Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

[269] of the enemy's commerce. I should have had no objection to receiving, on deposit, for safe keeping, any funds that I might have found on board the said prizes, but the beggarly Yankee masters never carried any. A few hundred dollars for ship's expenses was all that was ever found, and sometimes not even this—the master having, generally, an order on his consignee, for what moneys he might need. I sometimes captured these orders, and a stray bill of exchange for a small amount, but of course I could make no use of them. The steamship has not only revolutionized commerce, and war, but exchanges. Long before the arrival of the tardy sailing-ship, at her destined port, with her ponderous cargo, the nimble mail-steamer deposits a duplicate of her invoice, and bill of lading, with the merchant to whom she is consigned; and when the ship has landed her cargo, the same, or another steamer, takes back a bill of exchange, for the payment of the freight.

The masters of my prizes frequently remonstrated against my capturing their chronometers; in some instances claiming them as their own individual property. When they would talk to me about private property, I would ask to whom their ships belonged—whether to a private person, or the Government? They at once saw the drift of the question, and there was an end of the argument. I was making war upon the enemy's commerce—and especially upon the ship, the vehicle of commerce, and the means and appliances by which she was navigated. If her chronometers, sextants, telescopes, and charts were left in possession of the master, they would be transferred to, and used in the navigation of some other ship. The fact that these instruments belonged to other parties, than the shipowners, could not make the least difference—ship and instruments were all private property, alike, and alike subject to capture. Silly newspaper editors have published a good deal of nonsense, mixed with a good deal of malice, on this subject. It is only their nonsense that I propose to correct—their abuse was something to be expected under the circumstances. Being dependent upon the patronage of ship-owners and ship-masters, for the prosperity of their papers, abuse of the Sumter, during the war, came as naturally to them, as whittling a stick.