THE EXTENT OF OUR LOSSES.
Individual losses may be estimated with reasonable accuracy. Ships burnt or sunk with their cargoes may be counted, and their value determined; but this leaves without recognition the vaster damage to commerce driven from the ocean, and that other damage, immense and infinite, caused by the prolongation of the war, all of which may be called national in contradistinction to individual.
Our national losses have been frankly conceded by eminent Englishmen. I have already quoted Mr. Cobden, who did not hesitate to call them “cruel losses.” During the same debate in which he let drop this testimony, he used other words, which show how justly he comprehended the case. “You have been,” said he, “carrying on hostilities from these shores against the people of the United States, and have been inflicting an amount of damage on that country greater than would be produced by many ordinary wars. It is estimated that the loss sustained by the capture and burning of American vessels has been about $15,000,000, or nearly £3,000,000 sterling. But that is a small part of the injury which has been inflicted on the American marine. We have rendered the rest of her vast mercantile property for the present valueless.”[74] Thus, by the testimony of Mr. Cobden, were those individual losses which are alone recognized by the pending treaty only “a small part of the injury inflicted.” After confessing his fears with regard to “the heaping up of a gigantic material grievance” such as was then accumulating, he adds, in memorable words:—
“You have already done your worst towards the American mercantile marine. What with the high rate of insurance, what with these captures, and what with the rapid transfer of tonnage to British capitalists, you have virtually made valueless that vast property. Why, if you had gone and helped the Confederates by bombarding all the accessible seaport towns of America, a few lives might have been lost, which, as it is, have not been sacrificed; but you could hardly have done more injury in the way of destroying property than you have done by these few cruisers.”[75]
With that clearness of vision which he possessed in such rare degree, this statesman saw that England had “virtually made valueless a vast property,” as much as if this power had “bombarded all the accessible seaport towns of America.”
So strong and complete is this statement, that any further citation seems superfluous; but I cannot forbear adducing a pointed remark in the same debate, by that able gentleman, Mr. William E. Forster:—
“There could not,” said he, “be a stronger illustration of the damage which had been done to the American trade by these cruisers than the fact, that, so completely was the American flag driven from the ocean, the Georgia, on her second cruise, did not meet a single American vessel in six weeks, though she saw no less than seventy vessels in a very few days.”[76]
This is most suggestive. So entirely was our commerce driven from the ocean, that for six weeks not an American vessel was seen!
Another Englishman, in an elaborate pamphlet, bears similar testimony. I refer to the pamphlet of Mr. Edge, published in London by Ridgway in 1863, and entitled “The Destruction of the American Carrying-Trade.” After setting forth at length the destruction of our commerce by British pirates, this writer thus foreshadows the damages:—
“Were we,” says he, “the sufferers, we should certainly demand compensation for the loss of the property captured or destroyed, for the interest of the capital invested in the vessels and their cargoes, and, maybe, a fair compensation in addition for all and any injury accruing to our business interests from the depredations upon our shipping. The remuneration may reach a high figure in the present case; but it would be a simple act of justice, and might prevent an incomparably greater loss in the future.”[77]
Here we have the damages assessed by an Englishman, who, while contemplating remuneration at a high figure, recognizes it as “a simple act of justice.”
Such is the candid and explicit testimony of Englishmen, pointing the way to the proper rule of damages. How to authenticate the extent of national loss with reasonable certainty is not without difficulty; but it cannot be doubted that such a loss occurred. It is folly to question it. The loss may be seen in various circumstances: as, in the rise of insurance on all American vessels; the fate of the carrying-trade, which was one of the great resources of our country; the diminution of our tonnage, with the corresponding increase of British tonnage; the falling off in our exports and imports, with due allowance for our abnormal currency and the diversion of war. These are some of the elements; and here again we have British testimony. Mr. W. E. Forster, in the speech already quoted, announces that “the carrying-trade of the United States was transferred to British merchants”;[78] and Mr. Cobden, with his characteristic mastery of details, shows, that, according to an official document laid on the table of Parliament, American shipping had been transferred to English capitalists as follows: in 1858, 33 vessels, 12,684 tons; 1859, 49 vessels, 21,308 tons; 1860, 41 vessels, 13,638 tons; 1861, 126 vessels, 71,673 tons; 1862, 135 vessels, 64,578 tons; and 1863, 348 vessels, 252,579 tons; and he adds, “I am told that this operation is now going on as fast as ever”; and this circumstance he declares to be “the most serious aspect of the question of our relations with America.”[79] But this “most serious aspect” is left untouched by the pending treaty.
