come out from Baltimore. By the spring of 1863, Sinclair was becoming very concerned about Pampero, and feared that the British government would not permit the departure of any vessel suspected to be Confederate. He visited Paris to discuss with John Slidell the possibility of transferring the vessel to France. Slidell suggested Hamburg in Germany would be a better alternative. However, Sinclair investigated this, but did not proceed with it. Meanwhile, the completion of Pampero was further delayed by labor troubles, and the seizure of Alexandria, another Confederate vessel in production at Lairds, by the British government. The Alexandria trial was indecisive, and Mason put off the launching of Pampero until a final verdict was reached.Pampero herself first came to the attention of Thomas H. Dudley, United States Consul in Liverpool, in the spring of 1863, when he made an investigative tour of Northern England and Scotland, looking for any warships being built for the Confederates. He learned that Thomsons were building a screw steamer "of about 1500 tons," designed for great speed. He was told that she was to have an angle-iron frame and teak planking, and he found that among the workmen it was generally believed that she was for the South. On his next trip to Scotland in August 1863, his suspicions increased as new details on the vessel came to light. The builders insisted that the boat was for the Turkish government, but Dudley`s informants in the yard insisted the boat was for the Confederates, being supervised by the same men as those who supervised the building of the ironclad ram. Dudley left behind a spy in Thomsons yard, who soon reported that the vessel was rigged in the same manner as Alabama, the drawings of which, he was told, were in Glasgow.Pampero, by a Mrs. Galbraith, the vessel finally slid down the slipway on 29 October 1863. On 10 November, the American consul in Glasgow, W. L. Underwood formally requested that Pampero be detained. Although the British government did not make any immediate legal moves, in late November a British warship was moored abreast of Pampero, and she was placed under a 24-hour scrutiny by customs officers. Court proceedings against Pampero commenced on 18 March 1864, and were never satisfactorily concluded. Capture During the Chincha Islands War, the South American allies sent agents to European shipyards in search of unsold warships originally laid down for