examination of what was accomplished in the Confederate States will be found to have greatly exceeded the results in the United States when the conditions and circumstances of the two parties to the war are considered and contrasted. If. while fighting each other and each party destroying everything that could not be removed, these grand results were respectively accomplished-what limit shall be set to the capabilities of such a people united and excited by the same determination in their defence of their common country?

A

CHAPTER IV.

PRIVATEERS, OR LETTERS OF MARQUE.

S we have seen, the surrender of Fort Sumter on the 13th of April, 1861, was the initial act of the war between the States. On the 15th the President of the United States issued a proclamation, calling out troops to the number of 75,000. President Davis, on the 17th, published a counter - proclamation, inviting applications for letters of marque and reprisal to be granted under the seal of the Confederate States, against ships and property of the United States and their citizens.

1

Doubting the constitutional power of the executive to grant letters of marque to private armed ships, President Davis, with characterístic regard for law, determined not to commission privateers until duly authorized by Congress. That body assembled in special session on April 29, in obedience

1 After appropriately recognizing the condition of public affairs, and inviting energetic preparation for immediate hostilities, he said:

"Now, therefore, I, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, do issue this, my proclamation, inviting all those who may desire, by service in private armed vessels on the high seas, to aid this government in resisting so wanton and wicked an aggression, to make application for commissions or letters of marque and reprisal, to be issued under the seal of these Confederate States; and I do further notify all persons applying for letters of marque to make a statement in writing, giving the name and suitable description of the character, tonnage, and force of the vessel, name of the place of residence of each owner concerned therein and the intended number of crew, and to sign each statement, and deliver the same to the Secretary of State or Collector of the Port of Entry of these Confederate States, to be by him transmitted to the Secretary of State, and do further notify all applicants aforesaid. before any commission or letter of marque is issued to any vessel, or the owner or the owners thereof, and the commander for the time being, they will be required to give bond to the Confederate States, with at least two responsible sureties not interested in such vessel, in the penal sum of $5,000; or if such vessel be provided with

more than 150 men, then in the penal sum of $10,000, with the condition that the owners, officers, and crew who shall be employed on board such commissioned vessel, shall observe the laws of these Confederate States, and the instructions given them for the regulation of their conduct, and shall satisfy all damages done contrary to the tenor thereof by such vessel during her commission, and deliver up the same when revoked by the President of the Confederate States. And I do further specially enjoin on all persons holding offices, civil and military, under the authority of the Confederate States, that they be vigilant and zealous in the discharge of the duties incident thereto; and I do, moreover, exhort the good people of these Confederate States, as they love their countryas they prize the blessings of free governmentas they feel the wrongs of the past, and these now threatened in an aggravated form by those whose enmity is more implacable because unprovoked-they exert themselves in preserving order, in promoting concord, in maintaining the authority and efficacy of the laws, and in supporting, invigorating all the measures which may be adopted for a common defence, and by which, under the blessings of Divine Providence, we may hope for a speedy, just, and honorable peace.'

to a proclamation of the President, in which he advised legislation for the employment of privateers. On the 6th of May Congress passed an act, entitled, "An act recognizing the existence of war between the United States and the Confederate States, and concerning letters of marque, prizes, and prize goods." The first section of this act was as follows:

"The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact that the President of the Confederate States is hereby authorized to use the whole land and naval force of the Confederate States to meet the war thus commenced, and to issue to private vessels commissions or letters of marque and general reprisal, in such form as he shall think proper, under the seal of the Confederate States, against the vessels, goods, and effects of the United States, and of the citizens or inhabitants of the States and territories thereof; provided, however, that property of the enemy (unless it be contraband of war) laden on board a neutral vessel, shall not be subject to seizure under this act; and provided further, that vessels of the citizens or inhabitants of the United States now in the ports of the Confederate States, except such as have been since the 5th of April last, or may hereafter be, in the service of the Government of the United States, shall be allowed thirty days after the publication of this act to leave said ports and reach their destination; and such vessels and their cargoes, excepting articles contraband of war, shall not be subject to capture under this act during said period, unless they shall have previously reached the destination for which they were bound on leaving said ports."

