The confederacy needed a lot of ships in their fight of the rebellion and looked to foreign ports like those of England and Scotland, even though we had some what good diplomatic relations with them. Theses foreign governments could do little to stop the building of these ship because of their laws. Many of these ship were being build under the disguise of being merchant ships, and as long as no armaments were placed on them there was little they could do. After these ships were fit to sail they would sail to other foreign port to be fitted with armaments, or they would meet another ship on the high seas and refitted there.
In the case of the Pampero there was little doubt what she was being built for, with her steel hull and her low engines and with her disguised gun ports, but as no armaments were being put on her and it was registered as a merchant ship, there was little they could do. The United States started putting on a lot of diplomatic pressure and this caused these governments a lot of diplomatic embarrassment so much so that the Pampero was finely seized and sold to the Danish government, and the owners of the company that built the Pampero were taken to court, but little or nothing became of it.
Note. The information on this page comes from the records of the 41st. Congress called, Enforcement of Neutrality, Rebel operations from Canada Vol. II. No. 1395.
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CASE OF THE PAMPERO.
Mr. Dudley to Mr. Seward.
UNITED STATES CONSULATE,
Liverpool, September12, 1862.
She is to be two hundred and seventy feet long and will measure, when completed, upwards of three thousand in tonnage. Her cost of construction is to be something over £300,000. The stem-post is up and about one-half of the ribs set; the stem-post is straight and perpendicular, but is to have a solid piece of’ iron to project about eight feet immediately under the water as a ram. The keel, ribs, stein-post, and all the frame-work are of iron. The inside is to be lined with wood and the outside coated with iron plates four and three-quarters inches thick. The builders are James and George Thompson, of Glasgow.
Everything about her, time people who visit and superintend her construction, the secret manner in which she is being built, and the refusal of the builders to state for whom they are building her, all indicate that she is intended for the rebel government. Mr. Prettyman, the acting consul for the United States at this port, will no doubt lie able to obtain positive evidence, which he will report to the department.
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Mr. Dudley to .Mr. Seward.
Liverpool CONSULATE,
Glasgow, October 13, 1863.
Her hull is entirely finished; masts in, and all the rigging on; her port-holes for guns cut; bracing-bolt and rings for tile gulls, shot lockers amid powder magazines in ;and she was to have been launched yesterday. Even preparation was made, when they became frightened. the boilers and machinery were all that remained to complete her. They are now taking out the ring bolts, magazines, and shot lockers, and stripping her of everything that indicates a war purpose. They are, I am told, even closing up the port-holes. This will probably delay the launch for two weeks, but when she goes into the water there will he nothing in or about her to designate her character as a war vessel. The Canton is bark-rigged, and very much the some model as the Alabama, but larger. with a greater draught of water, and capable of carrying, as she no doubt will, a much heavier armament.
I would respectfully suggest the propriety of sending over at once sufficient, war vessels to seize her when she sails.
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Mr. Underwood to Mr. Adams.
UNTIED STATES CONSULATE,
Glasgow, October 15, 1863.
She is after the model of the rebel ship Alabama. ‘‘Canton—London,” are the words gilded on her stern. She is a clipper-built screw steamer, with three masts, two of which are iron, one of wood. Her length is from two hundred and eighty to three hundred feet from stein to stern ; her beam about fifty-six feet. Her frame is iron, bordered up with teak-wood planking, about five inches thick in the inside, up to the water mark. She is pierced with four large port-holes and four smaller Ones on each side, making sixteen in all; the larger ones seem suited flu the sweep and play pivot guns.
She is constructed to carry the greatest portion of her coals in iron side-pockets between decks, So as to give an unobstructed passage clear through from one fire-room to the other. Her water draught is marked fifteen feet. Has ‘‘eye-bolts” in her sides, suitable for and intended to handle and secure her guns.
