Martens thus expresses his opinion of it-" In- | held out by these, would entice seamen away from different to the fate of the war, and often of his the ships of the Navy, as Clarendon informs us country, the privateersman has no other inducement but the love of gain-no other recompense but his captures and the prizes conferred by the state on his privileged piracies. To encourage individuals to fit out privateers at considerable expense, it is necessary to present them the allurements of a rich booty; and by prescribing them a moderation which they are fully determined not to observe, it is necessary not to intimidate them, by imposing on them too many restrictions." ing these same vessels with a more noble character. By putting them under the command of its own officers, they would constitute an important part of the great national marine; and by acting in concert with the regular Naval forces, they would serve mightily to strengthen our means of offence as well as of defence. they did from the King's ships, and as we know was the case in the war of 1812-'14. Each vessel acting separately and independently of the rest, would enfeeble, instead of strengthen, the maritime resources of the country. During our last war, Commodore Stewart thus wrote to a Committee of Congress: "Many (seamen) are in private armed ships and privateers, owing to the exclusive advantages given them over the Navy. By this means, the glory and maritime reputation of the nation is Nor ought the testimony given on this subject made to yield to the inglorious warfare of plunder, by the excellent Clarendon, to be overlooked. which deeply affects some individuals of the eneWhen, in 1664, great inducements were held out my, but makes only a small impression upon the by Charles II to his subjects, for fitting out priva- nation at large." Now, by training officers in teers against the Dutch, that wise Chancellor thus the school-ship, after the manner proposed, for testifies to the evils which they carry with them- the merchant service, the power and the means "It was resolved that all possible encouragement would be conferred upon the government of investshould be given to privateers; that is, to as many as would take commissions from the Admiral, to send out vessels-of-war, as they call them, to take prizes from the enemy; which no articles or obligations can restrain from all the villainy they can act, and are a people, how countenanced soever, or thought necessary, that do bring an unavoidable scandal, and, it is to be feared, a curse upon the justest war that was ever made at sea. Besides the horrible scandal and clamor that this class of men brought upon the King and the whole government for defeat of justice, the prejudice which resulted from thence to the public, and to the carrying on the service, is unspeakable. All seamen run to them. And though the King now assigned an ample share of all the prizes taken by his own ships, to the seamen, over and above their wages, yet there was a great difference between the condition of the one and the other. In the King's fleet they might gain well, but they were sure of blows;-nothing could be got there without fighting. With the privateers there was rarely fighting. They took all who could make little resistance, and fled from all who were too strong for them. And so these fellows were always well-manned, when the King's ships were compelled to stay many days for the want of men, who were raised by pressing, and with great difficulty." Similar would be the effects upon the American Navy of this species of warfare at this time. The well-known enterprise of our citizens, and their fondness for privateering,* would cause hundreds of their ships, interrupted in commerce, to be fitted out as private-armed cruisers. The inducements * The passion for privateering was so strong at one time in the New-England States, that agriculture was abandoned to pursue it.-Robert Morris. I do not wish to see a new Barbary in America. I fear lest our privateering success in the two last wars, should already have given our people too strong a relish for that most mischievous kind of gaming mixed with blood.-Dr. Franklin, 1783. But there are higher considerations than those of mere State policy, which urge to the abandonment of this species of warfare. Justice, morality, and religion, are opposed to and condemn it. For centuries back, up to our own day, good men from the chair of state, the cloister and the bench, have been heard, from time to time, raising their voices to rebuke it. Thus, St. Augustin in his Canon Militare-" militare non est delictum, sed propter prædam militare, peccatum est." And Grotius-" to put men to death for the sake of perishable and uncertain possessions, is irreconcilable with charity." "Most certain," says Molloy, in his treatise of 1676, De Jure Maritimo-" these sorts of capers, or privateers, being instruments found out but of later ages, and it is well known by whom,* it were well they were restrained by consent of all Princes; since all good men account them but one remove from pirates-who, without any respect for the cause, or having any injury done them, or so much as hired for the service, spoil men and goods, making even a trade and calling of it, amidst the calamities of war." Soccenius, from his Academic pursuits at Upsal, raised his voice in not less emphatic terms-"When a Naval war is unavoidable, it is far better to assail the enemy with domestic levies under