (1819–76). Entered, 1834; Lt, 1844; Cmdr, 1850; Capt, 1855; RearAdm, 1872.
7D’Arcy S. Preston (1827–90). Entered, c.1841; Lt, 1848; Cmdr, 1860; Capt, 1866; Rear-Adm (Ret.), 1883.
there was no reason to keep a large frigate permanently stationed at Matamoros [204].
There was, however, an epilogue. In September 1863 the British merchant ship Sir William Peel was detained while at anchor off the mouth of the Rio Grande [325, 327, 334, 341–42, 344, 350, 360], followed in November by a flurry of seizures: the Matamoras, Dashing Wave, Volante and Science, all of which, the US government claimed, had occurred in US American, rather than Mexican, waters [334, 336–37, 340–41, 344, 349–50, 354, 360]. All, it was also alleged, were carrying contraband of war destined for the so-called Confederacy, although, as Milne noted in a letter to Henry Bell,1 Commodore of the US Navy’s squadron off the coast of Texas, some had already discharged their cargoes prior to being seized [enclosed in 334].2 Milne likewise questioned the location of the captures and the US’s ‘claiming and exercising the right to seize Neutral ships lying within three leagues of the coast of Texas, for alleged trading with the enemy, irrespective of any question of Blockade or Contraband’.
Again, Milne was determined to uphold neutral rights, even at the risk of a clash with the US. He informed the Admiralty on 22 December 1863 that in his view the seizures were ‘wholly unwarranted by strict International Law’ [334].3 He furthermore had no doubt that Lord Lyons would agree with him that the ‘state of affairs at Matamoras … demand[ed] the attention of the United States Government’ [enclosed in 334]. Lyons agreed with Milne [341].4
Further fuel was added to the fire when a private letter written by Henry Rolando,5 one of the American naval officers stationed off the Rio Grande, was intercepted by Confederate authorities and published. Rolando’s account of the incident reinforced Milne’s conviction that the Peel was at the time in neutral waters [344].6 The US court at New Orleans agreed: the Sir William Peel, Matamoras, Science and Dashing Wave were all adjudged to have been seized in Mexican waters and were released, although the American government appealed all of the verdicts save that of the Matamoras. The Volante, on the other hand,
1Henry Haywood Bell 1808–68). American naval officer. Entered, 1823; Lt, 1831; Cmdr, 1854; Capt, 1862; Cdre, 1862; Rear-Adm, 1866.
2See also Bernath, Squall Across the Atlantic, pp. 51–2.
3See also Docs Nos 335–7 and 340.
4For further on Lord Lyons’ views on the seizures, see Doc. No. 342.
5Henry Rolando (d. 1869). American naval officer. Entered, 1836; Lt, 1850; Cmdr, 1862. Rolando’s letter is printed in FRUS, 1864, pt 2, pp. 540–42.
6The seizures at Matamoros are also mentioned in Docs Nos 349–50.