She is donkey or bark-rigged, and all together similar to the Alabama, the only difference being that she has an iron frame, while the Alabama has wood. She is probablv from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred tons of burden, can be launched at any day, She is known in the yard as the “frigate.” She has a screw hoisting gear for lifting her propellers and when it is up, has a stern that falls down and makes her appear like a sailing ship.
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Mr. Dudley to Mr. Seward.
UNITED STATES CONSULATE,
Liverpool, November 12, 1863.
She had the name “Canton, of London,” in gilded letters on her stern. The day before she was launched “Canton” was taken off and “Pampero” put in its place. She was christened by Mrs. Galbraith, the wife of the Galbraith of the house of P. Hendrickson & Co., of Glasgow. This is the same house referred to in George N. Sander’s memorandum, among the intercepted correspondence, as the house of Galbraith & Co., of Scotland. Mr. Underwood tells me she has some fifteen valves in her bottom for the purpose of flooding her magazines, or of sinking her down in the water during an engagement, and that she has donkey engines to pump her out again.
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Mr. Dudley to Mr. Seward.
UNITED STATES CONSULATE,
Liverpool, November 12, 1863.
She had the name “Canton, of London,” in gilded letters on her stern. The day before she was launched “Canton” was taken off and “Pampero” put in its place. She was christened by Mrs. Galbraith, the wife of the Galbraith of the house of P. Hendrickson & Co., of Glasgow. This is the same house referred to in George N. Sander’s memorandum, among the intercepted correspondence, as the house of Galbraith & Co., of Scotland.
Mr. Underwood tells me she has some fifteen valves in her bottom for the purpose of flooding her magazines, or of sinking her down in the water during an engagement, and that she has donkey engines to pump her out again.
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Deposition of John Latham.
I, John Latham, of No. 8 Douglas street, in the city of Glasgow, and county of Lanark, make oath and say: That I am an engineer, and have served as engineer of steamers for the last eight years; that I have served on board of war ships for five years, and for about five months I served as fireman on hoard of the Alabama; that I have also served in the merchant service for about four years; that I have seen the vessel called the Pampero, which has been recently launched from the ship-building yard of Messrs. James and George Thompson, of Glasgow.
I was on board of her before she was launched; that nine port-holes were pierced on each side of said ship, and one of these portholes on either side appeared to be intended as a gangway; that before said ship was launched the said port-holes, with the exception of one on each side, were closed with movable shutters, and these movable shutters were secured by rivets on the inside, and I saw the joints or seams where the shutters met filled up with red lead putty and painted over, and nothing is now visible of the aforesaid port-holes but the hinges of the said movable shutters; that I observed rings or eye-bolts on the side of the said ship on each side of each of the said port-holes. I afterwards saw some of these rings or eye-bolts removed, and the sides of the ship are non- cased over, and the places intended for fastening on these rings or eye-bolts are not now visible.
I have always seen similar rings or eye-bolts in the men-of-war in which I have served, and they are used for the purpose of securing the guns and of moving them backwards and forwards; that in the merchant vessels in which I have sailed I never saw such rings or eye-bolts as I have described, and there is no use for them in merchant vessels; that the name Canton, London, was at first gilded upon the stern of the said ship, but that before the said ship was launched that name was changed to Pampero.
I believe the said ship was known and designated in the yard of Messrs. James and George Thompson the frigate, and on one occasion when I was in the yard, I asked for one Charles Gibson, who had been in the employment of Messrs. Thompson, and I was informed by one of the engineers working in the yard that he did not know the man, but that if I went over to the frigate ( pointing to the said vessel now called the Pampero ) I would likely find him there.
The bulwarks of said ship are between seven and eight feet in height; that I have seen the boilers and engines of said vessel; that the boilers are four in number, and are flat in construction; that the engines are horizontal, and the whole, both boilers and engines, are under the water hue; that the construction of the boilers is such as to take up a deal of carrying space, which would not suit a merchant vessel; that in order to save space, a merchant ship would likely have two boilers in place of four, and such boilers could he made of the same extent of the Pampero, by being constructed, as is usual in merchant ships, above the water line; that the said ship appears to be about two hundred fifty feet in length, and between forty and fifty in beam; that from the whole construction and build of the said ship, consider and declare that the said ship is intended and adapted for war like purposes, and not for mercantile service.
