When the great powers of Europe drew up and signed the Treaty of Paris in 1856, they abolished privateering, so far as they were concerned. The lesser powers of Europe, and some of those on this continent, accepted the general invitation to join in the treaty. The United States Government replied that it would join in it, provided a clause were inserted to the effect that private property on the high seas, if not contraband of war, should be exempt from seizure not only by privateers but by the public armed vessels of an enemy. The great powers that originally made the treaty refused to insert any such clause; thereby confessing that their object was not to exempt private property from the burdens and derangements of war, but merely to control the mode of its seizure, and to secure for themselves with their large navies an advantage over nations that in time of peace have small navies or none at all. So the United States retains to this day her right to send out privateers if she becomes involved in war with any maritime people.
One at least of the London journals, the Statesman, foresaw the danger from privateers in 1812. When war was threatened, it said: "America cannot certainly pretend to wage a maritime war with us. She has no navy to do it with. But America has nearly a hundred thousand as good seamen as any in the world, all of whom would be actively employed against our trade on every part of the ocean, in their fast-sailing ships of war, many of which will be able to cope with our small cruisers; and they will be found to be sweeping the West India seas, and even carrying desolation into the chops of the Channel."
All this, and more, the two hundred and fifty privateers accomplished. They cruised in every sea, and wrought such havoc with British commerce as had never been known before. Coggeshall's history of the service enumerates about fifteen hundred prizes taken by them in the two and a half years of war, and these were not all of the captures by privateers alone; while the government war-vessels, in their cruises, added considerably to the number.
The fortunes of the privateers were of the most varied kind. Some of them made long cruises without falling in with a single British merchantman of which they could make a prize. Others took enough to enrich every man of the crew. The Surprise, of Baltimore, took twenty in a single month. The True-Blooded Yankee was one of the most daring and most fortunate. On one cruise she took twenty-seven prizes in thirty-seven days. On the same cruise she captured a small island on the coast of Ireland, and held possession of it for six days. She also took a small seaport town of Scotland, and burned seven vessels in the harbor. A partial list of the spoils with which she was laden when she arrived in a French port, will give some idea of the business. She had eighteen bales of Turkish carpets, forty-three bales of raw silk, weighing six tons, twenty boxes of gums, twenty-four packs of beaver skins, one hundred and sixty dozen swan skins, forty-six packs of other skins, a hundred and ninety hides, a quantity of copper, and various other articles.
The York, of Baltimore, after cruising on the coast of Brazil and through the West Indies, returned home with prizes valued at $1,500,000.
The Snapdragon, of Newbern, N. C., captured a brig with a cargo, mainly dry goods, worth half a million dollars, and got safely into port with her.
The Saucy Jack, of Charleston, took the ship Mentor, with a cargo valued at $300,000, and sent her into New Orleans; and a short time afterward the same privateer took a brig with $60,000 worth of dry goods.
The Yankee, in a cruise of a hundred and fifty days, scoured the whole western coast of Africa, taking eight prizes, and came home with thirty-two bales of fine goods, six tons of ivory, and $40,000 in gold dust; all together worth nearly $300,000.
The Leo, of Baltimore, captured an East India-man worth two and a half million dollars, which was recaptured by an English sloop-of-war, though not till the Leo had taken off $60,000 in bullion.
The Governor Tompkins, of New York, near the Madeira Islands captured the Nereid, with an assorted cargo valued at $375,000.