ance to the Shenandoah, and a body of 100 police and military were ordered down by telegraph to seize the ship. This they proceeded to do the same afternoon. About 10 o'clock in the evening four men were seen to leave the vessel in a boat pulled by two watermen. They were followed and arrested, and one of them proved to be the man against whom the warrant had been issued.1 Lieutenant Waddell wrote to protest against the course which had been taken. He denied that the execution of the warrant had been refused, as there was no such person as therein specified on board. He added that all strangers had been sent out of the ship; and that, after a thorough search by two commissioned officers, it had been reported to him that no one could be found on board except those who had entered the port as a part of the Shenandoah's complement of men. "I, therefore," he wrote, "as commander of this ship, representing my government in British waters, have to inform his excellency that there are no persons on board this ship except those whose names are on our shipping articles; and that no one has been enlisted in the service of the Confederate States since my arrival in this port, nor have I, in any way, violated the neutrality of the port." This letter was laid by the governor before his council on the 15th of February, together with one from the lessee of the slip. The latter stated that, should a gale of wind come on, it would be necessary either to launch the Shenandoah, or to run a great risk of her sustaining serious damage in consequence of her unsafe position, and that the government must take the responsibility of any expenses which might be incurred. As the object in view had been secured by the arrest of the men, it was decided, under these circumstances, to withdraw the previous prohibition, and to allow the launch of the vessel. Lieutenant Waddell was informed that this had been done on the faith of the assurance he had given; but his attention was called to the fact that the four men arrested had been on board his ship, and he was told that he would be expected to use all dispatch, so as to insure his departure by the day named by him, the 19th." The Shenandoah was accordingly launched on the evening of the 15th February; she reshipped, from a lighter, the stores which had been discharged before placing her on the slip, and, after taking on board supplies and coal, she left Melbourne at half past 7 a'clock on the morning of the 18th of February, being one day sooner than was expected. It is right to say that Lieutenant Waddell wrote to deny that the four men arrested had been on board with his knowledge; they had, he said, been ordered out of the vessel by the ship's police, who had only succeeded in discovering them after the third search. The officers of the Shenandoah also published, in one of the newspapers, denials of any complicity in the matter on their part. During the two days which elapsed between the launch of the Shenandoah and her departure from the colony, the most careful vigilance was enjoined on the authorities to prevent any violation of the foreignenlistment act. A reference, however, to the nature of the harbor, and to the circumstances of the case, will show how difficult it was to take effectual precautions for this purpose. Hobson's Bay, the harbor of Melbourne, is the inland termination of Port Phillip, a large basin of irregular oval shape, some 60 or 70 miles in circuit, with a narrow entrance to the sea. Such a conformation of coast offered great facilities 2 4 Appendix to British Case, vol. i, pp. 525-527; vol. v, pp. 109–112. Ibid., vol. i, p. 644; vol. v, p. 110. 3 Ibid., vol. i, p. 645; vol. v, p. 112. Ibid., vol. i, p. 646; vol. v, p. 113. for sending off men from different parts of the bay, who could be shipped on board the Shenandoah either before or immediately after she had passed this narrow entrance. There was no British vessel of war at or near Melbourne to which the duty of watching or controlling the movements of the vessel could be assigned. The legal advisers of the colonial government, when consulted on the question, had declared that they were not prepared to advise that the execution of a warrant on board of her could properly be enforced at all hazards; and this opinion was afterwards confirmed by that of the law-officers of the Crown in England.2 All, therefore, that could be done was to enjoin such supervision as could be exercised by the water-police of the port while the Shenandoah was at anchor, and to give orders to the pilot not to allow any boat to come alongside, or any person to come on board, from the time of her weighing anchor till he left her. With regard to the first of these two measures it is not difficult to perceive that to keep effectual watch [97] *over a vessel which is shipping coals and stores in a harbor from two to three miles wide at the place where she is anchored, in the midst of some two hundred or more vessels of every kind, must be no easy matter, even if a larger force were employed than could be available for the purpose on this occasion. With regard to the latter precaution it is evident that everything must depend on the good faith of the pilot, and his ability to carry out his instructions. After the Shenandoah had left Melbourne, it became a matter of public report that some men had joined her before her departure, and the number, which was no doubt much exaggerated, was stated to be as high as fifty or sixty. The