Delaware inquirer. (Wilmington, Del.) 1859-18??, 1859-09-24
THE PRIvATEERs.
TO Be CONTINUED.

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In order to recollect the last shots fired il
the European battlefield of England, maj
must now be well up in middle age. I'M
young know nothing of arms but from MS
tory; and they can hardly persuade them
selves that the most pacific old man in bng
land, is the same Iron Duke who commahdec
at Waterloo before they came into the world
The trade of soldering has no longer any ne
cessary connection with fighting. Its duties
are merely the drill and parade, and the wear
ing of gay clothes. And although the oficersi
in their different grades, are hardly so well
paid as merchants clerks, ,stifl there is always
a sufficient number found for so easy and a
miable service. 1t is true they have a chance
of being drafted, at some time or other to the
further East, several thousand miles away
but they know very well that in India they
will meet with no such equal enemies as were
formerly gtppled with in Europe, while in
in China, it is mere amusement to bring
down the baldheaded celestials-in fact, hu'
man 6dttue.
Under such circumstances We look back up
on war as one of the most interesting or tel
rible things of the past and although some
what sick of the details of its bloody strug-
giles, from their having been so frequently OBJ
truded upon our notice, we regard the COM
position of its materials and character as the
legitimate objects of literary curiosity. One
of the strangest departments of such sub
iect of such subject is the priyateering sys-
tenn and we now proceed to offer some illus
trations of a class OF belligerents who have
not as vet received due attention either from
history or romance. This we shall do by
means of a couple of individual portraits
one French, and one English--which may be
taken as exhibiting, though of course in high
er relief than usual, the general features of
the tribe.
As for the system itself, 1t is relic of the
barbarism of the middle ages, organized and
legalized by the folly and depravity Of mod
ern governments. 1t is the piracy of the nor
thern barbarians an1 eastern infdels sane
toned by letters of marquee document
which affects to give the right of reprisal, but
in reality, invests the desperadoes of the
country with the privilege to rob and murder.
This sort of commission did not come gene
rally into fashion until the end of the six
teenth century but once fairly afioat, the
priyateers continued to maintain their flag in
time of war, in spite of the bursts of indig-
nation which their excesses called forth from
the neutral nations. Various attempts were
made to bring them under legal restraint ;
but to impose any control but that Of force
upon rufiians called into action by such sordid
motives was impossible. Sometimes the chan
mel between France and England was swept
so clean by the sea guerillas of the two ma
tions, that the poor privateers must have
starved if they had not turned their arms
against neutrals. In 1858, a ship belonging
to Holland, (with which country England
was then at peace,) having onboard the Span
sh ambassador on his way to Denmark, was
boarded by three different squadrons Of priva-
teers, and plundered even Of his excellency's
baggage. A little hanging was had recourse
to on this occasion; and in the following
wear, the nuisance still continuing unabated
great numbers of the privateers, as they were
taken and brought into the the English ports
from time to time, were consigned to the gal
lows. The neglect of our internal police ad-
ded to the disorders of the period; and the
result, as we are informed, by historians, was,
that an ingredient of savage ferocty mingled
in the national character.
Forty years later-in the fist year or two
of the present century-when the war ragged
ragged bitterly between France and England
the career of two adventurers commenced, ,one
on either side of the channel, who were des-
tined TO exercise some influence on the for
tunes of each other.
.Jerome Harbour resided in little seaport
on the coast of Brittany-that fs, when he
was oil shore for although now only twenty
four years Of age, he had been fourteen years
a sailor, man and boy. He was little, fat,
fair, with short arms and round shoulders
His face was the reverse of long; but his
small nose, small mouth, and small blue
eyes, were lost in its width. He was, in
fact, anything but the pirate of poetry or ro-
nance in form and in other respects he had
nothing to distinguish him from the common
est of common sailors, except his genius for
sea robbery. When in his twenty-fourth
year, his uncle, weaver at Vannes, left him
20, 900 francs-a large fortune either in Nor
mandy or Brittany; and after twelve months
would have gone well-nigh to float letter of
he determined to invest his money
in the purchase of vessel, and go privateer-
ing.
To present little surface to take hold of
the water by length rather than breadth; to
keep the sea in any weather; and to be able
to run close-in shore at almost any depth
these were Jerome's requirements in ship.
And all these and more he found in long,
low, narrow schooner, which, notwithstand-
ing, he cut down still further; shaving her
off almost to the waters edge, SO that she ran
between two seas--one below her
keel and the other above her always wet
deck. This vessel he rigged with a sail
of enormous proportions, with the weight of
which the long, low, narrow craft rocked like
a cradle, even in the harbor. The astounded
spectators called her La Grenouille, as signi-
flying that she would soon seek her proper
place at the bottom. "Be IT So" said her
owner; and presently the 6gure-head Of a
frog, splendidly painted in green and gold, ,ap-