Yonge into the witness box. And first observe the folly of the course taken. What was it that Mr. Clarence Randolph Yonge told us after all? He gave us a great deal of information about the Alabama; he told us who the officers were on board the Alabama; he told us how the money was procured to pay the officers on board the Alabama; he told us where the Alabama went to and where she did not go to, what she did and what she did not do on her cruises. But, gentlemen, are we trying the question of the cruises of the Alabama here? Is it material for you to know what was or what was not done on board the Alabama? What was it that all this evidence was intended to show? I cannot, for the life of me, conceive what object it was the Crown thought they would attain by putting this miscreant into the witnessbox to tell us the narrative of the secrets which he had found out on board the Alabama. But, in the second place, I beg you to observe, not only the folly but also the fatality of the course taken by the Crown in putting this witness into the box, because I will venture to say that this evidence recoils on the case of the Crown, and actually puts an end to any shadow or fragment of a case which could have been alleged to be proved on the previous evidence. I do not merely mean to say that this evidence would cover with shame and confusion any case that was ever brought before a jury, though that is perfectly true. But consider this. We have now had here that which you never expected to hear, and that which my clients could never have been able to lay before you, because they have no spies and informers; we have obtained by this happy coincidence, for so I will call it, an insight into the interior of the whole of the secrets and proceedings of those who are said to have been the agents of the confederate government. We have got by the accident of this treachery, I say we have got laid before you by one who was the trusted and familiar friend and one of the agents, as it was said, of the confederate government, everything that they contemplated last April, at the time when they were engaged in fitting out and sending away the Alabama. Do you suppose it to be possible that those gentlemen could have had any project or any plan whatever about the Alexandra, which is the ship you are trying? Do you suppose they had anything on earth to do with her? Do you suppose that they had ever made any arrangement or plan for her construction? Do you suppose it possible that such a thing could have existed, and that Mr. Clarence Randolph Yonge, their trusted and familiar friend, would not have known of it, and would not have told of it? Why, gentlemen, the evidence of Mr. Yonge, fully, triumphantly, and perfectly acquits the Alexandra. It is utterly impossible that those gentlemen who were acting, as it is said, as the agents of the confederate government in Liverpool, I say that it is utterly impossible that they could have had any design on the Alexandra without Mr. Yonge being aware of it. Therefore I add that the folly and fatality of the Crown in bringing forward Mr. Yonge is perfectly manifest, and I cannot help rejoicing, though at the sacrifice of everything which revolts humanity, at having heard his evidence, because he came here to curse us and has altogether blessed us. He has disclosed the secrets of the cabinet council in Liverpool, and not one single secret of those cabinet councils has reference to the ship you are now trying.

1

Gentlemen, I have now done with the consideration of the evidence, and I say that, upon the two points of the case which I have laid before you, there is not a fragment of evidence of any act done by any of the persons who could do such an act which justifies these proceedings. I pray you to remember that it is for the Crown to prove and to establish the case. You will hear from the Crown (for the Crown in this case have the advantage of a reply)—you will hear from my learned friend the attorney general everything which ingenuity or eloquence can do to establish the case of the Crown. But I pray you to try the case of the Crown by the considerations which I have put before you, and I have no apprehension of the result. I have no doubt my learned friend the attorney general will suggest to you, as he did at the outset of this case, that it is much pleasanter to him not to prove the case, but to suggest the case, and leave the defendants to come forward and disprove the case alleged on the part of the Crown. Now I will repeat here what I said before. I do not stop to consider technically whether we could have called the persons who are charged with doing that which is criminal. Possibly we could not. But I do not stop to consider that. But as long as I hold a brief at this bar I shall maintain to the utmost of my power this doctrine, that though in civil cases it may be proper that a jury should hear the case told on evidence on both sides before coming to the conclusion-I say I shall maintain the doctrine, and I expect that my Lord Chief Baron will confirm it, that the duty of the Crown, when it rudely steps in and interrupts the course of business and seizes on property on the ground of a criminal charge-the duty of the Crown is to allege its case to the letter and prove it to the letter, and the privilege and protection of the subject is to stand upon his innocence, and charge and challenge the Crown to prove his guilt; and I charge and challenge my learned friend the attorney general, now in his reply, to stand up and say to you, "I appear for the Crown, and I will show by proof that a criminal act has been committed in this case, and I will show you that by evidence such as must be accepted in a criminal case.”

