“As a necessary precaution against abuse, the owners of privateers are required, by the ordinances of the commercial states, to give adequate security that they will conduct the cruise according to the laws and usages of war and the instructions of the Government, and that they will regard the rights of neutrals, and bring their prizes in for adjudication. These checks are essential to the character and safety of maritime nations. Privateering, under all the restrictions which have been adopted, is very liable to abuse. The object is not fame or chivalric warfare, but plunder and profit. The discipline of the crews is not apt to be of the highest order, and privateers are often guilty of enormous excesses, and become the scourge of neutral commerce. They are sometimes manned and officered by foreigners, having no permanent connection with the country, or interest in its cause. This was a complaint made by the United States, in 1819, in relation to irregularities and acts of atrocity committed by private armed vessels sailing under the flag of Buenos Ayres. Under the best regulations, the business tends strongly to blunt the sense of private right and to nourish a lawless and fierce spirit of rapacity.”[142]
It is well known that these were the sentiments of the founders of our Republic, which, in its early treaty with Prussia, took the lead in denouncing the whole system of privateering. Is it not better to follow this example, until positive, irresistible exigencies of war compel us to depart from it? If we cannot do this, let us at least keep from affording new facilities to an offensive system. What our country denounced in other days should not now be proclaimed and glorified.
Mr. Grimes. The Senator will allow me to inquire when it was that this nation denounced the system of privateering.
Mr. Sumner. By the treaty of 1785.
Mr. Grimes. The Prussian treaty, I suppose.
Mr. Sumner. The Prussian treaty.
Mr. Grimes. I should like to know the purport of that denunciation. Was it not a mere stipulation that we should not prey on the commerce of that nation?
Mr. Sumner. It was a stipulation to the effect, that, in any war between the United States and Prussia, neither party should commission privateers to depredate on the commerce of the other.
Mr. Grimes. A stipulation that I suppose this Government could very easily make, because Prussia has no commerce.