Next in importance to the Danish Question in 1864, were disputes which rose out of the relations of England to the belligerents in the American Civil War. The Southern States having no navy fit to cope with that of the Federal Government, had equipped swift steam cruisers which swept American commerce from the seas. They ran no risks in scuttling unarmed merchantmen, and their speed protected them from capture by men-of-war. The most formidable of these cruisers or privateers, such as the _Alabama_ and the _Georgia_, had been built in English yards, usually under the pretence of being destined for some Foreign Power which was at peace. When they escaped to sea and got their armament on board, they hoisted their true colours, and set forth to prey on American commerce. It has been shown how the precautions which the authorities had taken to prevent the Southern cruisers from escaping were evaded. The authorities, however, were more successful in arresting certain steam-rams--which were being built at the yard of Messrs. Laird in Birkenhead--the sailing of which Mr. Adams warned Lord Russell would be taken by the Federal Government as an act of war. Lord Monck, then Viceroy of Canada, in a letter to the late Mr. A. Hayward, says that the arrest of the rams had produced a good effect in favour of the English Government on the _official_ mind in America. On the other hand, the ship-building trade supported Messrs. Laird in denouncing the action of the authorities; and the Tory Opposition, and the sympathisers with the Slave States joined the shipbuilders in attacking the Government. These attacks were futile, but to avoid the annoyance of litigation, the Government virtually bribed Messrs. Laird into silence by buying the rams for her Majesty’s service. On the other hand, the partisans of the Northern States blamed the Government for being too generous in extending hospitality to the Southern cruisers, or “pirates,” as they were termed by the extreme Radicals of the period. When the _Georgia_, a Confederate cruiser, which had been built on the Clyde, and secretly equipped by a Liverpool firm, put into Liverpool, it was pointed out that she ought not to be treated as a ship of war. She had been preying on the commerce of a friendly Power. Like a pirate, she had never taken her prizes to be condemned in a Prize Court, but had scuttled them on the high seas. She had never once been in any of the ports of the belligerent Power under whose flag she sailed, and altogether a very unpleasant precedent for a great Maritime State was being created by her reception at Liverpool. The Queen was understood to be somewhat uneasy on the subject, and Mr. Thomas Baring, on the part of the commercial community, expressed a similar feeling of discomfort. It was admitted that the Government had the power to exclude these vessels from English ports, but Ministers contended that it would be inexpedient to act so