administration, held for several years that the escape of the _Alabama_
was no wrong done by us. Lord Russell admitted (1863) that the cases of
the _Alabama_ and the _Oreto_ were "a scandal and in some degree a
reproach to our laws," though he stated in the same sentence that the
cabinet thought the law sufficient where legal evidence also was
sufficient. It was true that Britain is the greatest shipbuilding country
in the world; that to interfere with ships or any other article of
commerce is in so far to impose on a neutral some of the calamities of a
belligerent; and that restriction of trade was no element in the policy
and spirit of foreign enlistment acts either here or in America, which was
the first country that by positive legislation sought to restrain its
citizens within definite limits of neutrality. By a law of this kind
parliament intended to forbid all subjects within its jurisdiction to make
war on people at peace with the British sovereign. It is only, in the
words of Canning, when the elements of armament are combined, that they
come within the purview of such law. This is not by way of controversy,
but to define an issue. Chief Justice Cockburn, an ardent champion of his
country if ever there was one, pronounced in his judgment at Geneva, when
the day for a verdict at length arrived, that the cruiser ought to have
been detained a week before; that the officials of customs were misled by
legal advice "perhaps erroneous"; and that the right course to take was
"plain and unmistakable." Even Lord Russell after many years of obdurate
self-defence, at last confessed in manly words: "I assent entirely to the
opinion of the lord chief justice that the _Alabama_ ought to have been
detained during the four days I was waiting for the opinion of the law
officers. But I think that the fault was not that of the commissioners of
customs; it was my fault as secretary of state for foreign affairs."(255)

Before the _Alabama_ some ten vessels intended for Confederate service had
been detained, inquired into, and if released, released by order of a
court for want of evidence. After the _Alabama_, no vessel on which the
American minister had made representation to the foreign office succeeded
in quitting a British port. But critical cases occurred. Emboldened by the
successful escape of the _Alabama_, the Confederate agents placed two
ironclad rams upon the stocks at the Birkenhead shipyard; Mr. Adams, the
American minist