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An Incident of the
Alabama Claims Arbitration

STEADFAST FOR GOD AND COUNTRY

BY RALPH E. PRIME, D.C.L., LL.D.
Past Governor General of ihe General Court

READ BEFORE
THE NEW YORK SOCIETY
OF THE
ORDER OF THE FOUNDERS AND
PATRIOTS OF AMERICA

MARCH 23, 1906

0
No. 14

An Incident of the
Alabama Claims Arbitration

*^^C.1896"
"STEADFAST FOR GOD AND COUNTRY"

BY RALPH E. PRIME, D.C.L., LL.D.
Past Governor General of the General Court

READ BEFORE
THE NEW YORK SOCIETY
OF THE
ORDER OF THE FOUNDERS AND
PATRIOTS OF AMERICA

MARCH 23, 1906

THE NEW YORK SOCIETY
OF THE
Order of the Founders and Patriots of America

OFFICERS
FOR THE YEAR ENDING APRIL I9, I906
Governor
THEODORE FITCH
Deputy Governor
WALTER SETH LOGAN
Chaplain
Rev. EDWARD PAYSON JOHNSON, D.D.
Secretary
HOLLISTER LOGAN
Treasurer
GEORGE CLINTON BATCHELLER
State Attorney
HENRY WICKES GOODRICH
Registrar
WINCHESTER FITCH
Genealogist
CLARENCE ETTIENNE LEONARD
Historian
HENRY LINCOLN MORRIS
Councillors
Hon. WILLIAM WINTON GOODRICH
Col. RALPH E. PRIME
WILLIAM ALLEN MARBLE
THEODORE GILMAN
HOWARD SUMNER ROBBINS
JAMES LE BARON WILLARD
Col. HENRY W. SACKETT
EDWARD HAGAMAN HALL
COLGATE HOYT

AN INCIDENT OF THE
ALABAMA CLAIMS ARBITRATION
By Ralph E. Prime, D.C.L., LL.D.
[ The writer appreciates that there are some matters in the paper which do not
strictly belong to the incident, but he believes that they are necessary, to many who
do not know the story of the Alabama, for a full understanding of the incident. ]
No man who ever knew Benjamin Franklin Stevens, who was
for so many years the American Despatch Agent at London,
England, but valued that acquaintance. Mr. Stevens was a rare
man, and, notwithstanding his long residence in England, he
was a thorough American and an intense lover of his country.
He was born in Vermont in 1833, and after a short experience
at the Capitol of that State, at Albany and at Washington, he
was called to London to aid his brother, who had preceded him
to England. He became so useful to Americans that his merits
were recognized, and in 1866 he was appointed Despatch Agent
for the United States of America, resident at London, and con
tinued to discharge his duties as such as long as he lived. He
died in 1904.
It was my privilege to form his acquaintance about ten years
ago on one of my visits to London, and ever afterwards when I
visited that city I enjoyed his fellowship, and looked forward to
it as one of the pleasures of my vacation.
Mr. Stevens' service extended over so many years of our na
tional history, in its most stirring times, in which he must have
been an actor, that his memory must have been stored with many
incidents, intensely interesting, connected with the history of
our country and yet unknown to written history.
On one of my visits to England with my wife and daughters
I spent nearly a week with Mr. Stevens and his wife in the
George Hotel at Winchester. Sometimes together we were off
in the daytime visiting things that interested both of us, and
then again he and I would be off in the daytime separately, each
visiting something of interest to himself, and in the evenings we

would sit together in the enclosed and covered garden and talk
until late, while he entertained us with incidents which had hap
pened during his residence in London. During that week he
told me many such events, in which he was an actor himself,
and which were of absorbing interest to me, and are utterly un
known to the mass of Americans, and have never been written,
and which are probably even now unknown to anyone connected
with any recent administration of the national government.
I have been invited to write, as nearly as I can recall, the state
ment which Mr. Stevens made to me concerning one of those in
cidents, and which, so far as memory serves me, I have never
spoken of to exceed on four occasions.
But to the appreciation of it by many of the generation since
born, and who never learned much about its details, it will be
necessary briefly to recall other things connected with the his
tory of the Civil War, and there are many older persons who at
the time were of mature years, but to whom, with the flight of
time and the fullness of these later years, those events are at
least very dim to recollection, and for them we will be excused
if we to some extent recall some of the events of those days, and
details which perhaps even they never knew.
The great and detestable heresy of the right of a State to se
cede from the American Union probably had its birth in Massa
chusetts as early as the differences of 1808. Encouraged by the
disloyal acts thus early of New England men, John C. Calhoun,
a Southern man, a citizen of South Carolina, and then Vice-
President of the United States, in 1830 set forth his form of the
heresy under the name of Nullification. Andrew Jackson,
another Southern man, a native of the Carolinas, but a citizen
of Tennessee, was then President of the United States, and to him
the nation owes a like debt as to Abraham Lincoln, for Andrew
Jackson, with the ardor and violence of his Southern nature
stamped out that crime with a remarkable proclamation, and by
his even more remarkable threat that for the first overt act he
would place John C. Calhoun, the great Nullifier, and Vice-
President of the United States, behind bars. In November, i860
Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States •
and from that time, if not before, commenced preparation for
secession of the Southern States from the Union, the greatest
crime against our country which history records, and which