Our own official documents are in harmony with these English authorities. For instance, I have before me now the Report of the Secretary of the Treasury for 1868, with an appendix by Mr. Nimmo, on shipbuilding in our country. From this Report it appears that in the New England States, during the year 1855, the most prosperous year of American shipbuilding, 305 ships and barks and 173 schooners were built, with an aggregate tonnage of 326,429 tons, while during the last year only 58 ships and barks and 213 schooners were built, with an aggregate tonnage of 98,697 tons.[80] I add a further statement from the same Report:—
“During the ten years from 1852 to 1862 the aggregate tonnage of American vessels entered at seaports of the United States from foreign countries was 30,225,475 tons, and the aggregate tonnage of foreign vessels entered was 14,699,192 tons, while during the five years from 1863 to 1868 the aggregate tonnage of American vessels entered was 9,299,877 tons, and the aggregate tonnage of foreign vessels entered was 14,116,427 tons,—showing that American tonnage in our foreign trade had fallen from two hundred and five to sixty-six per cent. of foreign tonnage in the same trade. Stated in other terms, during the decade from 1852 to 1862 sixty-seven per cent. of the total tonnage entered from foreign countries was in American vessels, and during the five years from 1863 to 1868 only thirty-nine per cent. of the aggregate tonnage entered from foreign countries was in American vessels,—a relative falling off of nearly one half.”[81]
It is not easy to say how much of this change, which has become chronic, may be referred to British pirates; but it cannot be doubted that they contributed largely to produce it. They began the influences under which this change has continued.
There is another document which bears directly upon the present question. I refer to the interesting Report of Mr. Morse, our consul at London, made during the last year, and published by the Secretary of State. After a minute inquiry, the Report shows that on the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1861 the entire tonnage of the United States, coasting and registered, was 5,539,813 tons, of which 2,642,628 tons were registered and employed in foreign trade, and that at the close of the Rebellion in 1865, notwithstanding an increase in coasting tonnage, our registered tonnage had fallen to 1,602,528 tons, being a loss during the four years of more than a million tons, amounting to about forty per cent. of our foreign commerce. During the same four years the total tonnage of the British empire rose from 5,895,369 tons to 7,322,604 tons, the increase being especially in the foreign trade. The Report proceeds to say that as to the cause of the decrease in America and the corresponding increase in the British empire “there can be no room for question or doubt.” Here is the precise testimony from one who at his official post in London watched this unprecedented drama, with the outstretched ocean as a theatre, and British pirates as the performers:—
“Conceding to the Rebels the belligerent rights of the sea, when they had not a solitary war-ship afloat, in dock, or in the process of construction, and when they had no power to protect or dispose of prizes, made their sea-rovers, when they appeared, the instruments of terror and destruction to our commerce. From the appearance of the first corsair in pursuit of their ships, American merchants had to pay not only the marine, but the war risk also, on their ships. After the burning of one or two ships with their neutral cargoes, the ship-owner had to pay the war risk on the cargo his ship had on freight, as well as on the ship. Even then, for safety, the preference was, as a matter of course, always given to neutral vessels, and American ships could rarely find employment on these hard terms as long as there were good neutral ships in the freight markets. Under such circumstances there was no course left for our merchant ship-owners but to take such profitless business as was occasionally offered them, let their ships lie idle at their moorings or in dock with large expense and deterioration constantly going on, to sell them outright when they could do so without ruinous sacrifice, or put them under foreign flags for protection.”[82]
Beyond the actual loss in the national tonnage, there was a further loss in the arrest of our natural increase in this branch of industry, which an intelligent statistician puts at five per cent. annually, making in 1866 a total loss on this account of 1,384,953 tons, which must be added to 1,229,035 tons actually lost.[83] The same statistician, after estimating the value of a ton at forty dollars gold, and making allowance for old and new ships, puts the sum-total of national loss on this account at $110,000,000. Of course this is only an item in our bill.
