The Daily Dispatch: may 31, 1861., [Electronic resource]

---

---

Trading with the enemy.

--Yesterday morning Eugenio Pacolini, Captain of the schooner Hortense, and Vincennes Calduco and Peter Pios, the crew of said vessel, were brought before the Hon. W. G. Jones, Judge of the Confederate District Court, for the District of Alabama, to undergo preliminary examination upon a charge of treason against the Confederate States, for having on or about the 15th inst., supplied the enemy's fleet, stationed off Santa Rosa Island, with provisions. Several witnesses were examined, on behalf of the Government, by A. J. Requier, Esq., Attorney of the Confederate States, when the further investigation of the case was postponed, at the instance of A. Huatel, Esq., counsel for the accused, to give the latter an opportunity of summoning their witnesses.

Besides, the arrest of the parties alleged to have been engaged in this illicit traffic, the vessel itself was libelled by the Confederate Attorney for condemnation as a prize of war.

Judge Jones took occasion to remark, from the bench, that trading with the enemy was an act of treason, punishable with death. A penalty which, under present circumstances, would rigidly be enforced against offenders.--He said nothing short of a reasonable fear of the loss of life, would justify the delivery of provisions or other necessaries to the enemy — a mere threat, unaccompanied by a reasonable assurance of its execution, afforded no ground of justification or defence to the perpetrator of the fact.--Mobile Tribune, 24th.