James Russell Soley, Professor U. S. Navy, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 7.1, The blockade and the cruisers
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[41] of each transaction. It is probable that in no case was injustice done in brushing aside and disregarding the various ceremonies, more or less elaborate and artificial, that were performed over blockade-running cargoes at Nassau and Bermuda; and it must often have happened that the ingenuity of shippers was rewarded by a decree of restitution for the want of technical evidence, when there was no moral doubt as to the vessel's guilt.

As a last resort, the blockade-running merchants adopted an expedient so original and so bold that it may almost be said to have merited success. As cargoes from Liverpool to Nassau ran a risk of capture, the voyage was broken again, this time not by a neutral destination, but by one in the country of the very belligerent whom the trade was to injure. Goods were shipped to New York by the regular steamship lines, to be carried thence to Nassau, and so to find their way to the blockaded territory. It was supposed that the United States would not interfere with commerce between its own ports and those of a neutral. This expectation, however, was not well-founded. The Government of the United States, although federal in its organization, was not so impotent in regard to the regulation of trade as was that of Great Britain in enforcing the neutrality of its subjects; and if action could not be taken through the Courts, it could be taken through the custom-houses. As soon as it was discovered at New York that the trade with Nassau and Bermuda was assuming large proportions, instructions were issued to collectors of customs in the United States to refuse clearances to vessels which, whatever their ostensible destination, were believed to be intended for Southern ports, or whose cargoes were in imminent danger of falling into the hands of the enemy; and if there was merely ground for apprehension that cargoes were destined for