On May 13 Britain therefore declared her neutrality in a proclamation issued by the Queen. This would seem to have been unexceptionable—except that it automatically recognized the Confederacy as a belligerent power. Other European nations followed the British lead. Status as a belligerent gave Confederates the right under international law to contract loans and purchase arms in neutral nations, and to commission cruisers on the high seas with the power of search and seizure.
