The English pilot who was enjoying himself, pointing out the details of the great port, temporarily distracted his thoughts. The city was unique among great ports in having a system of enclosed docks. Liverpool was the child of the North American trade and an immigrant gateway as well. It was unlike London or New York, where the steady flow and depth of the Thames and Hudson allowed their docks to line the rivers. The city was so close to the Irish Sea that the tidal Mersey, which had a difference of thirty-three feet between high and low tide, would have left ships beached on her mudflats at low tide. Strong winds, a swift current, and twenty thousand acres of shifting sandbanks contributed to the necessity of building Liverpool’s enclosed docks, where ships could be kept permanently afloat in deep water.
The pilot began pointing out the individual docks as they passed, each filled with masts, and connected by Wapping Dock, which allowed ships to move within most of the dock system without having to exit and reenter the system through the river. Lamson’s ears pricked up when the pilot pointed out Albert Dock, where his quarry was in the last stages of fitting out. The pilot was explaining that the Albert Dock was used for only the most valuable cargoes, such as brandy, and that its seven and a half acres was surrounded by bonded, fire- and theft-proof warehouses of brick and iron. The docks were less than twenty years old but already becoming too small. Built for sailing ships, its entrance was too small for the new side-wheelers and difficult for the large, screw-propeller ships.
“Captain!” Lamson turned to see Lieutenant Porter touching the brim of his cap. “The Royal Navy is coming down the river.”
“Prepare to present full honors, Mr. Porter.”
The crewmen who had been lounging by the railing were sent into a bustle of action by the executive officer’s shouted commands. In less than a minute the men had gone from a gaggle to neat lines on deck. As the first British ship came even with Gettysburg, Porter shouted, “Present arms!” The sailors’ hands shot to their caps, and the Marines presented arms. A keen eye would have noticed that the Spencer rifles they carried had no fittings for bayonets.
The first British ship was the wood screw frigate HMS Liverpool, dwarfing Gettysburg at two thousand six hundred and fifty-six tons.3She was two hundred and thirty-five feet in length and fifty feet in the beam, not even three years old but already obsolete, some might say, in this new age of iron. She carried the standard armament of the Royal Navy. Pride of place was given to the breech-loading 110-pounder Armstrong gun, issued widely to the fleet in 1861; eight 8-inch rifles; four 70-pounders; eight 40-pounders; and eighteen 32-pounders. The Royal Navy had been so impressed with the Army’s tests of the Armstrong breech-loader that it had ordered almost two thousand guns of sizes that the manufacturer had not even designed, and later accepted them without trials. Liverpool was followed by the much smaller Albacore class wood screw gunboat HMS Goshawk with four guns. As the stern of Goshawk passed, Porter’s commands sent the crew back to work to prepare for docking.
Aboard the British frigate, there was no perceptible change in the normal activities of the crew as it passed Gettysburg. The officers on the bridge ostentatiously looked the other way as if the American honors were their due and not worth their notice.
Liverpool did not neglect the minimum customary honors that were owed to any warship of a recognized state. The British naval jack was dipped in salute. The U.S. Navy never returned such customary European honors on the principle that the Stars and Stripes bowed to no other flag. It was an irritation among other navies, especially where an irritation with the Americans was preferred.
When Porter dismissed the crew after Goshawk passed, there was a notable mutter as the men broke ranks. The snub had not gone unnoticed.
Attention soon shifted to the marvel of the enclosed docking system, fascinating everyone from captain to cabin boy. The pilot directed them through Queen’s Basin and from there down a short channel into King’s Dock. Lamson was pleased at how well Gettysburg handled in such tight places.
No sooner had they docked than a civilian gentleman left his waiting carriage to wait for the gangplank to be lowered. As soon as it touched the stone pier, he dashed across it and said to the guard, “Permission to come aboard. I must speak to the captain immediately.”
Lamson shouted from the bridge, “Permission granted. Mr. Henderson, show our visitor to the bridge.” The man who climbed to the bridge was middle aged with a well-trimmed, graying beard and the serious look of New England about him. He exuded an alert competence. He extended his hand introduced himself. “Good day, Captain. I am Thomas Haines Dudley, United States Consul in Liverpool. We had word that you had arrived and would be docking here this morning. We must speak privately.”
Once they were in Lamson’s private cabin, Dudley came right down to business. “Captain, I have been informed of your instructions; you have arrived not a moment too soon. I am convinced that the quarry has wind of Ambassador Adams’s presentations of evidence to the Foreign Office proving that the rams have been built for the Confederacy. Not a moment to lose, not a single moment, sir. They moved Number 294 across to the Albert Dock last week and fitted the two turrets on the 28th and 29th. Half of Liverpool was there to see the biggest cranes in the port lift those great cylinders. They’ve been working feverishly ever since to rush her to completion.”
Lamson had looked forward to meeting the man who had sent such detailed reports on the rams, tracking their every stage of construction. He obviously had the trust of Seward and Fox. More important, he had the trust of Lincoln. Fox had explained that it was Dudley’s timely and critical support at the 1860 Republican convention that had secured Lincoln’s nomination. As a reward he had been offered the consulships in either Yokohama or Liverpool. Dudley had chosen the latter to be near expert medical care for a chronic illness. Whatever the illness was, it was not apparent in his urgent attitude now.
“Ambassador Adams had instructed me to inform you to report to him immediately upon your arrival. There is a train for London leaving this afternoon. I took the liberty of buying your ticket. I will escort you through your registration with the Custom House here and then see you off at the station.
“You must not lose a minute, literally a minute. As the warship of a belligerent, British law allows the Gettysburg only a forty-eight-hour stay in any British port to water and victual. That forty-eight hours begins when your papers are filed at the Custom House. You must get to London, see Adams, and take the next train back here. You will have just enough time. Thank God the British trains are so fast and dependable. They’ve built their tracks and grades with such care that there is almost never a derailment or delay. Unfortunately, that is something we cannot say at home.” Dudley did not wait for Lamson to comment but stood up and said, “Let’s go!”
Along the way to the Custom House, they were stopped in traffic by the open windows of a grog shop. The words of an enthusiastically rendered drinking song were clear.