As between the North and the South, the chance to wield the sea power lay with the one of the two rival governments which should first put on the water even a very small fleet of ironclad, steam-driven vessels. The Confederacy proved afterward what power could be exerted in this direction with but one single ironclad, when the _Merrimac_ destroyed or scattered all the ships in Hampton Roads, for a moment threatened Washington and the Northern cities with ravage, and was checked at last only by the almost providential appearance of another ironclad, Ericsson's little _Monitor_, on the scene. And the _Alabama's_ armor of chains made her for a time almost a match for the United States navy. By what means could the Confederacy have forestalled the North in the provision of a really effective navy? The chance, as I have said, was offered, and declined, with fatal want of foresight. It lay in the ten steamships of the English East India Company, which in 1861 was winding up its affairs. These ships were offered to the Confederacy at a fair valuation. They were very good vessels, and capable of prompt armoring in at least as effective a style as that in which the _Alabama_ was afterwards armored. The East India Company was prepared to make such terms as the Confederate government could have met. British outfitters were perfectly willing to trust the Southern statesmen. The ships could have been armed in a few weeks; there was nothing to prevent their entrance into Southern ports, for the blockade was not made effective until one year after the war broke out. The _Otero_, renamed by the Confederates the _Florida_, had no difficulty in taking on her men and guns in the Bahamas. Possessed of ten good steam vessels, commanded by such men as Maury, Maffitt of the _Florida_, and Semmes of the _Alabama_, the Confederacy could have quickly overcome its lack of mechanics and workshops by importation from Europe. It was the command of the Mississippi, the Cumberland and the Tennessee rivers which "broke the back of the Confederacy"; and does any one imagine that the wooden ships of Farragut could have entered the Mississippi, compelled the abandonment of New Orleans, and secured the possession of not only the seacoast but the inland river waters which commanded the Confederacy from the rear, if there had been any good ships to resist him? The start which these ten ships would have given a Confederate navy would have more than put the South even with the North on the sea. It must be remembered that up to 1862, even as it was, the South could do better in the courts and exchanges of Europe than the Union could. Why? Because the South had the cotton, upon which the mills of Europe depended. The continued chance to market cotton would have saved the situation for the South. _Alabamas_ in any requisite number would have issued from British shipyards.