I ought to say, before I sit down, that, appearing here as counsel for the defend

ants, I cannot but regret that these proceedings have been instituted. Wealthy as my clients may be, and engaged in extensive business as they are, it is not a matter of no importance to them to be challenged with the loss of a ship worth £10,000 or £12,000; it is not a matter of small importance for Liverpool merchants to be summoned up here to try a cause of the Crown upon a footing which no cause of a subject has ever been tried upon; namely, that in the event of success on the part of the defendants, being unable to recover from the Crown one shilling of costs, or one shilling of indemnity for the wrong which the defendants have sustained-it is no small hardship and one which no person would like to be subjected to. But if I were able to look beyond that, and to look at the case on public grounds, I could hardly regret that these proceedings have been instituted. I dare say the Crown had but little choice in the matter. I dare say the Crown thought that the best way was to let the American government see what would be thought by an English jury and court of justice; but I think, now that we have a trial under this act, there is reposed in your hands a duty and a power of far greater importance than the ship Alexandra, or a ship a hundred times her value. The matter, gentlemen, now rests with you. You have it in your power, if you please, to paralyze the interests of commerce and industry in our seaports. You have it in your power by fetters, by hampering and irritating fetters, to drive the trade of ship-building-the honest and straightforward trade of ship-building-from this country into a neighboring country which is quite capable to receive it, and which is quite willing to accept it. You have it in your power to rejoice the hearts and quicken the energies of the spies and informers who, I am sorry to say, infest our dockyards, and who, I am still more sorry to say, appear to throng the ante-chamber of the American minister. You have it in your power to do all this by bringing in a verdict for the Crown. But you have also in your power a greater and a better result than that. You have it in your power to show to the American government, and that with all courtesy, and all good feeling and good fellowship, that there is one thing which we are determined upon, that is to say, to have our laws applied, not upon suspicion or upon presumption, but upon legal and proper proof. You have it in your power to show that the neutrality which we have adopted in this unfortunate war has been adopted, not to hamper or destroy, but to foster our commerce. You have it in your power to show that just as we will not change our law, so also we will not stretch, or strain, or warp our laws to suit the temper of foreign ministers or the exigencies of a foreign state. You can do this, and I trust you will do it in this case by returning a verdict against the Crown and for the defendants.

Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL. May it please your lordship; gentlemen of the jury, my learned friend, Sir Hugh Cairns, whose very able services the defendants, (as I will call them for convenience,) Messrs. Fawcett, Preston and Company, have obtained on this occasion, in the address which you have listened to from him, has been very discursive and rather lengthy. I fear that in the discursiveness of my learned friend, to some extent, at least, it will be my duty to follow him, and for this reason many of the observations of my learned friend, to which I shall as briefly as I can in justice call your attention, and which I venture to class under this head of discursiveness, not bearing properly upon the case or upon the question which you have to try, are yet, as you would suppose from their proceeding from an advocate of the ability and experience of my learned.friend, observations which, if not adverted to, and commented upon, would be calculated either to withdraw your minds entirely from the subject, or to perplex and bias your minds when you come to consider the questions at issue, and the manner in which they ought to be determined in that box.

My learned friend a short time ago told you, applying to me that which I do not deserve, that no doubt from the counsel for the Crown you would hear a display of much ingenuity and eloquence. Now, gentlemen, from my learned friend you have heard such a display, and of that we are all conscious, but the difference between the position of myself as counsel for the Crown and the position of my learned friend, Sir Hugh Cairns, as counsel for the defendants, is this, and I think you will be of opinion that it is a material distinction, that whereas his clients have relied upon the ingenuity and upon the eloquence of my learned friend alone, and have not allowed him to adduce before you a single tittle of evidence, I have no such necessity, if I could command it, for the use of ingenuity or the display of eloquence, because my case rests, not like that which is put forward before you as the defendants' case, upon observation and comment and declamation, but upon facts, the nature of which I explained to you at the outset, and which, when I come to that part of my observations, I shall submit to you, at all events under the circumstances, have been satisfactorily proved. But let me make this observation upon the general position of the defendants' case. You will recollect that at about the close of the first day of this inquiry, we proposed, on the part of the Crown, to get from a witness put in the box. Mr. Da Costa, whom my learned friend is content to call by no other epithet than that of "crimp"-I say we sought to obtain from him a statement of a conversation with regard to the Alexandra and its destination, and the contract under which it was built; we seeking to obtain that evidence, you will recollect that, although the answers of Mr. Miller were after

