%458.  The Trent Affair, 1861.%—­One of the vessels sent in pursuit of the Sumter was the San Jacinto, commanded by Captain Wilkes.  While at Havana, he heard that two commissioners of the Confederate government, James M. Mason and John Slidell, sent out as commissioners to Great Britain and France, were to sail for England in the British mail steamer Trent; and, deciding to capture them, he took his station in the Bermuda Channel, and (November 8, 1861) as the Trent came steaming along, he stopped and boarded her, and carried off Mason and Slidell and their secretaries.  This he had no right to do.  It was exactly the sort of thing the United States had protested against ever since 1790, and had been one of the causes of war with Great Britain in 1812.  The commissioners were therefore released, placed on board another English vessel, and taken to England.  The conduct of Great Britain in this matter was most insulting and warlike, and nothing but the justice of her demand prevented war.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Harris’s The Trent Affair.]

%459.  The Famous Cruisers Florida, Alabama, Shenandoah.%—­The loss of the Sumter was soon made good by the appearance on the sea of a fleet of commerce destroyers all built and purchased in England with the full knowledge of the English government.  The first of these, the Florida, was built at Liverpool, was armed at an uninhabited island in the Bahamas, and after roving the sea for more than a year was captured by the United States cruiser Wachusett in the neutral harbor of Bahia in Brazil.  Her capture was a shameful violation of neutral waters, and it was ordered that she be returned to Brazil; but she was sunk by “an unforeseen accident” in Hampton Roads.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Bullock’s Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, Vol.  I., pp. 152-224.]

The next to get afloat was the Alabama.  She was built at Liverpool with the knowledge of the English government, and became in time one of the most famous and successful of all the commerce destroyers.  During two years she cruised unharmed in the North Atlantic, in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea, along the coast of South America, and even in the Indian Ocean, destroying in her career sixty-six merchant vessels.  At last she was found in the harbor of Cherbourg (France) by the Kearsarge, to which Captain Semmes of the Alabama sent a challenge to fight.  Captain Winslow accepted it; and June 19, 1864, after a short and gallant engagement, the Alabama was sunk in the English Channel.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Ibid., Vol.  I., pp. 225-294. Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol.  IV., pp. 600-625.]

The Shenandoah, another cruiser, was purchased in England and armed at a barren island near Madeira.  Thence she went to Australia, and cruising northward in the Pacific to Bering Strait, destroyed the China-bound clippers and the whaling fleet.  At last, hearing of the downfall of the Confederacy, she went back to England.[1]