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1861-2] Confederate commerce-destroyers. 565 nothing. She sank suddenly when she was first tried at Mobile and drowned eight men. In 1864 she was recovered and moved to Charleston, and on her first trip there sank again, only one officer escaping from her. She was raised to sink once more, this time causing the death of six men. On her next trip she dived suddenly, and stuck in the mud of the bottom, when nine men perished on board her. But the Con- federates still persevered ; they raised her a fourth time and lost her a fifth time, on this occasion through the fouling of a cable. After so many disastrous experiences, General Beauregard, who was in command at Charleston, refused to allow her to be used further as a submarine, and insisted that she should only be employed on the surface. Running flush with the surface, she attacked the Northern steamer Hoiisatonic, off Charleston, on the night of February 17, 1864, and succeeded in exploding a torpedo under that vessel. The war-ship sank in four minutes; but the torpedo craft perished with her adversary, whether as the result of the explosion or from becoming entangled in the wreckage of the Housatonic must remain uncertain, as she carried down her crew with her. When the war was over, divers found the boat lying on the bottom, with nine dead men in their places on board her. For heroism and devotion to their cause, it would be difficult in the long annals of war to find superiors to the successive crews who manned this fated vessel. At the opening of the war the Confederate authorities recognised that the North was specially vulnerable in its commerce, and determined to attack in this quarter, with the object of diverting as large a part of the Northern navy as possible from the military operations on the Confederate coast. The vessels fit for this purpose were not to be had in the Confederacy, but they were obtained by purchase or construction in England, as at that date there was no clear ruling of international law on the question of supplying a combatant with ships, not actually armed but capable of being employed for military purposes. The United States, in the wars between England and France at the beginning of the nineteenth century, had rendered similar assistance to the French. Only one steam cruiser was procured in America, and she was purchased from a Southern firm of ship-owners at New Orleans. She ran the blockade and got to sea in June, 1861, and cruising under Commander Semmes made several prizes on the South American coast ; but she was finally driven into Gibraltar early in 1862, where she was watched by three Northern ships. Eventually she was sold, as no further use could be made of her because of her defects and because of this vigilant blockade. The commerce-destroyers bought in England were the famous Alabama, and the less well-known Florida, Georgia, Shenandoah, and Rappahannock, of which the last never got to sea. The Florida cruised between 1862 and 1864, but was only moderately successful, taking 37 vessels, though her tenders accounted for 23. She was seized by a Northern war-ship, CH. XVII.