The next controversy endangering friendly relations between the Governments of Queen Victoria and President Lincoln arose out of Confederate privateering. Many of the private dockyards of Great Britain were turning out vessels as fast as they could to sell to the Confederate leaders. One of these ships, the _Alabama_, built in Messrs. Laird's yard at Birkenhead, became the terror of Federal commerce, having captured between sixty and seventy merchantmen in two years. At last she was sunk by the Federal ship-of-war _Kearsarge_, but her fame did not perish with her; it was the cause of an important alteration in international law. The fact is, the _Alabama_ was, for all intents and purposes, an English pirate. Built and armed in England, most of her crew and all her gunners were English, some of the latter being actually in English pay, as belonging to the Royal Naval Reserve. She approached her prizes flying the British colours at her peak, and only hauled them down when her prey could not escape. She was constantly in English harbours, and never in a Confederate one. While she was being built at Birkenhead, the American Minister appealed in vain to the British Government to detain her under the Foreign Enlistment Act; she was allowed to go to sea. Later on, two ironclads were on the point of leaving the Mersey for the Confederate service. Again Mr. Adams, the American Minister, demanded their detention, adding in his letter to Lord Russell, "it would be superfluous in me to point out to your lordship that _this is war_." The ironclads were detained, but President Lincoln, Earl Russell, and Lord Palmerston had all passed away before the dispute about the _Alabama_ was brought to a close. The American civil war had ended, General Grant was President of the United States, and Mr. Gladstone Prime Minister of England, when the question came up for final settlement. When it had been raised first, Lord Palmerston's Government had refused to admit any responsibility; then followed Lord Derby's third administration in 1866, and Lord Stanley as Foreign Secretary consented to the proposal for arbitration. But the introduction of various claims on the part of private individuals, arising out of events long antecedent to the civil war caused the postponement of any agreement until the year 1871. Each nation then appointed a Commission to meet at Washington to discuss all the subjects of international controversy, of which the _Alabama_ claims were the principal. The British Commissioners were Earl de Grey (the present Marquis of Ripon), Sir Stafford Northcote (afterwards Earl of Iddesleigh), Mr. Montague Bernard, Sir Edward Thornton, British Ambassador at Washington, and Sir John Macdonald, Prime Minister of the Canadian Parliament. The Conference resulted in the Treaty of Washington, of which the opening clause gave occasion to considerable resentment in the minds of the British public. It was no less than an