attached to them, for the seizure of which there was no legal
justification, were claimed by Crawford's agent in Hamburg, and
eventually reached Ulster safely by another route. About the same time a
consignment of half a million rounds of small-arm ammunition, which was
discovered by the authorities through faulty packing in cement-bags, was
also confiscated in another part of the country.

These losses convinced Crawford that a complete change of method must be
adopted if faith was to be kept with the Ulster Volunteers, who were
implicitly trusting their leaders to provide them with weapons to enable
them to make good the Covenant. More than a year before this time he had
told the special Committee dealing with arms, to which he was
immediately responsible, that, in his judgment, the only way of dealing
effectively with the problem was not by getting small quantities
smuggled from time to time by various devices and through disguised
ordinary trade channels, but by bringing off a grand _coup_, as if
running a blockade in time of war. He had crossed the Channel on purpose
to submit this view to Sir Edward Carson and Captain Craig early in
1912, but at that time nothing was done to give effect to it.

But the seizure of so large a number as six thousand rifles at a time
when the political situation looked like moving towards a crisis in the
near future, made necessary a bolder attempt to procure the necessary
arms. When General Sir George Richardson took command of the U.V.F. in
July 1913 he placed Captain (afterwards Lieut.-Colonel) Wilfrid Bliss
Spender on his staff, and soon afterwards appointed him A.Q.M.G. of the
Forces. Captain Spender's duties comprised the supply of equipment,
arms, and ammunition, the organisation of transport, and the supervision
of communications. He was now requested to confer with Major Fred
Crawford with a view to preparing a scheme for procuring arms and
ammunition, to be submitted to a special sub-committee appointed to deal
with this matter, of which Captain James Craig was chairman. Spender
gave his attention mainly to the difficulties that would attend the
landing and distribution of arms if they reached Ulster in safety;
Crawford said he could undertake to purchase and bring them from a
foreign port. Crawford's proposed _modus operandi_ may be given in his
own words:

"I would immediately go to Hamburg and see B.S. [the Hebrew dealer
in firearms with whom he had been in