Russell's Decision to Detain the Laird Rams

Russell's Decision to Detain the Laird Rams David F. Krein There have been two excellent books in recent years dealing with Great Britain and ships for the Confederacy—W. D. Jones' The Confederate Rams at Birkenhead, and Frank Merli's Great Britain and the Confederate Navy.1 Despite their contributions to our understanding of the subject as a whole, some mystery still surrounds the decision by the British Foreign Secretary, Earl Russell, to detain the Laird Rams. A. P. Newton's statement of fifty years ago that "Material is lacking for an explanation" of Russell's action must now be modified.2 The material exists in Russell's private letters to his Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, A. H. Layard. The problem may be summarized as follows. Parliament, in 1819, passed the Foreign Enlistment Act which forbade a British citizen from the "equipping, furnishing, fitting out or arming, of any vessel with intent or in order that such ship or vessel shall be employed in the service of any Foreign prince" at war with a power friendly to the Crown. This Act went beyond the requirements of international law which, at the time, was being interpreted in ways that permitted citizens of neutral nations to supply belligerents with ships of war.3 The Confederacy had sent Captain J. D. Bulloch to Europe to procure a fleet for the South. Bulloch found that it was not a violation of British law for a British firm to build a ship or sell it if it were not equipped for war and if the builder had no intent to violate the law (that is, if the builder was unaware that the ship was destined for a power at war with a government at peace with Britain ). Bulloch promptly set out to build a Confederate fleet in British dockyards. Bulloch's early successes were notable. Both the Florida and the Alabama were built in England, and, apparently without violating 1 W. D. Jones, The Confederate Rams at Birkenhead (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1961); Frank Merli, Great Britain and the Confederate Navy, 1861-1865 (Bloomington, Ind., 1970). 2 A. P. Newton, "Anglo-American Relations during the Civil War, 1860-1865," in A. W. Ward and G. P. Gooch (eds.), The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy (New York, 1923), II, 520. 3 The precedents were set by the American judge, Story, in his 1822 "Independence " decision as well as his "Santissima" and "Trinidad" rulings. 158 any law, made their way to sea.4 The success of the Alabama caused outrage in some circles in Britain, especially among Radicals sympathetic to the North. They blamed the government for not acting promptly to stop the Alabama's departure. And the American minister to St. James's, Charles Francis Adams, plagued Russell with complaints about it. Of the cabinet members whose views are known, only the Duke of Argyll, Lord Privy Seal, felt that his government had been in error. He became convinced that its inaction was a violation of international law, and that strict neutrality required that the trade in ships be stopped.5 Irritated by all the controversy the Alabama had caused, Russell himself developed doubts about his course, claiming in March, 1863, that the trade in ships constituted "an evasion by very subtle intricacies of our law of foreign enlistment."6 The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, on the other hand, always held that nothing more was required than "for us to put our law in force where and when we can."7 The government did keep a watchful eye on the shipyards, looking particularily for ships that might be equipped for war and thus be in violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act. On July 11, 1863, Adams complained to Russell about two vessels building at Birkenhead. These new ships were iron clad, and they were designed as "rams", obviously for the warlike purpose of breaking a blockade. Less than a month before, in June, the government had lost its case against the Alexandra in which the Crown claimed that the vessel should be condemned because it was constructed in such a way that it could be armed as a warship. So the main question for...