The Spanish flag continued to cover American slave-traders. The rapid rise of privateering during the war was not caused solely by patriotic motives; for many armed ships fitted out in the United States obtained a thin Spanish disguise at Havana, and transported thousands of slaves to Brazil and the West Indies. Sometimes all disguise was thrown aside, and the American flag appeared on the slave coast, as in the cases of the "Paz,"[75] the "Rebecca," the "Rosa"[76] (formerly the privateer
"Commodore Perry"), the "Dorset" of Baltimore,[77] and the "Saucy Jack."[78] Governor McCarthy of Sierra Leone wrote, in 1817: "The slave trade is carried on most vigorously by the Spaniards, Portuguese, Americans and French. I have had it affirmed from several quarters, and do believe it to be a fact, that there is a greater number of vessels employed in that traffic than at any former period."[79]
62. Apathy of the Federal Government. The United States cruisers succeeded now and then in capturing a slaver, like the "Eugene," which was taken when within four miles of the New Orleans bar.[80] President Madison again, in 1816, urged Congress to act on account of the "violations and evasions which, it is suggested, are chargeable on unworthy citizens, who mingle in the slave trade under foreign flags, and with foreign ports; and by collusive importations of slaves into the United States, through adjoining ports and territories."[81] The executive was continually in receipt of ample evidence of this illicit trade and of the helplessness of officers of the law. In 1817 it was reported to the Secretary of the Navy that most of the goods carried to Galveston were brought into the United States; "the more valuable, and the slaves are smuggled in through the numerous inlets to the westward, where the people are but too much disposed to render them every possible assistance. Several hundred slaves are now at Galveston, and persons have gone from New-Orleans to purchase them. Every exertion will be made to intercept them,
but I have little hopes of success."[82] Similar letters from naval officers and collectors showed that a system of slave piracy had arisen since the war, and that at Galveston there was an establishment of organized brigands, who did not go to the trouble of sailing to Africa for their slaves, but simply captured slavers and sold their cargoes into the United States. This Galveston nest had, in 1817, eleven armed vessels to prosecute the work, and "the most shameful violations of the slave act, as well as our revenue laws, continue to be practised."[83] Cargoes of as many as three hundred slaves were arriving in Texas. All this took place under Aury, the buccaneer governor; and when he removed to Amelia Island in 1817 with the McGregor raid, the illicit traffic in slaves, which had been going on there for years,[84] took an impulse that brought it even to the somewhat deaf ears of Collector Bullock. He reported, May 22, 1817: "I have just received information from a source on which I can implicitly rely, that it has already become the practice to introduce into the state of Georgia, across the St. Mary's River, from Amelia Island, East Florida, Africans, who have been carried into the Port of Fernandina, subsequent to the capture of it by the Patriot army now in possession of it ...; were the legislature to pass an act giving compensation in some manner to informers, it would have a tendency in a great degree to prevent the practice; as the thing now is, no citizen will take the trouble of searching for and detecting the slaves. I further understand, that the evil will not be confined altogether to Africans, but will be extended to the worst class of West India slaves."[85]
Undoubtedly, the injury done by these pirates to the regular slave-trading interests was largely instrumental in exterminating them. Late in 1817 United States troops seized Amelia Island, and President Monroe felicitated Congress and the country upon escaping the "annoyance and injury" of this illicit trade.[86] The trade, however, seems to have continued, as is shown by such letters as the following, written three and a half months later:—
Port of Darien, March 14, 1818.
... It is a painful duty, sir, to express to you, that I am in possession of undoubted information, that African and West India negroes are almost daily illicitly introduced into Georgia, for sale or settlement, or passing through it to the territories of the United States for similar purposes; these facts are notorious; and it is not unusual to see such negroes in the streets of St. Mary's, and such too, recently captured by our vessels of war, and ordered to Savannah, were illegally bartered by hundreds in that city, for this bartering or bonding (as it is called, but in reality selling,) actually took place before any decision had [been] passed by the court respecting them. I cannot but again express to you, sir, that these irregularities and mocking of the laws, by men who understand them, and who, it was presumed, would have respected them, are such, that it requires the immediate interposition of Congress to effect a suppression of this traffic; for, as things are, should a faithful officer of the government apprehend such negroes, to avoid the penalties imposed by the laws, the proprietors disclaim them, and some agent of the executive demands a delivery of the same to him, who may employ them as he pleases, or effect a sale by way of a bond, for the restoration of the negroes when legally called on so to do; which bond, it is understood, is to be forfeited, as the amount of the bond is so much less than the value of the property.... There are many negroes ... recently introduced into this state and the Alabama territory, and which can be apprehended. The undertaking would be great; but to be sensible that we shall possess your approbation, and that we are carrying the views and wishes of the government into execution, is all we wish, and it shall be done, independent of every personal consideration.
I have, etc.[87]
This "approbation" failed to come to the zealous collector, and on the 5th of July he wrote that, "not being favored with