officers and discipline, than to give license to pirates, the vilest of mankind-who, once authorized to plunder, soon forget all restraint, and spare not even friends, nor those who have never injured them, or their employers." In the last war ships were fitted out *The Prince of Orange in his war with the Netherlands, though some writers trace them back much further. in our own ports, and sent to sea to cruise as Eng-| Navy. Vessels, equipped for privateers in war, lish privateers against American commerce. Where offer, at the cessation of hostilities, a ready means is the hand that shall draw on the ocean, for sea- for another and a worse species of robbery; and, men let loose to plunder, the line between glory by acting on the cupidity of the dissolute, they do, and honor on one side, and rapine and murder on no doubt, often present temptations not easily to be the other? In 1744, the question was mooted in overcome. With the dissolute and vicious-those France-"Would it not be possible to revive the whose notions with regard to 'meum and tuum' are ancient custom of commercial truces, and to make vague-there is but a step from the privateer to the war without involving in it commerce and mercan- pirate. The demoralizing influences of the former tile navigation?" And at a later day, Dr. Franklin fit them for the work, and prepare them to make (who cannot be too often quoted) said-"This will the change of character with a bold and reckless be a happy improvement in the law of nations. mind. And between the two in war, 'the land and The humane and the just cannot but wish success the sea send forth their reports of murders and pito the proposition." "Without such a check," racies and daring robberies, as if the outcasts of sowrote Capt. Spence, United States Navy, to the ciety had become emulous of glory, and resolved to Governor of Porto-Rico, in 1822, "what is there hide disgrace in the magnitude of crime !'† to limit the mischief done by men of this order, It is true, we are indebted to American privawho, stealing from their dens and lurking places, teers in the last war for many brilliant achievepollute the ocean with the blood of defenceless sai-ments. The old Teazer, and the young Teazer; lors, and gorge their cupidity with the spoils of and after her loss, the old Teazer's ghost, and many plunder and ravage? The good of every nation, others, did yeoman's service-they were both a and the honor of some, require that so foul a sys-terror and a dread to English ship-owners. The tem should be made to cease, that every navigable graceful fall and glorious ruin of the General Armsea may be rendered safe to the honest efforts of strong privateer, have made her famous in song enterprise." and in story. But the gallant spirits and noble deeds which adorn the annals of American privateering, should not blind our minds, or warp our judgments, with regard to the immoral influences, the individual calamities and the national evils attendant upon it. In the meleé for plunder, who shall say to the cruelty of avarice-"It is enough; stay thy hand?" The evil consequences of it spring up as we go; and you and your readers, Mr. Editor, need not the hand of another to point them out. On the land, the property of unresisting citizens is considered sacred by the conqueror; -on the water, it is the property of him that can seize it. The half-unladen ship that lies along side of the wharf in your river is prize to the captor; but the part of her cargo that lies on that wharf, and along side of the ship, neither sailor nor soldier can touch. What would not only we, but all Christendom, say of an enemy, who should issue commissions to private adventurers for entering our territory by armed bands, that they might pillage and rob, for their own It is not consistent with the object of this paper profit, our citizens engaged in their peaceful and to discuss more at large the practice of privateerhonest pursuits? What constitutes this difference ing, or to point out the course to be taken for its between the property of citizens in storehouses and suppression. Enough has been said to show that in ships? Are the pursuits of commerce less peace- it is a general evil and a national sin; and that the ful, or are its results less beneficial to the general taking of effective measures for the abolition of it, welfare, than agriculture or manufactures? The would, first of all, confer upon us as a people the same code which forbids the citizens of neighbor- proud satisfaction of diminishing the calamities of ing nations at war, to make excursions into the war. In the next place, it would add to the seenemy's territory for the sake of murder and pil-curity at sea of the life and property of peaceful lage, ought also to forbid it on the ocean-the com- citizens, by clearing out from the ocean, those mon highway of the world. And, as pertinently swarms of sea-beggars (gueux de mer) that live asked by Linguet, "Whence comes this difference by plunder and prey upon commerce. It would make between fleets and armies, squadrons and regiments, doubly formidable in war the 'right arm of the nacorsairs and hussars ?" *The four pirates who were executed at Boston in 1819, confessed that they had served in privateers. So had the notorious Gibbs, I believe. The practice is as demoralizing, and as much to be deprecated, on the water as it is on the land. We judge of men's actions by the motive; and + See a most valuable paper by an American citizen, on 