7
then ripened, and in April, i86i, culminated in the first acts of
overt resistance to law and authoritj^ in our great Civil War.
The war was on. The Southern coast was effectuall}' block
aded against the entry of ships into Southern ports, and the is
sue of ships from them, and the blockade was officially pro
claimed to the world.
For a long time before those events the subject of the aboli
tion of privateering and treatment as pirates of vessels of war
having letters of marque had occupied the attention of Great
Britain, France and the United States and other nations. Ne
gotiations toward an agreement to that end had extended over
several years, and up to i86ihad not resulted in the adoption of
that international rule. At that time, when the powers were all
of one mind, Great Britain refused to enter into the agreement
with the United States unless it was also agreed that it should
not apply to the two belligerents in the American War then on.
Thus, perhaps inferentially, but later in other clearer language,
all in harmony with the desire of the shipbuilders and mer
chants of England, was there a recognition of the belligerency
of the rebellious Southern States and a distinct position taken of
unfriendliness to this country. These matters were publicly ex
ploited in speeches delivered in the two houses of Parliament
and by the Ministers of the Queen in public addresses all over
the Kingdom, and the position of the government on the ques
tions, then acute, no doubt encouraged in their acts such of the
English people who were of that mind, and also naturally resulted
in supineness and carelessness of public officials in the perform
ance of the duties they owed to our country, then in fact and in
law a friendly power. This was so much so that Mr. Laird, the
builder of the Alabama, and a member of Parliament, in a speech
in the House of Commons, found it easy, as he desired, to avow
and defend his acts. Happily in the change of English senti
ments toward us and ours toward them, such conditions have
forever ceased and the results can never occur again.
As early as October, 1861, agents of the Rebel States con
tracted with the Laird Company for the building of a ship of
war, named the Alabama. Another English firm contracted also
to build another ship of war for the Rebel States, called the
Florida. The Alabama was the larger vessel, and her building
progressed more slowly. The Alabama was launched May 15,

i862, and made her trial trip June 12, and June 23, our Minister,
Mr. Adams called the attention of Lord Russell, the British Sec
tary of Foreign Affairs, to the character of the vessel, and an
examination was made, and the commissioners reported to the
British Secretary that she was evidently a war vessel, and that
the information given by Mr. Adams was correct. An order
was given for the detention of the vessel, but was so intention
ally slow in transmission that she was allowed to escape, and she
was actually manned on the coast of the Island of Anglesia on
the Welsh Coast with the full knowledge of the British officers
at Liverpool.
Practically the same is the story of the Florida and the
Sumter, two other vessels.
The funds for building these vessels and for their armament
and supplies, and for the money chests on board, as also for
their subsequent supplies, was furnished at Liverpool and other
British ports, of all of which our Minister apprised the Brit
ish Secretary, who refused to interfere, alleging want of proof,
and took no steps to ascertain the facts for himself. He was, as
early as March, 1863, apprised by Mr. Adams of what was going
on, and that had called out from Lord Russell a letter, in which
he stated clearly enough the duty of the British Government in
the premises.
Our own navy was busy enough in its blockade of our South
ern coast, and the Alabama and the other Rebel craft had almost
free course in all other waters, and preyed upon our merchant
ships on all the seas, and also on the vessels of the Treasury,
which were unarmed or only slightly armed, and pursued their
business of supplying the lighthouses and other peaceful duties.
The end of the depradations of these vessels was gradually
accomplished. The end of the Alabama was a great event of
the Civil War. She came into the port of Cherbourg for supplies
and repairs in June, 1864. Our sloop of war, the Kearsarge, in
command of Captain Winslow, was in those waters, and at
Flushing, in the Netherlands, and hearing of the arrival of the
Alabama at Cherbourg, immediately proceeded there, and, send
ing a boat ashore, steamed out of the harbor and took station
outside, and maintained a close watch on the port. Semmes,
the commander of the Alabama, had long warred against de
fenceless merchant ships, and could not afford to refuse battle

