The Rams under construction were clearly understood to have that purpose.

If privateers were to offset the action of the Rams there must be some definite plan for their use.
Seward and Adams repeatedly complained of British inaction yet in the same breath asserted that the privateers were intended to chase and destroy _Alabamas_--a plan so foolish, so it seemed to British diplomats, as to be impossible of acceptance as the full purpose of Seward.

How, in short, _could_ privateers make good an injury to blockade about to be done by the Rams?
If added to the blockading squadrons on station off the Southern ports they would but become so much more fodder for the dreaded Rams.

If sent to sea in pursuit of _Alabamas_ the chances were that they would be the vanquished rather than the victors in battle.

There was no Southern mercantile marine for them to attack and privateering against "enemy's commerce" was thus out of the question since there was no such commerce.
There remained but one reasonable supposition as to the intended use of privateers.