'what motive has the privateersman but plunder?' privateering, presented to the 16th Congress, 2nd session; Could inquiry ascertain, it would be curious and and entitled "An appeal to the Government and Congress interesting to know what effects privateering, in of the United States, against the depredations committed the contest between Spain and her American de-by American privateers on the commerce of nations at peace pendencies, had in bringing about the system of piracy that was established about that time in the West-Indies, and broken up at such cost to the with us" 1819. Those who wish to see a masterly exposition of the evils attendant upon privateering, are referred to that paper, which has been of great assistance to the writer on the present occasion. tion;' and by lessening for our commerce the risks they had too much reason to believe that represenof capture, it would prove for the nation both a tations by them, in this, as they had done in other tower of strength and a fortress of defence. The cases, would prove worse than useless. Respecvast numbers of seamen swallowed up in the busi-table public journals have assayed to call the atness of privateering, would then be reserved for tention of the proper authorities to the offences of more national purposes, and more honorable war- this officer. And are statements, coming from such fare, in the Navy. And the officers in the mer- a source, nothing? Do not the well-being of the chant service, who had been trained in the school- community in which you live, and the wholesome ship, would, at such a time, constitute a most valua-administration of your municipal laws, require the ble corps of reserve,' which would be sufficient to constituted authorities to take cognizance of outrage furnish officers enough for those seamen, and for as and crime, through what channel soever the permany of our fast-sailing merchant vessels as the go-petration of them is brought to their knowledge? vernment should deem it expedient to buy and equip With you, the offender is apprehended and brought as men-of-war. But, let us turn from remedies to the disease, that we may fully understand the present condition of our Naval system, before we proceed to consider by what means its wonted health and strength and vigor may be restored. The court-martial code, and the administration of the law, will be found no less defective than other parts of the system. to punishment, both as an example and a terror to evil doers. Not so with us in the Navy, when the offenders are Captains. The grounds were boldly taken, and openly maintained, years ago, in a Naval court, that laws were not made to be held as rods over Captains in the Navy. What was then dogma has since become doctrine with some, and bids fair to be engrafted upon the Naval code as a fixed There is at this time in the United States, a principle of law. We have fallen upon evil timesjunior officer, who has come thousands of miles, for we have come to that pass in the Navy, when from a foreign station, for the purpose of bringing its statutes are looked upon as mere sayings, to trial the Captain of an American man-of-war and the law has ceased to consider those of a who is charged with high misdemeanors. His ac- high and of low degree with its boasted imparcuser is operated upon by no selfish considerations, tiality. The difficulty of bringing officers of rank or motives of personal animosity. He is actuated solely by his love of order and of morals, and by his zeal for the service. The months that have elapsed, since his arrival, too plainly intimate the impotency of outraged laws under an evil system. His efforts to sustain good morals and law in the Navy, bid fair to prove as fruitless at home as they have done abroad. There, he is said to have pointed out, to the commander of the squadron, this offender wallowing drunk in the streets. But the commander refused to take cognizance of the of fence. He, whose duty it is to sustain the law, and who connives at the infraction of it, becomes, to all intents and purposes, an aider and an abettor of crime. And, under a well-regulated system, would not this officer be relieved from his command, and put upon trial with the other? in the Navy to trial, has passed into a proverb. And in this fact is to be found an explanation for the frequency of trials by courts-martial, held of late in the Navy. Under this much abused and faulty system, young officers are arraigned and brought to trial upon charges, in some instances, altogether frivolous and vexatious. Officers of rank, who are notorious offenders, but cannot be brought to trial, are to be found bringing in their bills of indictment against their juniors for the most petty and trivial offences. At their instance, courts-martial are unhesitatingly ordered. The officer who is said to have tarred and feathered one of his crew, has brought two young officers to trial in the course of a few months.