now, for the first time forced upon him, by a foe of nearly his
own strength. For four days he remained in the port preparing
for battle. On the 8th of June, a Sunday, the Alabama came
out of the harbor escorted by a French man-of-war and by a
British yacht, the Deerhound. The high French shores were
covered with spectators to see the fight. The Kearsarge, which
had lain off the eastern entrance of the harbor, steamed far out
side the three-mile limit, and to a point full seven miles off shore,
to prevent Semmes running away if the battle should be against
him, and then turned and steamed for the enemy. The Kearsarge
was the faster boat. She had a few more men and a few heavier
guns, but in point of the number of guns, the Alabama had one
more than the Kearsarge, and in the battle actually fired twice as
many shots as did the Kearsarge. But the real advantage of the
Kearsarge was that she was manned by Americans and patriots,
while the crew of her adversary were largely foreigners and hire
lings. The Alabama opened the battle and the Kearsarge re-
received a full broadside, and a second, and part of a third. It
was before the era of ironclad ships, and Captain Winslow had
hung the sides of his vessel with chain cables. This device
proved, however, to be of no material value, for only two of the
shots from the Alabama struck those cables, in places, too,
where, if the cables had not been there, they could have done no
serious injury. The vessels sailed in a circle, firing upon each
other. They made seven complete circuits of the circle. The
battle continued for more than an hour, when the Alabama
headed for shore to escape, and then it was that she exposed a
vulnerable spot, which the guns of the Kearsarge blew out, and
she began sinking and was rapidly filled, and being headed off
by the Kearsarge, Semmes struck his flag, but soon the vessel
sank forever below the waters of the English Channel. The
Deerhound came up and assisted in saving the ship's company
and sailed off with those it rescued to Southampton. It was
an unpardonable act. The crew, helpless in the water, were
part of the fruits of the victory, and belonged to the Kearsarge,
and should have been surrendered to the victorious commander,
whose officers, seeing the contemptible act, implored him to turn
his guns on that vessel.
Such was the end of the Alabama. And after this long intro
duction, now for the story I am to relate.

The Treaty of Washington was negotiated for the settlement
of controversies between the United States of America and the
Kingdom of Great Britain. It was negotiated in March, April
and May, 187 1. The high commissioners comprised, on the part
of the United States of America, five well-known Americans,
'namely, Hamilton Fish, then our Secretary of State; General
Robert G. Schenck, then our Minister to the Court of St. James;
Hon. Samuel Nelson, then one of the justices of the Supreme
Court of the United States; Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, of Massa
chusetts, and Senator George Henry Williams, of Oregon; and
on the part of Great Britain, five of the best-known subjects of
the Queen of Great Britain, namely, the Earl of Grey and Ripon,
also Viscount Goderich and Baron Grantham, a Baronet, a Peer
of the United Kingdom, &c.,&c., and at the time Lord President
of Her Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Conncil, &c., &c.; the
Right Honorable Sir Stratford Henry Northcote, Baronet, one
of Her Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council; Sir Edward
Thornton, Baronet, &c., then the Minister of Great Britain to
the United States, Sir John A. McDonald, the Canadian states
man, and Mr. Montague Bernard, of Oxford University. After
thirty-six conferences of these high commissioners, the conven
tion or Treaty was concluded at Washington in May, 187 1, and
is known as the Treaty of Washington, and the ratifications
were exchanged June 17, 187 1. The Treaty provided for the
settlement of differences between the two governments, and prin
cipally the settlement of the claims generally known as the
" Alabama Claims."
In its first Article it provided for the formation of a tribunal
of arbitration, composed of five arbitrators. The second Article
provided for the meeting of the tribunal at Geneva, in Switzer
land. The third Article provided for the delivery in duplicate
of a written or printed case of each of the two parties to each of
the arbitrators, and to the agent of the other party, " as soon as
may be after the organization of the tribunal, but within a period
not exceeding six months from the date of the exchange of rati
fications of this Treaty." The fourth Article provided that
within four months after the delivery of such case either party
might in like manner deliver in duplicate to each of the arbi
trators and to the agent of the other party a counter-case, and the
second paragraph of that Article provided that the arbitrators