ward treated by my learned friend as immaterial, and not entitled to any weight or consideration, still you will recollect that very arduous struggle which my learned friend, and those who were with him on the part of the defendants, made to shut out the evidence. When that evidence was tendered and the discussion took place, every one would suppose, from the manner in which the discussion was conducted, that the evidence, if obtained, would be considered not less important on the part of the defendants than on the part of the Crown; that it would not only be relevant, but material and cogent proof in the case. Well, a long argument took place, and the Lord Chief Baron took time to consider, and in the end admitted the proof. It must be taken, therefore, that that is evidence. It is evidence before you; it is evidence upon the notes of the Lord Chief Baron, just as much as any other particle of proof is evidence in this case; but you would have supposed, not only with respect to the other parts of the case, but certainly with respect to this, that if the defendants were desirous of placing before you the very truth and the very facts of the case, and if they were aware that the statement made by Da Costa was an unfounded statement, they would have put Mr. Miller forward to contradict it, and would have given other evidence. You would have supposed that they would not have left you with the evidence of the Crown on one side and the eloquent speech of my learned friend, Sir Hugh Cairns, upon the other. It is a very important consideration, and I make it thus at the outset of my reply, before I proceed to the details of the evidence. I say it is a very important consideration that, although I threw out in the beginning of my speech that we should make, at all events, a case calling for an answer, and though we have given evidence which (uncontradicted as it is) establishes a case on behalf of the Crown, and it being in the power of the defendants to call persons now confronting me in this court to contradict that case by showing what the very facts are, the defendants also knowing, as they must have done, that such observations as I am now addressing to you must of necessity be made, they permit their counsel to sit down without calling witnesses, and instruct my learned friend, Sir Hugh Cairns, who acts of course as counsel upon their instructions-they have instructed him to leave the case, as far as they are concerned, upon the proofs of the Crown, and upon the observations and comments which the ingenuity and eloquence of my learned friend have enabled him to make to you on this point, and on other matters not so directly connected with the

case.

Now, my learned friend has said that this is a criminal proceeding. I shall show you that there is no foundation for that assertion, but, criminal proceeding or not, the proof of the existence of the facts and causes justifying the seizure and forfeiture of the property-I say the proof of those facts, of course, and without reference to the nature of the proceeding, rests upon the Crown, by whom those proceedings were taken. Well, then, my learned friend says, and says truly, "You are not to call upon us, upon the suggestion that we are guilty or have done certain things, to adduce any evidence before a jury to negative that suggestion." I quite agree in that. It would overturn the whole course of evidence, and would be contrary to reason and justice that a person who was merely and simply accused should be called upon to prove his innocence. But does the question so stand? After the evidence of the witnesses with respect to the construction of this vessel, and with respect to the destination of the vessel, and with respect to the character of the persons implicated and mixed up more or less in its construction-I say after that evidence, is it not idle to suggest that the defendants are now in a position in which, if they were to do what they could do without difficulty, namely, give evidence of the real nature of the transaction—I say, are the defendants now in a position in which, if they were to adopt that course, they would be, to use the language of my learned friend, going into the witness-box to exculpate themselves from a matter merely of accusation? I am sure you will see that that is not the case. After these general observations I will proceed to deal with the observations of my learned friend which preceded his closer argument upon the evidence in the case, because I think the time which my learned friend occupied yesterday, and some portion of the time which he occupied this morning, was consumed in making observations such as I have already alluded to as being of a discursive character, but at the same time observations, many of them, on which it would not be right that I should not say a few words to you.