* Change the case, and let a young officer accuse one of this favored class; and a trial is out of the It has been stated in the public prints, and the question, or hedged about with difficulties which statement has not been contradicted-the report only public opinion oft expressed can break down. too is current among Navy officers, and generally The proceedings of the court-martial that is freshbelieved by them-that the commander of another est in the minds of your readers, afford cases in public vessel, in mere wantonness, tarred and fea-point-for it is not necessary to go far back in thered one of his crew. The sailor has learned, search of examples. Before that court, a junior by painful experience, that there is no law under officer was tried upon charges preferred by an offithe present system, to protect his person from vio-cer of rank-and an officer of rank was tried upon lence, or his rights from outrage; for justice has charges alleged by young officers. The last had not been allowed to put forth her hand upon this been endeavoring for years to bring their superior officer. I do not know that the proper authorities have received official representations of this transaction. It is probable they have not; for those who witnessed the act were young officers, and We are credibly informed, that three sets of charges have been lodged against this officer.-Ed. * Not that these officers ought not to have been tried, or that the crimes of the superior will justify the offences of the inferior. It is a shining mark that makes the bright example,' whether for good or for evil. And there is a peculiar unfitness in one, with an unplucked beam, to be pick. ing at his brother's mote. Allusion has been made to these cases, not from officer to trial—first, through the regularly constituted authorities-then, through Congress-and, as any ungenerous motive or unkind feeling towards a last resort, through the force of public opinion, operated upon by statements in the newspapers. After so much difficulty-enough, but for the extraordinary character of the personalities involved, to have insured for the accused perpetual immunity from the law a tardy and reluctant trial was granted; charges and specifications were proved; the accused was found guilty, and sentenced accordingly. the officers concerned, but for the purpose of properly illustrating the defects of a system, under which we, they, and the Navy, are laboring. Under an imperfect and defective system of jurisprudence, reason teaches us to expect an imperfect and defective administration of law; and the history of the recent courts-martial exemplifies still further the defective manner in which the laws of the Navy are administered. Let us take for ilNow turn we to the other case before the same lustration, because the most recent, the facts furcourt. An officer of rank imagines that his dignity nished by the proceedings of the courts, that, is insulted by a junior. He arrests the latter on within the last twelve months have been conthe spot, and instantly demands that he shall be ar-vened in the United States, for the trial of comraigned before a court-martial, and there be made to missioned officers of the Navy. Two of these cases answer for the offence. A trial is forthwith granted. have been already cited. The other two were of Not a charge or specification is proved;-and the junior officers. One of them was arraigned upon accused is honorably acquitted by the court. His the broad and open grounds, that he had offended accuser, at the very time that he is arraigning this against good morals and the law. He was tried, young officer for a fancied infraction of law, has, himself, charges of a grave character floating against him. His offences have come to the knowledge of the proper authorities. But he is of the favored class, and the law, proves a dead letter in his case. His accusers are not actuated by motives of personal hostility, as the accusers in the other case were. They have made known his offences to the authorities whose duty it is to take cognizance of them. In this they have done their duty, and there the matter rests. Although this officer has added to his other offences the guilt of arraigning before a military tribunal a brother-officer on false charges, he still goes unwhipped of justice. found guilty, and punished. The other, as in the case before cited, had disturbed his Captain's bile, and therefore he was guilty, in the opinion of his accuser, of a grave and serious offence in military law; and (poor fellow-requiescat in pacem! a more correct officer or a better man never lived) if suffered to go unpunished for such an act, he would, according to his accuser, destroy the morals of the Navy, trample the law and his superior officers under foot, and bring irretrievable ruin upon the whole service. A trial was granted without difficulty, and here is an extract from the finding of the court. "The court, after mature deliberation, find the accused, Lieutenant not guilty of the char Do not these facts indicate that the laws of the ges exhibited against him by Commander suspended from duty for nearly three months, and voluntarily restoring him to duty, to bring these charges against him for the offence, for which he had already been TOO SEVERELY PUNISHEd. And the court would respectfully call the attention of the Honorable Secretary of the Navy, to the very loose and irrelevant manner in which the various specifications are drawn up; so that it has been with the greatest difficulty the court have been able to separate the superfluous matter with which they are surrounded." dicted for crime, and publicly arraigned as a cul- [tain's perquisite. Ships of war are maintained at prit on the criminal's bench, would consider the the public expense, and for the general welfare. cold verdict of not guilty, enough to return his They are sent abroad to maintain that respect good name to him as spotless and as unsullied as among others which is due to their nation; to