Nassau was a natural resort for the blockade runners, for its people had been wreckers—had “thanked God for a good wrack”—for time out of mind. Besides that, it was not only near by the Southern coast, but it was surrounded by a host of reefs awash, every one of which was neutral territory, and was surrounded by its marine league of neutral waters, where a blockade-runner was safe.
As the reader will remember, the blockade-running traffic was chiefly in the hands of the British, although Yankees were found not unwilling to turn a contraband dollar with one hand while they flapped the old flag in the air with the other and shouted over Union victories vociferously.
At the beginning of the contraband business the vessels were loaded in England, cleared for Bermuda or Nassau, and sent thence to the Southern destination, Charleston being the chief port. Any vessel, even a condemned sailing schooner, was counted good enough; in fact, worthless vessels were preferred because the loss would be less in case of failure.
The touch at the neutral port was, of course, a mere device to deceive the American government officials; but a change was soon made in that game, for the courts held to the doctrine of the continuity of a voyage. If the ultimate destination of the ship and cargo was Charleston, she might be lawfully captured anywhere en route in spite of the fact that she was cleared for a neutral port when the voyage began.
A Four-pound Cast-iron Gun Captured from a Blockade-runner.
There being no appeal from this decision, the contraband dealers resorted to shipping goods from England to the neutral port off the coast, and there unloading the goods. The papers, of course, were made out in proper form, under oath, giving the neutral port as the ultimate destination. They showed, for instance, that a house in Nassau was buying shoes, woollens, guns, gunpowder, swords, etc., sufficient to supply an army, and it was called legitimate trade. Perjury was as common in this contraband business as the drinking of wine. In fact, one cannot help quoting here the words of the favorite “Naval History of Great Britain”—the words of James where he is writing of American traders in the days of the “paper blockades” of 1812. He says:
“Every citizen of every town in the United States, to which a creek leads that can float a canoe, becomes henceforward ‘a merchant’; and the grower of wheat or tobacco sends his son to a counting-house, that he may be initiated in the profitable art of falsifying ship’s papers, and covering belligerent property. Here the young American learns to bolt custom-house oaths by the dozen, and to condemn a lie only when clumsily told, or when timorously or inadequately applied. After a few years of probation, he is sent on board a vessel as mate, or supercargo; and, in due time, besides fabricating fraudulent papers, and swearing to their genuineness, he learns (using a homely phrase) to humbug British officers, and to decoy and make American citizens of British seamen.”
What Mr. James says of the American people as a whole, can be truthfully said in substance of the British blockade-runners. They were an infamous lot, without exception, and ever ready to sacrifice honor and risk life so long as the number of pieces of gold was large enough.
But this is not meant to apply to the Confederates engaged in running supplies through the blockaded lines. Their case was entirely different, for they were legally belligerents, and to obtain supplies was, from their point of view, a patriotic duty. So it might—so it usually did happen that a blockade-runner carried one man (the pilot) whose courage and firmness excite the heartiest approbation of every unprejudiced mind, while every other member of the crew was at heart a coward who dared not fight the blockaders in pursuit, and a sneak who would sell his soul for gold.