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.

[166] numerous enough to take up more than a slight margin of the enormous profits that it netted. These profits were made both on the outward and the inward voyages, and it is hard to say which were the more extraordinary. The inward cargoes consisted of all kinds of manufactured goods, and especially of ‘hardware,’ the innocent name under which arms and ammunition were invoiced. The sale of these brought in from five hundred to one thousand per cent. of their cost. The return cargo was always cotton, and the steam-presses at Wilmington, reducing it to the smallest possible bulk, enabled the long, narrow blockade-runners to carry six hundred, eight hundred, or even twelve hundred bales, of five or six hundred pounds each. Even the upper deck was piled up with two or three tiers of bales. As a clear profit of £ 30,000 each way was no uncommon result, it is easy to believe that owners could afford to lose a vessel after two successful trips. It was the current opinion in the squadron off Wilmington, in the early part of the last year, that two-thirds of the vessels attempting to enter were successful; and it has been estimated that out of the sixty-six blockade-runners making regular trips during the war, forty were captured or destroyed, but only after a successful career for a shorter or longer period. Gradually, in the last few months, too many vessels were caught to make the trade profitable; and it was slowly declining, though it did not cease altogether until the blockade was raised.

As for the compensation of those who did the work, it may be interesting to give the schedule of rates of pay, on board a first-class vessel, when the business was at its height. The figures are given by ‘A. Roberts,’ one of the most famous of the noms de guerre in the contraband trade of Nassau. the rates are for a single trip from Nassau to Wilmington and back. Half the amount was given as a bounty at the