It was Cooper's fascination with shipbuilding that helped him shunt aside his doubts about the cause. He had long considered the South to be ignorant and misguided for failing to recognize the world-wide spread of industrialization and for clinging to an agrarian system based on human servitude. He recognized that realistically the problem couldn't be reduced to such a simple statement. But with that caveat, he still contended that a few elitists with wealth and political control had pushed the South to disaster, first by refusing to compromise on slavery and then by promoting secession. The yammering Yankee abolitionists had done their part as well, piling insults on the South for three decades — that the insults had a justifiable base made them no more bearable — and the result was a confrontation decent men, such as his brother Orry and Orry's old war comrade George Hazard, didn't want but didn't know how to prevent. Cooper believed that men of good will on both sides — he counted himself among them — had lacked the power, but they had also lacked the initiative. So the war came.
At that apocalyptic moment, a strange sea change occurred. Much as Cooper detested the war and those who had provoked it, he found he loved his native South Carolina more. So he turned over the assets of his shipping company to the new Confederate government and informed his family that they would be traveling to England to serve the Navy Department.
The situation in Britain vis-à-vis the Confederacy was complex, not to say confused. Nearly as confused, Cooper thought, as the foreign policy of the Davis government. The South needed war and consumer goods from abroad. She could buy those with her cotton, but Mr. Davis had chosen to withhold that from the foreign market because textile mills in Europe and Britain were suffering a severe shortage of their raw material. Thus Davis hoped to force diplomatic recognition of the new nation. All he'd gotten so far was half a pie; while the Cooper Mains crossed the ocean, Britain acknowledged the Confederate States as belligerents in a war with the North.
If full recognition depended on the skills of the three commissioners dispatched to Europe by Secretary of State Toombs, Cooper doubted it would ever be achieved. Rost and Mann were barely adequate mediocrities, while the third commissioner, Yancey, was one of the original fire-eaters — a man so extreme the Confederate government didn't want him. His posting to Britain amounted to exile. An ill-tempered boor was hardly the person to deal with Lord Russell, the foreign minister.
Further, the ambassador from Washington, Mr. Charles Francis Adams, descendant of presidents, had a reputation as a shrewd, aggressive diplomat. He kept pressure on the Queen's government to hold back recognition of the Confederacy. And Cooper had been warned that Adams and his consuls maintained a spy network to prevent the very kind of illegal activity that brought him to Liverpool.
"Lime Street. Lime Street Station."
The trainman moved on to call at the next compartment. Above the stone-sided cut through which the train chugged, Cooper glimpsed the chimneys of steeply roofed row houses stained with dirt, yet reassuring in their solidity. Cooper loved Britain and the British people. Any nation that could produce a Shakespeare and a Brunei — and a Drake and a Nelson — deserved immortality. Duty in Liverpool might have its dangers, but he felt exhilarated as the train jerked and finally stopped in the roofed shed adjoining Lime Street.
"Judith, children, follow me." First out of the compartment, he waved down a porter. While the luggage was being unloaded, a man with more hair on his upper lip and cheeks than on his round head wove through the press of passengers, porters, and hawkers to reach the new arrivals. The man had an aristocratic air about him and was well but not extravagantly dressed.
"Mr. Main?" The man addressed him softly, even though loud voices and escaping steam effectively barred eavesdropping.
"Captain Bulloch?"
James D. Bulloch of Georgia and the Confederate Navy tipped his hat. "Mrs. Main — children. The warmest of welcomes to Liverpool. I trust the journey wasn't too taxing?"
"The children enjoyed the scenery once the sun came up," Judith answered, with a smile.
"I spent most of the time studying the drawings you sent to Islington," Cooper added. They had arrived with a man pretending to be making a delivery of wallpaper samples.
"Good — fine. You-all come right along, then. I have a hack waiting to whisk us over to Mrs. Donley's in Oxford Street. Temporary quarters only — I know you'll want something larger and more suitable."
Turning slightly, he directed the remark to Judith. As Bulloch smiled at her, Cooper noticed his eyes. They moved constantly, scanning faces, compartment windows, trash-strewn corners of the great arched shed. This was no lark.
"You might like the Crosby area," Bulloch continued as he led the family and the porter outside. He flourished his gold-knobbed cane to discourage three sad-faced urchins with trays of old, damaged fruit. The Mains piled into the hack while Bulloch remained on the curb, studying the crowds. Finally he hopped in, rapped the ceiling with his cane, and they were off.
"There's plenty to be done here, Main, but I don't want to rush you. I know you need to settle in —"
Cooper shook his head. "The waiting in London was worse than overwork. I'm eager to get started."
"Good for you. The first man you'll meet is Prioleau. He runs Fraser, Trenholm, on Rumford Place. I also want to introduce you to John Laird and his brother. Got to be careful about that meeting, though. Mrs. Main, you understand the problems we contend with here, don't you?"
"I think so, Captain. The neutrality laws don't permit war vessels to be built and armed in British yards if the vessels will go into the service of any power with whom Britain is at peace."
"By Jove, that's it exactly. Clever wife you have, old chap." Cooper smiled; Bulloch was adapting rapidly. He continued energetically. "The laws cut both ways, of course. The Yankees can't build any warships either — but then, they don't need to, and we do. The trick is to construct and arm a vessel without detection or government interference. Fortunately, there's a gap in the laws — one we can sail right through if we have nerve. A solicitor I hired locally pointed it out. I'll explain it in due course."
"Will the local shipbuilders violate the laws on neutrality?" Judith asked him.
"Britons are also human beings, Mrs. Main. Some of them will if there's profit in it. Fact is, they've more offers of contracts than they can handle. There are gentlemen in town who have nothing to do with our Navy but who still want ships built or refitted."
"Ships to run the blockade?" said Cooper.
"Yes. By the way, have you met the man we work for?"
"Secretary Mallory? Not yet. Everything's been done by letter."
"Smart fellow, Mallory. Something of a submissionist, though."
Cooper's nature wouldn't permit deception on such an important point. "So was I, Captain."
For the first time, Bulloch frowned. "You mean to say you'd like to see the old Union patched together again?"
"I said was, Captain. Still, since we're going to work closely, I must be straightforward —" He put an arm around his wriggling daughter to settle her. The hack swayed. "I detest this war. I especially detest the fools on both sides who caused it. But I made my decision to stay with the South. My personal beliefs won't interfere with my duties, that I promise."
Bulloch cleared his throat. His frown faded. "Can't ask for better than that." But he clearly wanted to leave this boggy ground. He complimented the parents on their handsome children, then proudly showed a small, cardboard-framed photograph of his infant nephew Theodore. The boy's mother, Bulloch's sister, had married into an old-line New York family named Roosevelt.
"Expect she has cause to regret it now," he added. "Ah, here's Mrs. Donley's."