is the charter of our freedom and foundation of our Republic. The privileges of the English people, contained in their Magna Charta, as wrung from one of their sovereigns at Runnymede, were not greater or more fundamental than these are to us. But for these privileges, the English monarchs had still been the vassals of the Pope, and England a province of France, while but for ours, 4,000,000 of our population had continued to be plantation slaves, "with no rights which a white man was bound to respect," and the rest of us required to be slave hunters and bound to help keep them in that condition forever. It is certainly cheering after the alienations of a century and the struggles of a civil war, and within thirty years after that war, to have one competent from his Southern birth and training, and his present position and his Christian spirit, tell us :

Living in that section of the country which was last and longest cursed by the institution of slavery, and myself the son of a slaveholder, I rejoice beyond expression in the fact and providence of emancipation. The hateful thing is dead and buried beyond power or possibility of resurrection, and for this all our people are devoutly thankful. With an extensivo acquaintance over the entiro Southland, I do not know a single person, old or young, who would consent to its restoration.—[Bishop Galloway, of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, 1892.

CHAPTER XХѴЦІ.

GREAT BRITAIN CALLED TO ACCOUNT FOR BUILDING CONFEDERATE CRUISERS.

The Alabama-Our Claims for Damages-The Geneva Award—“ How I Ran into the Builder of the Alabama"-Napoleon III's Latin Kingdom in Mexico Disposed of by Our "Monroe Doctrine."

The end of our war required not only the reconstruction of our own government, but also the settlement of important matters with foreign governments, particularly Great Britain, and France, who had taken advantage of our embarrassments to encroach upon our rights, as they never would have thought of doing had we been free to prevent it at the time.

Great Britain had allowed piratical vessels, or "Confederate Cruisers," as they were called, to be built by her subjects, and sent out to prey upon our commerce. This was done to a considerable extent, but the most reckless and hostile instanco of it was the case of the Alabama. This vessel, called by the number of her dock on the Clyde, where she was built, "The 290," and built by a firm to which the Laird Brothers, one of whom was a member of Parliament, belonged, caused the greatest consternation to our shipping, and it was a long time before her depredations could be stopped. She was built in the summer of 1862, and her depredations were not put an end to for a full year. In the meantime, under command of an English captain, she went to one of the West Indian Islands, and was there joined by another English vessel, from which she received her armament, and soon after still another brought her Semmes, the former captain of another Confederate privateer, and a crew. On Sunday, August 26th, 1862, having received her arms, crew and commander, and being in other respects ready, "The 290" steamed out of port. When in the open sea, Semmes appeared on deck in full uniform, and announced that the ship was hereafter the Confederate steamship Alabama. The British flag was hauled down, the Confederate hoisted and saluted.

The crew were British. On the 29th of August she began her cruise, and on the 5th of September made her first capture, burning the ship and putting the crew in irons. By the close of October, she had made twenty-seven prizes. Her manner of operation, as indeed was the case with all the Anglo-Confederate cruisers, was to approach her prey under the British flag, and when it was captured to hoist the Confederate. Semmes then either burnt or bonded his victim. Having received a supply of coal at one of the West Indian Islands, he lay in wait for the California treasure-ships, capturing one, the Ariel, which, however, was outward bound, and therefore not very profitable. On January 11 he sunk the Hatteras, one of the blockading ships off Galveston, having lured her within reach by hoisting British colors and hailing as her Majesty's ship, Petrel. Ho subsequently cruised in the West India seas for a time, and then went to the coast of Brazil. He then crossed the Atlantic to Cape Town, August 5th, and thence to the Malay Archipelago, which he reached in November. After an unproductive cruise of three months in those waters, he returned, destroying on his way but few American vessels, for there were but few now upon the sea. On the 11th of June he went into the French harbor of Cherbourg.-[Draper's "Civil War," Vol. III, p. 201.

All this, be it remembered, took place when this ship of war had no recognized government to issue any such commission; had not a port in the wide world where it could take its prizes, and have them adjudged lawful prizes by consular power, as the laws of civilized nations require. Seemingly such a vessel might have been hunted down by the navy of every civilized nation, and especially by England's, through whose negligence, if not direct connivance, she was proving the pest of all commerce.

