Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/238

 '230 Southern Historical iSVvV/y

Upon the receipt of the money, Page paid off the crew to May 19. 1865, and delivered the Stonewall into the hands of the Captain- General of Cuba. In July, 1865, she was delivered to the govern- ment of the United States, and the conditions of the surrender are set out in the annexed correspondence between the Spanish Minister at Washington and Mr. Seward, the United States Secretary of State. She was subsequently sold by the United States to the government of Japan.

TECHNICAL QUESTIONS.

It may be thought by those who are inclined to be severely critical that in the arrangements for despatching the City of Richmond, some liberty was taken with the municipal law of England, and that there was some violation of her neutral territory. Scarcely anyone, how- ever, will maintain that the shipment of arms by the steamer was illegal; and the officers and men from Calais were unarmed in plain clothes, were not above an hour from English soil and merely passed across a minute portion of English territory as ordinary travellers. If it is possible to construe those movements as an offence, it cannot be said that Her Majesty's Government was in any degree chargeable with neglect because neither the customs nor the police authorities could have known of the pufpose in advance, and could not therefore have made any arrangements to stop it, even if the state of the law would have justified interference.

At Calais, however, the conditions were wholly different. A Con- federate man-of-war was lying at that port. She was in a dock near the railway station, and could be seen by every passenger en route from London to Paris in the daily mail trains. Officers in the Con- federate uniform walked her quarter deck, the Confederate flag was hoisted and struck morning and evening, and all the routine and etiquette was preserved on board of her that is commonly practiced in national ships lying in the dockyards of their own countries. Her presence was permitted by the French authorities, and she was openly used as a depot ship, because no disguise was possible. Men were collected on board of her and afterwards distributed to the Florida and other vessels, as on previous occasions, and she was used in the same manner to supply the wants of the Stonewall. If there was any violation of French neutrality, it was done with the tacit consent of the Imperial authorities, and without greater con- cealment than is practiced in all well regulated business transactions. No information was asked, and none was offered.