Now, in the first place, my learned friend, though he must I think have known better, would persist in describing the proceeding in this case-I mean the information—as an indictment, and he would persist in calling the acts imputed to his clients, or others, for his clients are not necessarily implicated-I say he would persist in calling those acts misdemeanors. Now, gentlemen, this is no indictment; you by this time know enough of the proceedings to be aware that it is not an indictment, it is an information. An indictment is an accusation against an individual attended on proof, with penal consequences to be visited upon the person of the individual, and not of necessity touching the property of any one. This proceeding is a proceeding, not against the person of any one, but against the hull of the ship Alexandra, as it now lies in Toxteth dock; and although the acts imputed in this information, and which must be proved to

your satisfaction in order to uphold the seizure and justify the forfeiture of the shipI say, although these acts are acts or may be acts which might form, if the individual were sufficiently ascertained for the purpose of a criminal prosecution, a ground of such a prosecution, with that we have no concern-we have nothing to do with the question whether they might or might not form a ground of a criminal prosecution; they do form the ground of proceedings against the vessel such as the present proceeding, and in that light alone is it right that you should regard the subject. And my learned friend must permit me to remark that there is this very great difference to be observed. Those of us who have attended to proceedings in criminal courts are aware that it is a very frequent and common topic for counsel who defend persons accused of crimes to urge, My unfortunate client's mouth is closed, you can hear witnesses for the Crown, but, as far as he is himself concerned, you can hear nothing in reply." But, gentlemen, who has closed the mouth of my learned friend's clients on this occasion? I will not say he has done so, for I know that he has not; he has acted on his instructions; but the defendants themselves have thought fit, so to speak, to close their own mouths. They are therefore in a different position from the position in which any one would be placed who was at a criminal bar charged with committing a misdemeanor. They had it in their power to throw full light on that which may now, in your judgment, be more or less obscure. They have refused to do so, and they have voluntarily abstained from giving you further aid in your inquiry. Therefore I am entitled to make this observation, that my learned friend's complaints on the evidence on the part of the Crown as being sleuder and unsatisfactory, are deprived of all their force and all their weight when you consider that that which, as it at present stands, may not appear to you to lead as conclusively as might be desired to the decision to which I invite you to arrive-I say, when you consider that that might have been cleared up, that that which attaches suspicion, and which proves in some measure guilt on the part of the defendants, might have been explained or might have been contradicted-when you consider that the defendants would not adopt the course which was open to them-I think I may make this observation once for all, that the observations of my learned friend on what he has called the meagerness and weakness of the evidence for the Crown receive a complete and satisfactory answer. But I may make this observation further in justification of the course adopted by the Crown. The Crown have not thought it right in this case to indict any one of those persons. I have stated that the consequences of a conviction on indictment would penally affect the persons indicted, while the consequences of the success of these proceedings would be to affect the property in the ship, which would then stand forfeited to the Crown. It is, in fact, a more lenient course of proceeding, and it is a course of proceeding which is, perhaps, very advisable, when it is considered that this case is, as far as we know, the first case under the act of Parliament in which the question has been brought into a court and submitted to the consideration of a jury. Bearing that in mind, the course taken of proceeding by information rather than by indictment, is, I think, a wise and merciful course, because it is a means of giving to those who may possibly not have adverted to the matter, or may not have been informed upon it, information as to what the law is, and of showing, if your verdict shall be for the Crown, that it is not to be endured, for the sake of the interests of a few shipbuilders at Liverpool, that the relations of two powerful governments are to be threatened and possibly disturbed. Such is the character of these proceedings, and such is the abundant vindication for this form of proceeding having been adopted.

My learned friend, rather to my surprise, considering his great ability as a lawyer, was a little severe upon what we are compelled to call an information, because by no other name is it known. It is a written statement of the charge on which the forfeiture has been based or is to be sustained. Now, my learned friend, for the sake of what appears to me to be not a very happy pun, told you that the information was misnamed, because it gave to him no information whatever. He would have you believe that so dark was he with respect to the accusation made against his clients, with others, that until he heard my opening and my statement in more popular language than the technical language of the information, he was at a loss to know what his clients had come to London to resist or to answer. But I think my learned friend in making that statement, can hardly have intended that you should receive it as a serious statement. The information consists of a great number of counts-that is to say, various forms of putting the charge. The reason for that would be very intelligible, I will not say to a barrister of seven years' standing, but to a student of six months' standing in the law.' It is very difficult-although my learned friend does not usually allow us in this court the aid of his great forensic ability and legal attainments-it is very difficult to understand how, with that document, voluminous, I admit, before him, which his very able junior would have abstracted into intelligible and popular language in a quarter of an hour-I say it is very difficult to understand how my learned friend, with his general knowledge, and with the able assistance of the gentleman behind him, could feel any doubt as to what was the precise meaning of the information. I will, however, pass over that, and come to some more general observations which my learned friend made.

