The Alabama, having received guns and munitions by a ship, the Bahama, sent out from England to that end, and having enlisted in the Confederate Navy most of the British crews of the two vessels, now entered upon a career of destruction of Northern commerce.  She was not a privateer, as she was commonly called at the time, but a Government vessel of war specially intended to capture and destroy merchant ships.  In short her true character, in terms of modern naval usage, was that of a “commerce destroyer.”  Under an able commander, Captain Semmes, she traversed all oceans, captured merchant ships and after taking coal and stores from them, sank or burnt the captures; for two years she evaded battle with Northern war vessels and spread so wide a fear that an almost wholesale transfer of the flag from American to British or other foreign register took place, in the mercantile marine.  The career of the Alabama was followed with increasing anger and chagrin by the North; this, said the public, was a British ship, manned by a British crew, using British guns and ammunition, whose escape from Liverpool had been winked at by the British Government.  What further evidence was necessary of bad faith in a professed strict neutrality?

Nor were American officials far behind the public in suspicion and anger.  At the last moment it had appeared as if the Government were inclined to stop the “290.”  Was the hurried departure of the vessel due to a warning received from official sources?  On November 21, Adams reported that Russell complained in an interview of remarks made privately by Bright, to the effect that warning had come from Russell himself, and “seemed to me a little as if he suspected that Mr. Bright had heard this from me[970].”  Adams disavowed, and sincerely, any such imputation, but at the same time expressed to Russell his conviction that there must have been from some source a “leak” of the Government’s intention[971].  The question of advance warning to Bullock, or to the Lairds who built the Alabama, was not one which was likely to be officially put forward in any case; the real issue was whether an offence to British neutrality law had been committed, whether it would be acknowledged as such, and still more important, whether repetitions of the offence would be permitted.  The Alabama, even though she might, as the American assistant-secretary of the Navy wrote, be “giving us a sick turn[972],” could not by herself greatly affect the issue of the war; but many Alabamas would be a serious matter.  The belated governmental order to stop the vessel was no assurance for the future since in reply to Adams’ protests after her escape, and to a prospective claim for damages, Russell replied that in fact the orders to stop had been given merely for the purpose of further investigation, and that in strict law there had been no neglect of governmental duty[973].  If this were so similar precautions and secrecy would