In June, 1864, the Alabama found shelter in the harbor of Cherbourg, France, where she found sympathy, but where the French government could hardly be said to welcome her for fear of complications with our government. This port is only separated from England by the British

* The only commission which this ship had was the following: Captain Semmes took command, and drawing up the crew read his commission as a port captain in the Confederate Navy, and opened his sealed orders in which he was directed to hoist the Confederate ensign and pennant and "to sink, burn and destroy everything which flew the ensign of the so-called United States of America."

Channel, and our ship of war, the Kearsarge, was at Flushing, not far off, and came with all haste at the call of our French minister, Mr. Dayton, to look after her. Without entering the port, Captain Winslow lay off the harbor, sailing back and forth, as a challenge to the Alabama to come out and fight, which could not be done within the harbor. Captain Semmes, confident that he could meet anything of her class, and encouraged by those whose wishes were for his success, and who flattered him with the assurance of it, sailed out of the harbor on the morning of the 19th of June, when the Kearsarge led off with the Alabama in pursuit, until they should both get more than a marine league from the shore. Then the Kearsarge turned short about and steered directly for her antagonist, intending to run her down, or if that was not possible, to engage her at close quarters. It was a beautiful Sunday morning, the atmosphere a little hazy, with a gentle breeze blowing from the west. Many vessels had followed the Confederate corsair, and she had encountered many more on that pathway of commerce, while the shore was lined with spectators to listen to the guns if they could not see the ships. Captain Winslow was determined that if skillful seamanship and desperate fighting could win the battle, it should be done. When the Alabama had come within a mile of the enemy, she turned her full broadside upon her, and began firing rapidly, but doing little damage. Another and another broadside came from her, still without much harm to the Union vessel except to her rigging.

The Kearsarge was now within nine hundred yards of her enemy, and had not yet fired a shot; but her commander, apprehensive that another broadside, which would have raked her, might prove disastrous, sheered his vessel and opened on the Alabama. The vessels now lay broadside and broadside, and Winslow, fearing that Semmes might make for the shore, made up his mind to keep full speed on, to run under the stern of the Alabama and rake her. To avoid this Semmes kept sheering, and as a consequence the two vessels, with a

full head of steam, fell into a circular track which continued during the whole engagement. The firing of the Alabama was at first rapid and wild. On board the Kearsarge the firing was much more deliberate. The Confederate fired some two shots to ono fired by the Kearsarge, but with little effect. Only three persons were wounded on the national vessel, of whom one afterwards died, while nearly every shot from the guns of the Kearsarge told fearfully on the Alabama. Six times the vessels had circled around each other, the Alabama, with all her noise and fury, doing little damage, while the steady fire of the Kearsarge was working havoc on the decks and hull of the Confederate. At last, on the seventh rotation, Semmes, perceiving the battle was lost, tried to take flight for the shore of France. His port broadside was then presented to the Kearsarge with only two guns bearing. Winslow now saw that his enemy was at his mercy, and poured his shot into her, and in a few moments had tho satisfac tion of seeing a white flag displayed over her stern. A moment later the Alabama lowered her boats, and an officer came alongside the Kearsarge, informing Winslow that the ship was sinking. Twenty minutes later she went down by the stern, her batteries rushing aft weighing her down, her bow rising high out of the water. The Alabama had sunk before the Kearsarge was ready with her boats to rescue the Confederate crew. While Winslow was lowering his boats for this purpose, he took notice of the English yacht Deerhound, which had steamed out from Cherbourg to watch the fight, and requested John Lancaster, her owner, to assist him in picking up the drowning men. The latter instantly availed himself of this request in a manner which amazed the commander of the Kearsarge. In ten minutes after the request was made, the English captain had Semmes and about forty of his officers and men on board, and then steamed away to the English shore.-["History of Abraham Lincoln,” Vol. IX, p. 150.

This was the source of much indignation on our part, while the English press justified it. This whole business of building Confederate cruisers by the English, led to a serious complication of relations between this country and Great Britain, which fortunately resulted in a reference to an arbitration at Geneva, that settled the matter to the general satisfaction of both parties. Our minister in London at that time was Mr. Adams, who, like the other members of that distinguished family, had sound judgment, fearless integrity, and a patriotism