inquiries made afterwards by the police resulted in the identification of some eighteen or twenty persons altogether, who had left the colony and were believed to be on board of the ship. Of these it appeared that seven had been employed in shipping coals, and they went on board in the night or early morning before her departure, on the pretense of getting paid for their work, but did not return. It further appeared that, about 9 o'clock on the night of the 17th of February, some men had been collected on the railway-pier of Sandridge, a suburb of Melbourne. The pier in question is the terminus of a railway from the town of Melbourne, and there is a communication by a steam-ferry to Williamstown, which is on the opposite side of the bay, about two and one-half miles distant, and where the patent slip and the station of the water-police are situated. The Shenandoah was at anchor in the bay between Williamstown and Sandridge. From the statement of one of the boatmen employed, the men in question must have dispersed into some wooded land a short distance off at the time when the boat of the water-police came round to that part of the harbor, and thus avoided observation. After the boat had rowed off to the opposite side the men seem to have returned in small parties, and gone off from the pier in watermen's boats, which put them on board the Shenandoah. How many of them were part of the original crew returning to the vessel from the shore, and whether any were new hands, there is nothing to show. The police constable on duty saw the boats after they had started and when they were returning, but had of course no means of investigating this question. It seems indeed, from the wording of his report, as though the darkness or the distance prevented his seeing whether the boats did or did not actually go to the Appendix to British Case, vol. i, p. 526. 3 Ibid., vol. v, p. 84. Ibid., vol. i, pp. 551-553; vol. v, pp. 117-122. vessel; all that is stated is that they went in that direction. A man of the name of Robbins went up to the American consulate, where he arrived about 11 o'clock at night, and stated what was taking place. The American consul sent him back to give information to the waterpolice at Williamstown, a distance in all about five miles by land and water, where he must have arrived too late for any interference or inquiry.1 At about 5 o'clock the same afternoon, another man of the name of Forbes had come to the American consul with a statement that he had seen five men at Sandridge, one of whom had told him that they were going out in a vessel called the Maria Ross, to join the Shenandoah when she got into the open sea beyond the jurisdiction of the port. The consul took the man to the office of the Crown law-officers, which had been closed some time before, but where he met the Crown solicitor, who had accidentally returned. It does not fall within the powers or duties of that officer to take depositions or issue warrants, and he referred the consul to a magistrate as the proper person to go to. The consul then proceeded to the Houses of Parliament, and placed the matter before the attorney-general, who offered to lay the matter before the government if furnished with an affidavit. Instead of complying with this suggestion, the consul applied to the chief of police, who naturally declined to act without a warrant, but suggested, as the Crown solicitor had done, that the consul should apply to a magistrate for the purpose. The consul accordingly went on to a police magistrate in Melbourne. This latter, after examining Forbes, did not feel justified in granting a warrant on such testimony alone, and he advised that application should be made to the water police at Williamstown, who might be able to furnish corroborative evidence. This advice the consul did not think fit to act upon. He returned home, took the man's deposition himself, and determined to forward it to the attorney-general, to be laid before the government, but he did not do this until the following morning, after both the Shenandoah and the Maria Ross had sailed. It is not true that (as alleged in the case of the United States) "he could get no one to attend to his representations." On the contrary, they received, according to his own evidence, "patient" attention from the attorney-general, as well as from the magistrate to whom he had recourse, and they advised him what to do; he did not follow that advice, and he is certainly more justly chargeable with a want of due diligence than those who, though unable to issue the war[98] rant he asked for, did their best to put him in the right way to obtain it. The Maria Ross was, however, twice searched before leaving the bay, and the mate, who was afterward examined, denied most positively that she had taken any passengers, or that any men were concealed on board of her.3 Such, as far as is known to Her Majesty's government, is all the information which the authorities of Melbourne were able to obtain as to the alleged shipment of men from the colony on board the Shenandoah. It was furnished, for the most part, to the police by the boatmen who had been employed in putting the men on board, on the understanding that they should not themselves suffer on account of what had been done. Of the four men who had been arrested on the night of the 14th, one claimed to be an American citizen and was discharged; the other three were remanded, and, after a month's imprisonment, brought |