The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-17 00:00:00

THE SUIiITE.R.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—Permit me, through the medium of your
columns, to say a word to the civilized world, in
defence of my ship, against the scurrilous and
cowardly attack made upon her by Mr. Gideon
Welles, who is just now the Secretary of the Navy
of the Northern fragment of what was formerly
known as the United States of America. That
gentleman (for by courtesy I must call him such,
from the high official position which he occupies),
used the following language in his recent report to
the President and Congress of what remains of the
old Confederacy :
" It was natural that apprehensions should pre-
vail in regard to armed cruisers commissioned ex-
pressly by the rebel leaders to depredate upon our
commerce. This robbery of merchants and others
engaged in peaceful and lawful pursuits by
piratical cruisers is not inconsistent with the
general conduct of those who have violated law and
moral obligations to gratify inordinate ambition. Our
extended commerce presented inducements for
piratical warfare, yet but few of our misguided
countrymen have prostituted themselves to the pur-
poses of plunder, though thereto invited, and these
few have been in constant flight to escape the
avenging power of our vigilant naval forces. Such
of these cruisers as eluded the blockade and cap-
ture were soon wrecked, beached, or sunk, with the
exception of one, the Sumter, which by some fata-
lity was permitted to pass the Brooklyn, then
blockading one of the passes of the Mississippi,
and, after a brief and feeble chase by the latter,
was allowed to proceed on her piratical voyage. An
investigation of this whole occurrence was ordered
by the department. Socn the Niagara and the
Powhattan, from the Gulf squadron, followed in
vigorous pursuit, the latter, though long in com-
mission, and with defective boilers and machinery,
under her energetic commander, tracking her pira-
tical craft as far as Maranham. The Keystone
State, Richmond, Iroquois, and San Jacinto were

also in search of her at different points and periods.
Although a piratical rover, without license from
any recognised of acknowledged Government, and
avowedly engaged in the robbery and plunder of
our citizens, I regret to say this vessel has been re-
ceived and her wants supplied, against the remon-
strance of our consuls, by public authorities in many
foreign ports where her character was well known."
The closing paragraph of the above elegant ex-

tract from an American State paper would seem to
show that, although it was penned ostensibly
against myself, it was, in fact, levelled at those
European Powers which had acknowledged the
Confederate States to be a lawful belligerent in the
war which had been forced upon them. On no
other supposition could it charge me with "rob-
bery" on the high seas, and with being a " piratical
rover." A pirate is hostis humani generis, and may
be seized and summarily dealt with by any and all
the nations of the earth ; but the fact is these
officers of the defunct Federal Union are so
blinded by their venom against the South that
they have. no longer the power to distinguish
between terms. Mr. Welles, also, in imitation of the
dirty and mendacious press of the Yankee States,
calls me a privateer. He knows better than this.
Ho knows that a privateer is a vessel that bears a
letter of marque, and that I am cruising under no
such letter. He knows that I have been regularly
commissioned as a ship of war of the Confederate
States. If he and his deluded associates insist upon
calling the citizens of the Confederate States rebels,
under the idea that those States still form a part of
the old Yankee concern, then he might charac-
terise me as a rebel man•of--war, But if I am
this, so were all the ships of the American colonies
commissioned by the Virginian George Washing-
ton. Mr. Welles tells the President and Congress
that, by "some fatality," I ran the blockade of New
Orleans, and that he has ordered the whole affair
to be investigated. With the blind rage of a
baffled madman (quern Deus vult perdere, &c.), he
will, no doubt, endeavour to crush the harmless
and inoffensive commander of the Brooklyn, who,
poor man, no doubt, did his best. He says, also,
that he has had six of his largest and fastest

steamers in pursuit of me, and that the commander
of one of them was so energetic as to perform the
wonderful feat of tracking me as far as Maranham,
in Brazil. This, I suppose, is one of those daring
acts —the officer being in command of a heavy frigate
—which called forth the panegyric of the Yankee
Navy which we find in a subsequent part of Mr.
Welles's report, for after praising his clerks this
officer goes on to remark—" To the patriotic offi-
cers of the navy, and the bravo men who, in various
scenes of naval action, have served under them, the
Department and tho Government justly owe an ac-
knowledgment even more earnest and emphatic,"
than that which they owe to his clerks ! Oh ! for
a James to pourtray these "scenes of naval action,"
confined to a predatory warfare on the Potomac
river, directed chiefly against women and children ;
to the capture of a sandbag battery at Hatteras ; to
the masterly movement of the great Dupont, the

"greatest naTal commander of the age" in Yankee

hyperbole, who not only knows how to use gun-
powder, but, with Yankee thrift, to turn an

honest penny by selling it to the Government ;
and to the pursuit of the piratical Sumter,

away ever so far, even to the shores of Brazil,
by the gallant Porter, who probably for this feat—
so little material has Mr. Welles for heroes—will
be made a " flag officer." I feel honoured to have
been thus pursued by six frigates, and if one of

them caught Messrs. Mason and Slidell instead of
catching me, why, that is John. Bull's affair, and
not mine. But lam fleeing from those ships, says

Mr. Welles. Soft, Mr. Welles ! He would have
me, I suppose, fall into the Yankee trap he has set
for me, and rush to the encounter of his six frigates,
the least of which is twice my size, and of more
than twice my weight of metal. He dare not send

a ship of equal force to meet me, and if he did dare
do so, being safely ensconced himself in his arm-

chair, I venture to say that the officer would not

dare to find me. But I have to inform Mr. Welles
that by "some fatality" I have run another block-

ade. I have recently steamed out of the port of St.
Pierre, in the Island of Martinique, in the face of
one of the fastest and finest of his Yankee ships,
the Iroquois, and which is more than twice my
force. Poor Captain Palmer ! I fear that he, too,
will be immolated on the altar of the " Universal

Yankee Nation," because he did not catch the Sum-
ter, though from all we can learn he had fits on the

occasion. This honourable captain is indeed a fit
representative of the honour of Yankee-doodledom,
for he violated the sovereignty of France and his
own solemn pledge at the same time, given to the
commanding French naval officer present, by caus-
ing blue lights (brought all the way, no doubt,

from New London, Connecticut) to be burnt on
board a Yankee schooner in the harbour, to signal

,o him my departure. But I only allude to this en

passant, as France is abundantly able to take care

of her own honour,—

" If the universal Yankee nation
" Can whip all creation I I I"
When Mr. Welles learns, too, that on my way hither

I burnt three more Yankee ships, and liberated a
fourth, only because she had an English cargo on

board, he will probably send six more of his

doughty war ships after me—that is to say,
if he can spare them from burning corn-cribs and
frightening women and children along our South-
ern coast. He will take especial care, too, to put

plenty of men and guns on board of them, for other-
wise I might not be in "such constant flight to
escape the avenging power of our vigilant naval

Forces." A word or two more and I shall have done.

What can wise Mr. Welles mean when he objects
to the "robbery of merchants and others engaged

n peaceful commerce and lawful pursuits ? " -Does

he not know that all property, with rare exceptions,

captured on the high seas, is property belonging to
"merchants and others engaged in peaceful com-

merce and lawful pursuits!" Why this senseless
diatribe, then, about robbery, and piracy, and pri-
vate property, and peaceful commerce, and lawful

pursuits ? If Mr. Welles would give me an oppor-
tunity of capturing some of his public property I

would be much obliged to him. But he takes very
good care not to do this by sending his heaviest
ships after me ; and have the Yankee naval officers
in those " scenes of naval action " in which they.