The American Presence in Ulster: A Diplomatic History, 1796–1996 American presence in Ulster: a diplomatic history, 1796-1996

5. GILDED AGE DIPLOMACY

        GILDED AGE DIPLOMACY 3 The end of the Civil War meant that the consulate in Belfast no longer operated in an atmosphere of crisis that had so worried John Young. The focus of attention once again became concerns about Irish trade with the United States, the workings of the consulate itself, and the appointment of staff within the consular district. Both Ulster and the United States were changing rapidly in the late nineteenth century. Both were becoming increasingly industrialized. Belfast, which since the eighteenth century had been a linen manufacturing center, emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as a major shipbuilding and engineering center as well. The United States, which during its formative years was primarily an exporter of agricultural goods and raw materials, increasingly manufactured and sent abroad machinery and consumer goods. This industrial growth produced great wealth and created a gilded age in both Belfast and the United States. The consulate would have growing responsibilities in this new industrial world. G. Harris Heap succeeded Young in September . Heap was briefly concerned with Fenianism, but he seems to have been specifically involved with only one case. Although Dublin Castle denied him the legal right to intervene in the matter because at the time the Crown refused to accept the notion that a British subject could terminate his obligations to the Queen and take up citizenship in another country, as a matter of courtesy Heap was informed about the status of the prisoner . In the end, the prisoner was released on the condition  that he return to the United States. By April of  Heap was given the United States consulate in Tunis and left Belfast. He was succeeded by Thomas K. King of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. King moved the consulate from Chichester Street to Number  Donegall Square, but after only just over four months in Belfast, King took a leave of absence, placing the consulate in the hands of Hugh Creighton, whom he had appointed vice consul. King returned to the United States, where he stayed until early . King in turn was given the consulate in Cork and left Belfast in August .1 The year  saw the election of Ulysses S. Grant as president and a new appointment to the Belfast consulate. Dr. James Rea from Springfield, Illinois, took up his duties in Belfast on July , . Rea was born in Ireland but had been a citizen of the United States since his youth. Within months of his arrival in Belfast Rea leaned that one of his clerks had been providing confidential information to an employee of Dickson, Ferguson and Company, a linen manufacturer. There had been a falling out between the firm and their employee and a law suit threatened. The consulate was informed , to Rea’s chagrin, that commercial data of a confidential nature that came from the consulate had been found among the materials that would be used if the case came to trial. Rea worried that such a revelation would prejudice the consulate in the eyes of the Belfast business community. The case was settled out of court, but it served to highlight the need for scrupulous office procedures and some security measures.2 The so-called cotton famine, resulting from the disruption of cotton production and exports during and after the American Civil  ⁄   . G. Harris Heap to William H. Seward, December  and , , RG , T, Reel , NA; and G. Harris Heap to William Hunter, February , , G. Harris Heap to F. W. Seward, April , , Thomas K. King to William H. Seward, July , , December , , and February , , RG , T, Reel , NA; and List of Belfast and Londonderry Consuls and Agents, Historical file, U.S. Consulate General , Belfast. . James Rea to Hamilton Fish, July , , RG , T, Reel , NA; and James Rea to Hamilton Fish, April , , RG , T, Reel , NA. War, had a stimulating effect upon the linen industry in Ulster. The successful adaptation of the power loom to linen threads allowed the linen trade to be extensively mechanized by the middle decades of the nineteenth century. The number of steam-powered looms jumped from fifty-eight in  to over seventeen thousand in . This process of industrialization required a substantial capital investment in machines and buildings and served to further the concentration of the manufacturing processes in towns and cities such as Belfast, Lisburn, Ballymena, Lurgan, Newry, and Carrickfergus. By the s production reached its peak, with the United States as the largest single market for Ulster...