Bermuda Admiralty Case

The Bermuda Admiralty Case occurred in 1861 during the Union blockade of the Confederacy. Confederate agents in Liverpool, England were loading a British steamer, the Bermuda, with munitions for the Confederate Army when United States Minister Charles Francis Adams learned of it, and notified Foreign Secretary Lord Russell. Russell replied that the Crown Admiralty law officers found the evidence insufficient to warrant interference; their law applied only to the equipment of vessels to be used as transports or cruisers, and not to the nature of the cargo. The Bermuda sailed, and safely ran the blockade into Savannah.

Source: Dictionary of American History by James Truslow Adams, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940