To these authorities I add that of the National Board of Trade, which, in a recent report on American Shipping, after setting forth the diminution of our sailing tonnage, says that it is nearly all to be traced to the war on the ocean; and the result is summed up in the words, that, “while the tonnage of the nation was rapidly disappearing by the ravages of the Rebel cruisers and by sales abroad, in addition to the usual loss by the perils of the sea, there was no construction of new vessels going forward to counteract the decline even in part.”[84] Such is the various testimony, all tending to one conclusion.
This is what I have to say for the present on national losses through the destruction of commerce. These are large enough; but there is another chapter, where they are larger far: I refer, of course, to the national losses caused by the prolongation of the war, and traceable directly to England. Pardon me, if I confess the regret with which I touch this prodigious item; for I know well the depth of feeling which it is calculated to stir. But I cannot hesitate. It belongs to the case. No candid person, who studies this eventful period, can doubt that the Rebellion was originally encouraged by hope of support from England,—that it was strengthened at once by the concession of belligerent rights on the ocean,—that it was fed to the end by British supplies,—that it was encouraged by every well-stored British ship that was able to defy our blockade,—that it was quickened into frantic life with every report from the British pirates, flaming anew with every burning ship; nor can it be doubted that without British intervention the Rebellion would have soon succumbed under the well-directed efforts of the National Government. Not weeks or months, but years, were added in this way to our war, so full of costly sacrifice. The subsidies which in other times England contributed to Continental wars were less effective than the aid and comfort which she contributed to the Rebellion. It cannot be said too often that the naval base of the Rebellion was not in America, but in England. The blockade-runners and the pirate ships were all English. England was the fruitful parent, and these were the “hell-hounds,” pictured by Milton in his description of Sin, which, “when they list, would creep into her womb and kennel there.” Mr. Cobden boldly said in the House of Commons that England made war from her shores on the United States, with “an amount of damage to that country greater than would be produced by many ordinary wars.”[85] According to this testimony, the conduct of England was war; but it must not be forgotten that this war was carried on at our sole cost. The United States paid for a war waged by England upon the National Unity.
There was one form that this war assumed which was incessant, most vexatious, and costly, besides being in itself a positive alliance with the Rebellion. It was that of blockade-runners, openly equipped and supplied by England under the shelter of that baleful Proclamation. Constantly leaving English ports, they stole across the ocean, and then broke the blockade. These active agents of the Rebellion could be counteracted only by a network of vessels stretching along the coast, at great cost to the country. Here is another distinct item, the amount of which may be determined at the Navy Department.
The sacrifice of precious life is beyond human compensation; but there may be an approximate estimate of the national loss in treasure. Everybody can make the calculation. I content myself with calling attention to the elements which enter into it. Besides the blockade, there was the prolongation of the war. The Rebellion was suppressed at a cost of more than four thousand million dollars, a considerable portion of which has been already paid, leaving twenty-five hundred millions as a national debt to burden the people. If, through British intervention, the war was doubled in duration, or in any way extended, as cannot be doubted, then is England justly responsible for the additional expenditure to which our country was doomed; and whatever may be the final settlement of these great accounts, such must be the judgment in any chancery which consults the simple equity of the case.
This plain statement, without one word of exaggeration or aggravation, is enough to exhibit the magnitude of the national losses, whether from the destruction of our commerce, the prolongation of the war, or the expense of the blockade. They stand before us mountain-high, with a base broad as the Nation, and a mass stupendous as the Rebellion itself. It will be for a wise statesmanship to determine how this fearful accumulation, like Ossa upon Pelion, shall be removed out of sight, so that it shall no longer overshadow the two countries.