The culprit of new Confederate sea power was the world’s greatest naval empire, Great Britain. Although British law forbade the sale of warships to foreign countries, a rich shipbuilder and member of Parliament named John Laird exploited a loophole in the law to sell vessels to the Confederacy. Concealing his work by claiming the ships were being sold to fake buyers like the Pasha of Egypt, Laird collaborated with southern diplomats to orchestrate the scheme that led to the construction of the Alabama and the Florida
