Jan. 24, 1862

Jan. 24, 1862: Thomas Dudley, the U.S. Consul at Liverpool, observes suspicious shipping in the English port, including the Oreto, which, as he suspects, will become the CSS Florida. He writes to Ambassador Adams:

U.S. CONSULATE, Liverpool, January 24, 1862.

SIR: * * * The Oreto, a screw gunboat, is fitting out at one of the docks at this place. She is built of iron and is 700 tons. She is reported for the Italian Government, but the fact of the machinery being supplied by Fawcett & Preston, and other circumstances connected with it, make me suspicious and lead me to believe she is intended for the South.

The Bermuda arrived here from Havre yesterday. This is the steamer which ran the blockade.

The Helen, Captain Westrelay, which ran the blockade at Charleston some time back (and of which I addressed you in a previous dispatch), cleared on the 23d instant for Rio de Janeiro and sailed the same day. She has on board 400 kegs containing shot and flints, 70 barrels said to contain lead, between 300 and 400 sheets of copper, a quantity of bar iron, and a number of crates said to contain earthenware. She is a bark, 340 tons, hull painted black, bottom coppered; Helen, Charleston, and some of the carvings on stern painted white, the remainder of the carvings painted black; scroll for figurehead gilded; two boats, keels upward, on quarter-deck, one painted white, the other, bottom white and sides black; two wood-stock anchors painted red, stocks painted black; lower masts painted white, topmasts bright, yards black; house and gallery abaft the foremast. When she arrived at this port, she had flying the Confederate flag. She now sails with the English flag. I am informed she was formerly the Rowena, of New York.

A Confederate bark called the West India, Captain Foot, arrived here on the 22d instant, flying the Confederate flag. She was loaded with turpentine, and ran the blockade at Charleston on the 24th of Decem- ber last.

D.C. Lowber, W.H. Brynes, P. Schneider, and J.O. Baker arrived yesterday in the Etna.

I am, etc.,

THOS. H. DUDLEY, U.S. Consul.