The pirate ship found refuge in an obscure harbor of Wales, known as Moelfra Bay, where she lay in British waters _from half-past seven o’clock, P. M., July 29th, to about three o’clock, A. M., July 31st_, being upward of thirty-one hours, and during this time she was supplied with men from the British steam-tug Hercules, which followed her from Liverpool. These thirty-one hours were allowed to elapse without any attempt to stop her. Here was another stage of “crass negligence.” Thus was there negligence in allowing the building to proceed, negligence in allowing the escape from Liverpool, and negligence in allowing the final escape from the British coast. Lord Russell, while trying to vindicate his Government, and repelling the complaints of the United States, more than once admitted that the escape of the Alabama was “a scandal and a reproach,”[60] which to my mind is very like a confession. Language could not be stronger. Surely such an act cannot be blameless. If damages are ever awarded to a friendly power for injuries received, it is difficult to see where they could be more strenuously claimed than in a case which the First Minister of the offending power did not hesitate to characterize so strongly. The enlistment of the crew was not less obnoxious to censure than the building of the ship and her escape. It was a part of the transaction. The evidence is explicit. Not to occupy too much time, I refer only to the deposition of William Passmore, who swears that he was engaged with the express understanding that “the vessel was going out to the Government of the Confederate States of America,” “to fight for the Southern Government”; that he joined her at Laird’s yard at Birkenhead, near Liverpool, remaining there several weeks; that there were about thirty men on board, most of them old man-of-war’s men, among whom it was “well known that the vessel was going out as a privateer for the Confederate Government, to act against the United States, under a commission from Mr. Jefferson Davis.”[61] In a list of the crew, now before me, there is a large number said to be from the “Royal Naval Reserve.”[62] I might add to this testimony. The more the case is examined, the more clearly do we discern the character of the transaction. The dedication of the ship to the Rebel service, from the very laying of the keel and the organization of her voyage, with England as her _naval base_, from which she drew munitions of war and men, made her departure as much _a hostile expedition_ as if she had sailed forth from her Majesty’s dock-yard. At a moment of profound peace between the United States and England there was a hostile expedition against the United States. It was in no just sense a commercial transaction, but an act of war.