probefore? Does your law overlook false imprisonment mote the interests of commerce; and to give proand malicious prosecution; and, in such a case, would tection to the rights and property of the citizen it afford the citizen no redress? When an offi- engaged in his lawful pursuits. If then, in concer is arraigned before a court-martial for neglect formity with any one of these objects, the officer of duty, and for conduct unbecoming the character be required to receive on board the public armed of an officer and a gentleman, it is primâ facie evi- vessel, the property of the citizen, when presented dence (for it is a court martial, and not a court of in the shape of gold and silver, it is his duty to reenquiry,) that he has laid himself liable to the ceive it, and to afford it all the security his vessel charge, and therefore in the minds of the many, the can give. And those wholesome principles of the stains of guilt are upon him. And the finding of law which requires him to give convoy and protecnot guilty does not wipe them away. Is it nothing tion to the private property of the citizen, in the to be falsely accused? Was it nothing that this form of ships and their cargoes, and forbids him officer, who had done no wrong, should have been to charge or receive any thing whatever for so confined for months in a floating cell; and in the doing, obtain with as much force in this case as in language of his judges, TOO SEVERELY PUNISHED; that. It is as much his duty to protect the properand that too in advance, upon charges which the ty of the citizen in the one shape as in the other. court were constrained to pronounce altogether He is employed by government to do his duty, and frivolous and vexatious? Would not the laws of a to it alone he should look for compensation. If the healthful code, faithfully and impartially administered, require that this Commander should have been arraigned in turn, upon charges of cruelty and oppression, and been made to answer before that very tribunal for falsely and maliciously accusing a brother-officer ? The court-martial code in the Navy is so vague and imperfect in many respects, that entire proceedings are by no means unfrequently vitiated and set aside on account of informality. And in this way the guilty sometimes escape. perquisite be allowed on the grounds, that to receive and transport specie in a man-of-war be extra service for the Captain, it is also extra service for the other officers and the crew by whom the labor is performed-and they too, should be entitled to extra compensation. If the service be attended with any dangers, hardships or privations, as it frequently is, all are alike exposed to themand the laws which govern in the case of salvage, and in the distribution of prize-money, ought also to obtain here. Laws that are defective, or only partially ad- But as unjust as the present law is, its injustice ministered, beget offenders; and those that are un-is nothing in comparison with the abuses to which wise in their provisions create abuses. And, that it gives rise, and the evils which it entails upon the we may still further illustrate the necessity there Navy. Perquisites of office, in most cases, tend is for revising the present Naval code, turn we to abuse-and in this, the allurements held out to the now from the dead letter of the law, and unpun-officer, by the prospect of private gain, often lead ished crime, to point out abuses that are practised him from the direct path of duty, into abuses, of the according to law. It is lawful in the Navy, to re-nature and extent of which none but those who ceive on board, and to carry from place to place in have cruised in the Pacific, and have seen for our men-of-war, gold, silver, jewels and the like; themselves, can form proper conceptions. Money and it is also lawful for the Commanders to charge for transportation may be sometimes offered at the and receive as pay, a per-centage for thus lending North, when duty, the interest of government, and to the property of the citizen, (for merchantmen the welfare of its citizens, all require the presence can transport it as well,) the security afforded by of the officer with his ship at the South. But the the national character of public vessels. The amount thus offered may reach one or two milmerchants of the Spanish American republics, lions-and some ships have obtained greater sums. make their remittances to this country and to Eng- The Captain's per-centage will nett him $40,000 land mostly in bullion. Owing to the unstable or $50,000-the trip may be made in two or three condition of the governments under which they months-he is thousands of miles from home-and, live, the private property, both of residents and although we are taught, from infancy up, to pray, citizens, often becomes unsafe in its place of deposite on shore. Hence, plate and bullion find their way, in large amounts, on board of the public vessels sent to cruise in the waters of those countries. For thus receiving this property in a secure place of deposit, a per-centage of one or two dollars in the hundred is levied upon it, as the Cap "lead us not into temptation," here it is presented in the most glittering and seductive shape. In less than two years in the Pacific, one officer is said to have realized $100,000 from this perquisite alone. And others have made large sums--some thirty, some forty, and some sixty thousand dollars. This source of gain is not as fruitful to the officer now, |