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| The lady Davis. |
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section of the Act offered a bounty of twenty dollars for each person who might be on board any armed ship or vessel belonging to the United States, at the commencement of an engagement, which should be burned, sunk, or destroyed by any vessel commissioned as a privateer, of equal or inferior force — in other words, a reward for the murder, by fire, water, or otherwise, of men, women, and children found on board of a public vessel of the United States.
Happily for the credit of humanity, this Act has no parallel on the statute-books of civilized nations.
They also offered a bounty of twenty-five dollars for every prisoner captured by a privateer and delivered to an agent of the “Confederation” in any of its ports.
Davis did not wait for the legal sanction of his so-called “Congress,” but issued letters of marque immediately after putting forth his proclamation on the 17th of April.1
The country controlled by the conspirators lacked the mechanical skill and many materials for the construction of a navy; therefore, while the offer of Davis to issue letters of marque created uneasiness among shipping merchants, they did not feel serious alarm, especially when it was known that the Government would institute a rigid blockade.
But it was not long before privateers were on the seas.
The Confederates had not the means for building vessels, but they had for purchasing them.
They had already stolen six National revenue cutters,2 which they fitted up as privateers; and
in the course of a few weeks after the “recognition of a state of war,” Mr. Mallory, the so-called “Secretary of the Navy” of the conspirators, had purchased and fitted out about a dozen vessels.
The owners of as many more private vessels took out letters of marque immediately after Davis's proclamation was made; and before the middle of June, the commerce of the United States was threatened with serious mischief.
The first of the purchased vessels commissioned by Mallory was a small
1 Telegraphic communication from Montgomery to the Charleston Mercury, April 18, 1861.
2 The Lewis Cass, Washington, Pickens, Dodge, McClelland, and Bradford.
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