might extend the time for the delivery of such counter-case when
in their judgment it becomes necessary in consequence of the
distance of the place from which evidence to be presented is to
be procured.
The day of the week on which the ratifications were exchanged
was Saturday, and, as stated, the seventeenth day of June, 1871.
The six months mentioned in Article III would have expired with
the eighteenth day of December, 1871, which was Monday.
While sitting together one of those evenings in Winchester,
with Mr. Stevens, something suggested the Treaty of Washington
and the Alabama claims arbitration, and Mr. Stevens related to
me the incident I am about to relate, and which I will attempt
to recall as nearly as I can — as Mr. Stevens told it — although
after this lapse of time, nine years and more, I cannot pretend
to give his exact words, and hence they must be mine, as nearly
as I can repeating Mr. Stevens' story as he told it to me.
He had received, as the Agent for the American Government,
a copy of the case of that government, and being the agent of the
government for all such purposes, he was looking out for the
arrival of the duplicate copies to be delivered to the British
Government, and that was the reason why his attention was
upon it. The last steamer which could have brought those
copies for the British Government had arrived, and sufficient
time had elapsed for bringing the package to him from Liver
pool, but no package had come. His interest in the matter, and
his general interest for all that belonged to his people and his
country, led him on that Saturday, December 16, 1871, to take
a hansom cab and drive to the office of General Schenck, the
American Minister. He entered the office and soon saw General
Schenck, and asked him if he had received the American case, to
which General Schenck replied, " Oh, yes; there it lies upon my
table," pointing to it. " But," said Mr. Stevens, " have you re
ceived the duplicate copies to be delivered to the British Gov
ernment?" Mr. Schenck replied that he had not. "Well," said
Mr. Stevens, " I think I will drive to the British foreign office
and see if they have been sent there direct." Whereupon he
left the American Embassy, called another cab, and drove in it
to Downing Street and to the office of the British Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, and soon had an audience with the British
Secretary, of whom he inquired had he received the copies of

the American case pursuant to the Treaty of Washington. He
was told that they had not been received. " Well," said Mr.
Stevens, " I suppose that you will extend the time in case they
do not come ?" "Oh, no," said the British Minister, "there is
no provision in the Treaty for the extending of the time for the
service by either party of their case, but there is a provision in
the Treaty for extending the time for service of the counter-case,
and I am bound to suppose that the learned and distinguished
representatives of both countries in drafting that convention or
treaty had the best of reasons for making a difference of provis
ion in the one case from the other, and for using different lan
guage as to one act to be done, than as to the other act to be
done, and that by so saying that the time might be extended for
the delivery of the counter-case they meant it, and by not saying
so as to the time within which the case itself was to be delivered,
they consequently meant that there should not be any extension
of time." Mr. Stevens asked: "What will be the result in case
you do not receive the case within the limited time?" The Brit
ish Secretary replied: "There is but one result that can follow,
and that is that the failure to deliver the case within the stipu
lated time is an abandonment of the provisions of the Treaty by
the government that fails of compliance with that provision of
the Treaty." After the exchange of proper courtesies Mr. Stev
ens left him, and, calling a cab again, drove hurriedly back to
the American Embassy, and was again in the presence of Gen
eral Schenck, to whom he related what had transpired between
himself and the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs. " Well,"
said General Schenck, "it is none of your business and none of
mine; neither you nor I have failed in any duty; the responsibility
must rest where it belongs — upon those who have failed in the
performance of their duty." " But," said Mr. Stevens, " will you
donothing?" To which General Schenck replied," Nothing.'' Mr.
Stevens then said to General Schenck: "Will you lend me your
copy of the case ?" "No," said General Schenck, "you have your
copy, and this copy belongs in the archives of the Embassy."
" Well," said Mr. Stevens, " General Schenck, suppose it is missing,
what then ?" " Oh," said General Schenck, " I do not think it will
matter much; I do not think I will take any notice of it if it is
missing." Wherepon Mr. Stevens quietly backed to the table
upon which the document lay, and passed his hands behind him

