The Daily Dispatch: March 4, 1865., [Electronic resource]

The improvement of national morals on this continent is in nothing more evident than that enlightened public sentiment which has come to regard privateering as piracy. No one who has faith in human progress and the perfectibility of the species can contemplate this change without new hopes in humanity and increased confidence in a fact asserted by Galileo-- "And yet it moves."

There is no human thing so perfect that it may not be improved. We are apt to suppose that the character of the founders of the American Republic was an exception to this rule. Such impressions are natural and proper enough in their descendants. But, nevertheless, that character admitted of some improvement. They had no objections, for example, to the slave trade, and recognised a right of property in man, which is shocking to think of. Nor was this their only defect. It is melancholy to think that their moral sense was so obtuse that they looked upon privateering, now justly considered piracy, as a legitimate and proper method of making war. We have before us, at this moment, an authentic record of a fact which otherwise might be deemed incredible. The instructions of the Revolutionary Congress to John Paul Jones, a well known pirate of the Revolution, are as follows: ‘"Take, sink, burn or destroy all such of the enemies ships, vessels, goods and effects as you may be able."’ An- act was passed November 5, 1775, which prescribed the ratio of distribution among the officers of American vessels of such goods and chattels of the enemy as they should be able to appropriate. We find this man Jones, in one of his first letters to the American Commissioners at Paris, relating, with the most unblushing effrontery, how, on his last cruise, he took a brigantine, bound from Ostend with a cargo of flaxseed for Ireland, and sunk her; took also the ship Lord Chatham, loaded with porter and merchandise, which he manned and sent to Brest; met a Scotch coasting schooner, loaded with barley, which he says he "could not avoid sinking; made sail after ten or twelve merchant ships, which he "thought an enterprise worthy attention"; and made an expedition to Whitchaven, on his native coast of Scotland, where he kindled a fire in the steerage of a large ship, surrounded by between three and four hundred others, whereof he coolly says: ‘"I should have kindled fires in other places if the time had permitted. As it did not, our care was to prevent the one kindled from being easily extinguished. After some search, a barrel of tar was found, and poured into the flame, which now ascended from all the hatchways. The inhabitants began to appear in thousands; and individuals ran hastily towards us. I stood between them and the ship on fire, with a pistol in my hand, [the truculent villain!] and ordered them to retire, which they did with precipitation. Had it been possible to have landed a few hours sooner, my success would have been complete. Not a single ship could possibly have escaped, and all the world would not have been able to save the town."’ However, he relieved his mind of the partial disappointment by going round to the Frith of Forth, and frightening the people of Kirkaldy out of their wits. Pamphlets of his depredations are said to have been as common as almanacs in every house on the British coast. An amusing instance of the terror in which this sea monster was held, is given in a work of a Mr. Henderson, who bad explored the whole of that part of the country which was the scene of Jones's exploits in 1778. An old Presbyterian minister in Kirkaldy, a good old man, but of singular and eccentric habits, was seen, at the time of Jones's threatened descent, making his way through the people, with an old blackout arm-chair, which he lugged down to low-water mark (the tide flowing), and sat down in it. Here he commenced his religious exercises, remarking that here is "a vile pireet coming to rub our folk � Kirkaldy, and goodness knows they're a peur enough already, and has nothing to spare. They are a gaily guld, and it wad be a peety to serve them in sic a wa. The wa the wun blaws, he'll be here in a jiffic, and wha kens what he may do? He's nane too guid for anything. Meickl�s the mishief he has dune already. Ony pecket gear they hae gathered thegither he will gang the heal o't; may burn their hooses, take their vary claes, and tirl them to the sarh; and waes me! wha kens but the bluidy villain might tak their lives. The puir weemen are maist freightened out o' their weets, and the bairns skirling after them. I canna th� lt! I canna tho'lt" "I hae been lang a faithful' servant of the sanctuary,but gin the wun isn't turned about, and blaw the scoundrel out of our gate, I'll na stur a bit, but will juistsit here until the tide comes and drounsme." It is pleasant to record that a change of wind afterwards saved the eccentric divine from the contemplated necessity.

All the reports of Jones, and of other continental commanders on the high seas, are filled with accounts of whole sale plunder of private property on the high seas. Even as late as the last war with England, public sentiment in the North sanctioned those piratical parties, and only a few years ago the American Government deliberately refused a proposition of the European Powers to discard this relic of a barbarous age. It was reserved for the present war to enlighten the moral sense of North Americans and to enable it to discover that England, eighty years ago, was right, when she pronounced such deeds as those of Paul Jones piracy.