The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1861-08-29
From the New York Post.
About I" Blockade"


| Many persons imagine that to block
ade port is to sealfit hermeticallv
and completely stop all the ingress and
egress. Therefore, when the public
learned that privateer had really run
out of New Orleans, and was now
cruising near the Cuban coast, while
another the jeff. Davis had escaped
from Charleston, and was capturing
Jour merchantmen as far North as Nam
tucket, there was an outcry about the
efficiency of our feet, which our ene-
mics were not slow to take advantage
of, trimming their sails to suit our own
breeze of popular alarm. But any old
sailor could tell the public that to es-
tablish blockade which cannot be
"run" is an undertaking no one has
ever accomplished. 1t is, in fact, an
iimpossibility-unless, indeed, the fleet
can be moored in the harbor's mouth.
which of course is not to be done. .
i No blockade, however close and
watchful, can prevent the occasional
escape of an enterprising captain in.
ward or outward. When the fleets of
two nations blockaded Buenos Ayres
there was scarce a moonless night that
schooners and other small craft did
not run in with supplies of beef, which
brought immense prices in the city; and
many an American captain yet living
could tell his story of how he ran in a
cargo of flower in open day, by play
ing some shrewd Yankee trick upon
the cruisers.
1t is idle to complain that two YES
sells have escaped outward and perhaps
half dozen inward, on the southern
coast, in the two months during which
our blockade has been in force. 1t is
high praise to our fleet that is has SO
thoroughly stopped the trade of the
rebel ports; and we shall be lucky in
deed if the proportion Of successful es-
capes does not become greater.
Let any man suppose the port of
New York blockaded by a foreign
fleet, and ask himself if our seamen
would not run the gauntlet of any navy
that might sail back or forth before the
two mouths of Long Island Sound.
The British tried in vain to keep our
privateers in or our merchantmen out,
during the war of 1912. They could
not prevent an occasional escape. That
J they greatly annoyed and embarrassed
t the commerce of our city and of the
country by their blockading fleets is
true, even though they did not keep
} them long at any one point, and never
> succeeded in guarding the whole coast.
/, Our blockade has already destroyed
Q the commerce of the rebel ports. /,
/ has already produced scarcity o.
s many articles in the South, for which
b they depend on other countries. i
b has already achieved its chief end
2 made communication with the Soutl
so difficult that all trade, except that il
i the hands of desperate men willing tt
s risk much for the chance of grea
]. prize, is turned away from the belea
D guered ports. The market reports O
o New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston ant
:, other harbors prove that commerce il
l. stricken dead there. -
# That our fleet has accomplished thi
in very few weeks is surely some
;, thing. While prices rule high fol
f. certain articles in the South, we may
v expect to hear of vessels successful,
/. running cargoes in. The frequency O
# such attempts will increase with th'
g scarcity and the consequent high price
f which are held out as temptations t,
e the adventurer. So, too, we must ex
e pect to hear occasionally of the escap
d outward of piratical vessel, thougl
IF the difficulty of carrying their prize
D. into Southern ports, and the refusal O
II all foreign nations to admit them int
is theirs will act as wholesome checl
D. upon this branch of rebel enterprise
le Meantime, it would be we'll to hav
1T in readiness, at various points, small
y, fast-sailing vessels, to make instan
IS pursuit whenever pirate is heard o
Is By cruising, three or four vessels i
Sc company, and dividing the ground u
a regularly, it will be almost impossibl
of for a piratical craft to escape the lool
is outs, unless she runs permanently o,
in of those narrow ranges which forl
the ocean highways of our merchar
marine. ,-., ~r4y H. bgg,
e 1t is clear to us that we have nothin
{ to complain of, SO far, in this matter
and we are to remember that this b
ci, ing domestic and unicipal measure
al not blockade in the technical sens
Ae "A of the term, but only the exercise {
% % an indisputable right to close any
% our own ports-foreign governmen
~ will have no reason to apply to it Il
rules which govern rightly the bloc
,re ade of the ports of one nation by Il
IT, cruisers of another. We are closir
., some of our own ports, as a mea
in necessary in the opinion of the Go
w. ernrnent to the more speedy supprc
- sion of rebellion. Doubtless u
no commerce of foreign nations will suit
ny from this act; but 80 does our ow
III and in much greater degree.
bic v.q = ~ : '7s--7--T : gigo :