JOHN LATHAM.
Sworn before me at the custom-house in Glasgow, this 10th day of November, 1863.
FRED’K W. TREVOR, Collector.
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Deposition of Archibald McLellan.
I, Archibald McLellan, joiner, of No. 45 Eglinton street, in the city of Glasgow and county of Lanark, make oath and say: That I have been employed in ship-building yards as a joiner for the last nine years; that I was informed about five months ago, by James Henning, joiner, in the employment of Messrs. James and George Thompson, that they were building a ram and a privateer in the yard of Messrs. James and George Thompson for the Confederate States of America; that we had been conversing about the screw steamer Georgia, which had about that time sailed from Clyde, as a privateer, and in the course of our conversation the said James Henning volunteered the above information regarding the ram and the privateer.
About three weeks ago I casually met one Kinlock, a carpenter, in the employment of the said James and George Thompson, and in the course of conversation he stated that he was engaged fitting up magazines on board of the new vessel built by the said James and George Thompson called the Pampero, and he said he was fitting them up as water tanks; that the said Kinlock further stated that the vessel had been fitted up with mess rooms for a large crew, and that these had been taken down and marked, with a view to be put up again.
I have frequently seen the said ship Pampero while in the course of construction, and about seven weeks ago I saw her lying in the yard of the said James and George Thompson, and I observed that there were eight port-holes pierced in the side of the said ship which was towards me, three of which port-holes were larger than the other five, and might be used as well for gangways as for the sweep of pivot-guns; that the said port holes were then open; that since time said ship was launched, I have seen her on frequent occasions, and I then observed that the port-holes above mentioned, with one or two exceptions, have bed closed up, and nothing is visible of these port-holes but the hinges.
On one occasion, in the course of last week, I was on board of said ship, as she lay in the river Clyde, and I observed four eye-bolts opposite certain of time port-holes, which I saw were intended for securing guns; that on frequent occasions, besides those above referred to, I have heard from various persons in the employment of time said James and George Thompson that the said ship Panipero was being built for the Confederate States of America, and the said ship had the universal reputation among these persons of being a vessel of war or privateer for the Confederate States; that the construction of said ship is, in my opinion, in accordance with that reputation, and in the course of my experience I have not seen a vessel built for the merchant service, of similar construction as the said ship Pampero, and I believe that the said ship Pampero is built for war like purposes, not for the merchant service.
ARCHIBALD MCLELLAN.
Sworn before me at the custom-house in Glasgow, this 10th day of November, 1863.
FRED’K W. TREVOR, Collector.
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THE PAMPERO CASE.
We understand that the case of the Pampero will not now go to jury trial, an arrangement having been made for its settlement. We believe that by the arrangement the owners have consented to a verdict being entered for the Crown, forfeiting the vessel on some one count of the information, to be selected by the owners, they making such explanatory statement on the subject as they may think desirable, it is provided, on the other hand, that the owners are to retain and trade with the vessel, but are not to sell it for two years except with the consent of the Crown; and that alterations are to be made in the structure of the vessel. We understand that the builders are no Parties to the compromise, which provides for settling their claim and having it withdrawn from the proceedings.—Scotsman.
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Those of you who would like to know more of her secrets and how she was built need to read the depositions of the men who helped build her. These depositions will be given on request. I will only do one name per request. You can find my address in my profile.
Depositions of;
Thomas H. Dudley, p. 212.
John Latham, p. 213.
William Dayer, p. 214.
William Cook, p. 215.
John McGibbon, p. 218.
James Ross, p. 219.
John McQueen Barr, p. 220.
William McCambridge, p. 221.
William Carrick, p. 222.
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