The act then proceeded to lay down in detail regulations as to the conditions on which letters of marque should be granted to private vessels, and the conduct and behavior of the officers and crews of such vessels, and the disposal of such prizes made by them, similar to the regulations which have been ordinarily prescribed and enforced with respect to privateers in the United States, and by the maritime powers of Europe.

The fourth and seventh sections were as follows:

"That, before any commission or letters of marque and reprisal shall be issued as aforesaid, the owner or owners of the ship or vessel for which the same shall be requested, and the commander thereof for the time being, shall give bond to the Confederate States, with at least two responsible surieties not interested in such vessel, in the penal sum of $5,000, or, if such vessel be provided with more than 150 men, then in the penal sum of $10,000, with condition that the owners, officers, and crew who shall be employed on board such commissioned vessel shall and will observe the laws of the Confederate States, and the instructions which shall be given them according to law for the regulation of their conduct, and will satisfy all damages and injuries which shall be done or committed contrary to the tenor thereof by such vessel during her commission, and to deliver up the same when revoked by the President of the Confederate States.

"That before breaking bulk of any vessel which shall be captured as aforesaid, or disposal or conversion thereof, or of any articles which shall be found on board the same, such captured vessel, goods, or effects, shall be brought into some port of the Confederate States, or of a nation or State in amity with the Confederate States, and shall be proceeded against before a competent tribunal; and after condemnation and forfeiture thereof, shall belong to the owners, officers, and crew of the vessel capturing the same, and be distributed as before provided; and in the case of all captured vessels, goods, and effects which shall be brought within the jurisdiction of the Confederate States, the district courts of the

Confederate States shall have exclusive original cognizance thereof, as the civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; and the said courts, or the courts being courts of the Confederate States into which such cases shall be removed, in which they shall be finally decided, shall and may decree restitution in whole or part, when the capture shall have been made without just cause. And, if made without probable cause, may order and decree damages and costs to the party injured, for which the owners and commanders of the vessels making such captures, and also the vessels, shall be liable."

A further act, entitled, "An act regulating the sale of prizes and the distribution thereof," was likewise passed by the Congress of the Confederate States on the 14th of May,

1861.

Meanwhile, on the 19th of April, the President of the United States issued a further proclamation, in which, after referring to the proposed issue of letters of marque, declared that he had deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, in pursuance of the laws of the United States and the law of nations in such cases provided. By another proclamation, dated the 27th of April, the blockade was so extended as to include the Southern ports as far north as Virginia.

The blockade declared by the foregoing proclamations was actually instituted, as to the ports within the State of Virginia, on the 30th of April;' and was extended to the principal ports on the sea-board of the Confederate States before the end of May. The Federal cruisers soon began to make prizes of neutral ships for alleged breach of blockade, and they were condemned with very short shrift by the United States prize-courts.

On the 3rd of May, 1861, the proclamation of the blockade was published in the London newspapers; on the 10th of May copies of the proclamation of blockade, and of the counterproclamation of President Davis, were received by Lord Rus-. sell from the British Minister at Washington, and finally the blockade was officially communicated to Lord Russell by the United States Minister on the 11th of May.

On the 6th of May, Lord Russell stated in the House of Commons, that, after consultation with the law officers, the government had come to the conclusion that the Southern Confederacy must be treated as belligerents; and, on the 14th, Her Majesty's Proclamation of Neutrality was issued, which

1861, for an efficient blockade of the ports of Virginia and North Carolina, and warn all persons interested that I have a sufficient naval force here for the purpose of carrying out that proclamation.

"All vessels passing the capes of Virginia, coming from a distance and ignorant of the proclamation, will be warned off, and those passing Fortress Monroe will be required to anchor under the guns of the fort and subject themselves to an examination.