13
and took the thin book (less than one inch in thickness), and
slipped it into the skirt pocket of his coat, and quietly bade
General Schenck " Good-morning " and again took a street cab.
Said he to me: " I knew that my printer had a new font of type,
which, as nearly as I could judge, was such a counterpart of the
type from which the American case had been printed, a copy of
which I had, that no one but an expert printer would be able to
distinguish between the two fonts. It was Saturday, and it was
nearly noon, and the beginning of the customary Saturday half-
holiday approached. Arriving at the printer's office I observed
the typesetters all coming down-stairs, and I accosted them,
asking where they were going, to which I received a reply
that it was the Saturday half-holiday and the 12 o'clock hour
was striking; and I shouted to the line, "A shilling a day to
each one of you who will return to his case." The line turned
back. Mr. Stevens, as he said, entered the foreman's room and
produced General Schenck's copy of the case and also his own
copy, and he said to the foreman: " You have a new font of type,
I know, from which you can reproduce this book, and I want to
have it reproduced by Monday morning early. It must be done,
although to-morrow is Sunday, for great issues hang upon it."
"But," said the foreman, " it cannot be done; this is Saturday
half-holiday this afternoon, and all of the typesetters are gone
by this time." "Oh, no," said Mr. Stevens; "I have met them
on the stairs and promised them a shilling a day apiece for
every man who would return to his case, and they have all gone
back." "Well,'' said the foreman, " if that is so, it can be done."
And the foreman and Mr. Stevens took the two copies of the
case and tore them to pieces and they were distributed to the
compositors, and Mr. Stevens left the printer's office with the
assurance that the job would be done and 100 copies of it printed
in sheets by Monday morning at 9 o'clock. Mr. Stevens, leaving,
took with him the single lithograph print contained in the book
(it was a rough map of our Southern coast, the Gulf of Mexico
and the islands — the Antilles and the Bahamas), and drove at
once to a lithographer's and made the same arrangements with
him to have 100 copies of the lithograph plate ready at the same
time on Monday morning. He then drove to a case-maker and
binder and made the same arrangement to have 100 cases ready
in which to insert the book on Monday morning at 9 o'clock, and

14
then he went home assured that he controlled the situation. On
that Monday morning, at the hour appointed, he appeared at the
printer's office and took into his hands the sheets of the loo
copies printed complete (even to the typographical errors in the
original copies), and drove to the lithographer's, where he
secured the loo copies of the lithograph print, and with the
whole drove to the case-maker's, where he deposited his load.
Four copies of the work were assembled, and, as well as time
permitted, stitched and put into four cases, and Mr. Stevens
with them entered a cab and drove to Downing Street and to
the office of the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and deliv
ered, before 12 o'clock of that day, the last day pursuant to the
Treaty, two copies of the American case to Lord Tenterden, the
Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs, who had been named as the
British Agent. He then drove to General Schenck's office and
returned to him one of the other copies reproduced in the place
of the one which he had taken on the previous Saturday, and
told General Schenck the story of what he had done.
" Well," said I, " Mr. Stevens, that is a most interesting and
wonderful story. Of course it has been told and gone well into
history." " No," said he, " never, save to a few persons, and
you are one of that few, and it must never go into print as long
as I live." "And," said I, " of course the United States Govern-
ernment repaid you the expense of what you had done ?" To
which he replied: " Never a cent of it." I said: " Why, what do
you mean ?" Said he: " I never presented any bill or claim for
it. The fact is that before Parliament assembled that evening
the news of the service of the American case on the British Gov
ernment was well known to many, and the next day I was called
upon by many, to obtain copies of it, and I sold to members of
Parliament for a pound apiece every copy that I had to spare,
and I realized more than enough to cover the expenditure."
"Well," said I, "how do you account for the failure of the
Washington authorities to comply with the terms of the Treaty?"
" Oh," said Mr. Stevens, " when the next steamer arrived the
bundle came. Instead of committing so important a matter to
the hands of a special messenger to bring it across the Atlantic,
or sending the number of necessary copies at the time that a
single copy was sent to General Schenck and a single copy was
sent to me, the bundle was entrusted to the custody of an ex-

15
press company, and as it was thought in time for the last steamer,
but the express messenger, knowing nothing of the importance
of the package, treated it like any other, and it reached New
York after the steamer had 'sailed."
To understand the importance of the act performed by Mr.
Stevens, we must remember that it saved the arbitration at
Geneva to us, and that the award of that tribunal to America
for the depredations of the Alabama and the Sumter and the
Rebel vessels was a round sum of $15,500,000.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 01427 8213