My learned friend said, truly enough, in observing upon what I opened to you, (namely, that this was the first case brought to trial, so far as we know,) that since the year 1819 there have been other wars. The object of those observations of my learned friend was to suggest that former governments, in the presence of other wars, had not embroiled themselves, as he would say, in any attempt to enforce the provisions of this, not very happily expressed, act of Parliament; whereas the present government, whom my learned friend did not speak of with any particular respect, being either more rash than their predecessors or perhaps influenced and pressed upon, (I do no know whether my learned friend would have gone so far as to say concussed by one of the belligerents,) whereas the present government, under the influence of one class of feelings and motives or another, have undertaken this task, which we do not disguise is, under the circumstances, a task not free from difficulties. But it is to be remarked that there are peculiarities in the pending war which sufficiently distinguish it, for the purpose of prudent proceedings under this act, from any former war since 1819. In the first place, one of the belligerents, the United States, is a great naval power. The other, as we know, the Confederate States, have no navy, properly so called, have no means of keeping the sea as belligerents. And there is this further peculiarity in the war; it is a war of revolt by one portion of a common state (which was for many years submitting to a common rule) against the other; and it so happens that all the members of all the various states composing that common state, who had any commercial affairs to manage and conduct, had, (that is, on both sides, on that side which is now called the North and on that side which is now called the South,) so long as peace continued, very extensive commercial dealings with the port of Liverpool, and with the merchants and others who carry on business there; and that was therefore likely to happen which has occurred, namely, that attempts should be made, more or less successfully, to repair from that port, or the adjacent waters, to repair and redress the disadvantage of the absence of a regular naval force on the part of the confederate government. Now, supposing such attempts to be made-and no doubt can exist that they have been made-then comes the observation that they would be likely to become known to the consul and to the other agents of the United States who are properly residing for commercial purposes in the port of Liverpool, and accredited to this country. It is not to be concealed, and I stated it in my opening, that the government of the United States has the strongest and the most direct interest in preventing the rendering of warlike assistance to those who are now their enemies from British quarters, or British arsenals, or British harbors. Well, then, what follows? The American government know very well that we have in Great Britain the act which has been so often referred to, namely, the foreign enlistment act; in fact we have borrowed it from them. They began their legislation in this beneficial direction as early as 1796, and they amended and extended it in 1818, while we followed their example in 1819. Now, recollect what would have been our position with reference to the United States if, instead of the United States being belligerent, we had been in that condition, in the condition, namely, of warring with another power with which the United States were at peace. We should then have had the advantage of the existence in the statute-book of the United States of the act of 1818, and we should have had a right, according to the comity of nations, if our minister at Washington or our consul at New York had been supplied with credible information that ships were being prepared with the direct and express intent and purpose, when complete, of passing under the flag of our enemy, say Russia, for the sake of example, and cruising against the merchant ships and ships of war of this country; I say, upon such information being laid before the consul, or being laid before the minister at Washington, he would have been perfectly justified in communicating it to the Executive of the United States. He would have been justified in doing that, and in asking the United States government, if they, or those who advised them, thought the case was well established and proved, to take proceedings upon it. And I say more; I say that, in such case, it would have been a gross dereliction of duty, either on the part of a consul or a plenipotentiary, if, with such means in his possession, he had not sought to avail himself of them in the way in which I have described. Well, but what should we have said if, under those circumstances, and such credible and well-supported information being furnished, the government of the United States had said, "It is true we have a foreign enlistment act; it is true that these statements appear to make out a case in which we might interfere effectually, but we do not think fit to do so. You have laid this information before us, but of our own mere motion we are not disposed to do anything?" And I ask you to suppose, further, that that had occurred, not once, but a dozen, or twenty, or a hundred times; and that then you found sailing out of the harbors of the United States Alabamas, or Alexandras, or Oretos, or whatever they might be, ships adapted for war and not adapted for commerce, adapted for an armament, not at the moment having an armament on board, but proceeding three or four miles from the shores of the United States, and then meeting other vessels or tenders, and taking from them their armaments, and at once hoisting a Russian flag and passing into the warlike service of the Russian gov ernment. That, gentlemen, is the case I ask you to suppose. Now, I am supposing