"G. J. PRENDERGRAST, "Flag-Officer, Commanding Home Squadron."

acknowledged the existence of a civil war, and thereby recognized the Confederate States as belligerents. The example of Great Britain was soon followed by the chief maritime powers in the following order: France, June 10th; Netherlands, June 16th; Spain, June 17th; Brazil, August 1st. The remaining powers issued "notifications" at various dates, prohibiting the entry of privateers or prizes into their ports, and defining the conditions under which the public vessels of both parties should be permitted to enter and receive supplies, and drawing no distinction between them as belligerents.'

Mr. Seward could not bring himself to a dignified acquiescence in the common verdict of the great maritime powers of Europe. He indulged in repeated and petulant complaints, and urged with vehement earnestness that all the world should be subservient to his will, and should re-fashion the code of public law to suit his policy. He wished to practice all the rights which a state of war confers upon a belligerent, but begged to be excused from performing the duties which attach in equal degree to that condition.

Notwithstanding the English government considered the privateers of the Confederate States as the lawfully commis

1 The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, by James D. Bulloch, Naval representative of the Confederate States in Europe during the Civil War.-Vol. II., p. 294. Commander Bulloch's account of the purchasing, building, and equipment of the Confederate cruisers abroad is straightforward, sincere, and adorned by the graces of style. It is probably the ablest book from the Southern side yet written.

2 He affirmed that the so-called government at Richmond merely represented a discon tented faction." Writing to Mr. Dayton on the 30th of May, 1861, he says: "The United States cannot for a moment allow the French government to rest under the delusive belief that they will be content to have the Confederate States recognized as a belligerent power by States with which this nation is at amity. No concert of action among foreign States so recognizing the insurgents can reconcile the United States to such a proceeding, whatever may be the consequences of resistance."-Geneva Arbitration. United States Appendix, Vol. I., p. 192, quoted by Sir A. Cockburn, p. 82; Bulloch, Vol. II., p. 294.

The views of the British government were expressed in a dispatch to Lord Lyons, her Majesty's Minister at Washington, dated June 21, 1861. Lord Russell, in the dispatch referred to, mentions that Mr. Adams had complained of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality as having been hasty and premature, and then adds: “I said (to Mr. Adams, in the first place, that our position was of necessity neutral; that we could not take part either for the North against the South, or for the South against the North. To this he willingly assented, and said that the United States expected no assistance from us to enable their government to finish the war. I rejoined that if such was the case, as I supposed, it would not have been right either towards our admirals and naval commanders, nor towards our merchants and mercantile marine, to leave them without positive and public orders; that the exercise of belligerent rights of search and capture by a band of ad

venturers clustered in some small island in the Greek Archipelago or in the Atlantic would subject them to the penalty of piracy; but we could not treat 5,000,000 of men, who had declared their independence, like a band of marauders or filibusters. If we had done so, we should have done more than the United States themselves. Their troops had taken prisoners many of the adherents of the Confederacy; but I could not perceive from the newspapers that in any case they had brought these prisoners to trial for high treason, or shot them as rebels."

The policy of the British government was more fully explained and justified in a letter from Lord Russell to Mr. Adams, dated May 4, 1865. He says: "What was the first act of the President of the United States? He proclaimed on the 19th of April. 1861, the blockade of the ports of seven States of the Union. But he could lawfully interrupt the trade of neutrals to the Southern States upon one ground only, namely, that the Southern States were carrying on war against the government of the United States; in other words, that they were belligerents. Her Majesty's government, on hearing of these events, had only two courses to pursue, namely, that of acknowledging the blockade and proclaiming the neutrality of her Majesty, or that of refusing to acknowledge the blockade, and insisting upon the rights of her Majesty's subjects to trade with the ports of the South. Her Majesty's government pursued the former course as at once the most just and the most friendly to the United States. *** So much as to the step which you say your government can never regard as otherwise than precipitate,' of acknowledging the Southern States as belligerents. It was, on the contrary, your own government which, in assuming the belligerent right of blockade, recognized the Southern States as belligerents. Had they not been belligerents, the armed ships of the United States would have had no right to stop a single British ship upon the high seas."-United States Documents, Vol. I., pp. 214, 215, quoted by Sir A. Cockburn, pp. 80, 82, 83.