Page:Recollections of a Rebel Reefer.pdf/146

 Liverpool—London—Visit "Hill Morton," near Rugby—Ordered to the C.S.S. Alexandra—Snubbed—Ordered to Paris—Ordered to London—Birthday properly celebrated—Damn the Marquis of Westminster and lose my only friend—Meet several Mr. Grigsons.

arrived arrived in Liverpool safely, and as soon as we could go ashore I accompanied Commodore Maury to No. 10 Rumford Place, the offices of Messrs. Fraser, Trenholm & Co., the financial agents of the Confederacy. There had been no Mr. Fraser in the firm for many years prior to this time, and Mr. Prioleau, a junior partner, was in charge of the Liverpool branch. But it was not to see him that our visit was made. The commodore wanted to see Captain Bullock, C.S.N., who had recently fitted out the Alabama and who was busy superintending the building of other ships intended for Confederate cruisers. Captain Bullock was very kind to me, particularly after I had told him that I knew Mrs. Bullock when she was Miss Harriet Cross and lived in Baton Rouge.

Before the commodore finished his interview a clerk came into Captain Bullock's office and asked if I was Mr. Morgan; he said Mr. Prioleau wanted to see me. Mr. Prioleau was very affable and gave me two letters of introduction, one to a fashionable London tailor and the other to the firm of Dent, the celebrated chronometer makers of that day. He said it was by Mr. Trenholm's orders and that the letters contained instructions as to what those people would give me.

The commodore and I stopped overnight at the old Adelphi Hotel. I was by this time accustomed to commodores and I had met a live lord, but the head waiter, the most pompous and dignified human being I had ever encountered, filled my little soul with awe whenever he condescended to come near me. I was hungry, but felt diffident