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but it was enough to penetrate their defenses. One operative gained hold of the list of Confederate agents in Britain; another obtained proof that the suspicious ship with the capacity to carry sixteen guns in Liverpool was definitely one of Bulloch’s raiders.11 Charles Francis Adams forwarded Dudley’s report to Lord Russell, and the British government began quietly conducting its own investigation.12 By the middle of March, Dudley believed that he had all the information he needed to lodge a protest with the city’s customs officials. He could also prove that the Oreto was not destined for the Italian navy, as claimed by its builders, William C. Miller & Sons.

Bulloch was aware of Thomas Dudley’s scrutiny, however, and already had a strategy, based on the legal advice given to him the previous year, to thwart his attempts to have the vessel seized. An English captain and crew would sail the ship out of Liverpool without a single military component on board; once in neutral waters, the Oreto would rendezvous with the Bahama to receive her guns and supplies. Caleb Huse was put in charge of procuring the arms shipment for the Bahama. The timing could hardly have been worse for him. His funds had run out and he was forced to borrow small sums from friends in Liverpool—£200 here, £1,000 there—to cobble together the cargo, all the while being “watched by the agents of the United States wherever I may go,” as he complained to Major Josiah Gorgas of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau.13

When the Liverpool authorities inspected the Oreto at Dudley’s request, they found nothing that actually contravened the Foreign Enlistment Act, even though it was unusual for a merchant ship to have gun ports. They refused to impound her until Dudley could produce more concrete evidence. Bulloch was lucky, but it would only be a matter of time before something or someone incriminated them and the ship’s clearance would be revoked. On the chill, misty morning of March 22, the Oreto was slowly guided out of the harbor, ostensibly to test her engines. On board was a small party with female guests to give credence that the vessel was simply going on a Saturday outing. But as soon as she left the harbor, the passengers clambered down into the pilot boat and the Oreto steamed out to sea. From now on she would be known under her new name, CSS Florida.

Bulloch had taken a gamble by sending the Florida off without arms or a proper crew. Although the captain, James Duguid, knew the truth, since he was William Miller’s son-in-law, the rest of the English crew had been told they were bound for Palermo. Bulloch was relying on John Low, a Scotsman who had emigrated to the South in his early twenties, to protect his investment. Low was traveling on the Florida as a passenger, though in reality he had command of the vessel. His orders were to have the Florida delivered to Nassau in the Bahamas, where he was to hand the ship over to Lieutenant John N. Maffitt (whom Bulloch knew well and believed was resourceful enough to know what to do with her) or, in his absence, to any Confederate officer.

Thomas Dudley was convinced that the Liverpool customs officers had dragged their feet during the investigation into the Florida. A report in late March that the U.S. Navy had captured Captain Pegram and the Nashville off the coast of North Carolina cheered the Federals a little but did not lessen their sense of grievance against the British authorities, whom they suspected of ill-concealed bias toward the South. Adams went to see Lord Russell on March 25 to protest against England’s laxity over Confederate violations of the Foreign Enlistment Act. Russell listened sympathetically until Adams’s indignation took on such a strident tone that he undermined his case. “Adams has made one of his periodical blistering communications about our countenancing the South,” reported an internal Foreign Office communiqué after the meeting.14

Russell found the American minister’s charge of bias especially unfair after the British government’s myriad concessions to the North, not least