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Threat of privateers from Victoria, British Columbia[edit]
On March 15, 1863, a
schooner, called
J. M. Chapman, had been seized in the harbor of
San Francisco, just as she was preparing to put to sea as a
Confederate privateer. This seizure made Union men everywhere along the coast more alert for other attempts to get a vessel for the purpose. Among its papers was one letter disclosing plans for the capture of
USS Shubrick but the scheme appeared to have been abandoned.
However early in 1863, Allen Francis, United States consul at
Victoria, British Columbia, received information that led him to believe a plot was forming, to seize
Shubrick, and convert her into a Confederate privateer. In the ensuing
Shubrick Incident,
Shubrick's Captain Pease and most of the crew, all suspected Southern sympathizers, were discharged by the Customs Collector for Puget Sound. This was accomplished on the next visit of
Shubrick to Victoria, while the captain and a large part of the crew were on shore, Lieutenant Selden, second in command aboard
Shubrick, threw off her mooring lines, and with only six men on board, he sailed away for
Port Townsend.
[3][4]
On May 13, 1863, Consul Francis, writing about the
Shubrick incident to Captain Hopkins of the United States Navy steamer
USS Saginaw, said:
USS
Saginaw cruised the Puget Sound and Straits of San Juan de Fuca and found no privateer.
Consul Francis raised the alarm once again in October 1863, when the president of this same "Southern Association" had contacted
Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin to obtain
letters of marque for a ship yet to be obtained. When Francis discovered two British ships entering the port, one with a cargo of shot and shell and the other with iron construction, he feared they would be used by the Confederacy and alerted the Navy, which sent
USS Narragansett to patrol the waters near Victoria. The "Southern Association" failed to carry out their intentions to outfit a privateer.
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