in which the Alabama was afterwards armored. The East India Company was prepared to make such terms as the Confederate government could have met.
British outfitters were perfectly willing to trust the Southern statesmen. The ships could have been armed in a few weeks; there was nothing to prevent their entrance into Southern ports, for the blockade was not made effective until one year after the war broke out. The Otero, renamed by the Confederates the Florida, had no difficulty in taking on her men and guns in the Bahamas.
Possessed of ten good steam vessels, commanded by such men as Maury, Maffitt of the Florida, and Semmes of the Alabama, the Confederacy could have quickly overcome its lack of mechanics and workshops by importation from Europe. It was the command of the Mississippi, the Cumberland and the Tennessee rivers which "broke the back of the Con-
