LOYAL CONVENTION.

439

plays of rebel oratory, and the loudest congratulations of the rebel press. Gov. Harris concluded his proclamation thus:

"Now, therefore, I, Isham G. Harris, Governor of the State of Tennessee, do make it known, and declare all connection by the State of Tennessee with the Federal Union, dissolved, and that Tennessee is a free and independent Government, free from all obligation to, or connection with, the Federal Government of the United States of America."

The loyal Convention re-assembled at Greenville, on the 17th of June. It appointed a Committee to ask the consent of the Legislature, that the Counties of East Tennessee, and such others as wish to join them, may be permitted to form a separate State. The Convention also selected a Committee to receive the report of that Committee, and to take such farther action as circumstances might call for. They also adopted a declaration of grievances, which is a very able paper, and forcibly exposes the encroachments of the insurgents, upon the dearest rights of the adherents of the Union. But they were doomed to further, and yet greater sufferings, and their loyalty to severer tests. The continued occupation of East Tennessee, by the rebels, still kept its loyal inhabitants under the cruel heels of their merciless oppressors.

Those decided manifestations of loyalty, on the part of the East Tennesseeans, drew down upon them the direst vengeance of the rebels; and what was peculiarly unfortunate for them, was, that they were so pent up and isolated, that they could not make their sufferings known to the Government; nor, from the same cause, even had the full horror of their situation been known, could the much needed aid have been given them.

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CHAPTER XV.

WAR ON THE OCEAN.

Our Navy Scattered-Its Great Increase - Letters of Marque-Rebel Reliance on European Aid-Privateers Afloat-Their Doings-The Captive Prisoners of War-Captures - Effect Upon Merchantmen-Federal and Rebel Operations Contrasted.

When the Rebellion broke out, the Navy of the United States, like its Regular Army, had been scattered, by the traitors in power, upon distant stations, and the ships available to the service of the Government, were utterly inadequate to the sudden and large demand. Hence, when it was decided, early in April, to re-enforce Forts Sumter and Pickens, much difficulty was experienced in finding the necessary ships for that service.

That difficulty was greatly increased by the orders blockading the Southern ports. The Great Southern Expedition, subsequently projected, increased the demand for ships to a vast extent. Fortunately for us, at that time, though our war navy was inadequate to meet our wants, our commercial and passenger marine supplied, to some extent, the deficiency. By purchasing, or chartering and re-fitting vessels drawn from those sources, the Government had, but after the lapse of much time, adequate transport ships and mortar boats, and her war marine was augmented by calling home absent ships, and by the rapid construction of new vessels.

As soon as the rebel President heard of the Proclamation, calling for seventy-five thousand volunteers, for the defence of the Union, he, on the 17th of April, invited applications for

LETTERS OF MARQUE.

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"Letters of Marque," to prey on our maratime commerce. That action of the rebel President, induced President Lincoln to issue a second Proclamation, on the 19th of April, declaring that any interference with the property of citizens of the United States, under those pretended Letters of Marque, would be treated and punished as piracy.

The South had high hopes of the effects which they expected this piratical movement would produce. With little commerce of their own, they confidently expected that the prizes would come mainly from Union sources. They saw the rich commerce of the North, already a prey to the unprincipled adventurers whom they would commission to rob and murder. They fancied that the imminent jeopardy in which that movement would place the millions invested in marine commerce, would lead the Government to pause in the execution of the extreme measures, which the Proclamation of President Lincoln foreshadowed.

But in this, as in most of their other plans and devices, they failed to realize their full expectations. They expected freebooters from the ports of the North, such as had often descended, for gain, to the base service of the South, in the slave-trade, to engage eagerly in this, yet baser work, but not a vessel did they secure. They supposed they could influence the Governments of England and France, by appeals to their ambition and avarice, to aid them in the unholy work. Years had been devoted to a careful development of the plan to influence those two nations in their behalf. It was known that England looked upon our rapid advancement in population, wealth and power, with jealousy and fear, and would be glad of an opportunity to check it. As a neighbor, she was fearful that our liberal example might lead her Canadian Provinces, at no distant day, to imitate it, by throwing off the yoke of the Mother Country, and relying upon themselves.

Those were the political reasons on which the South relied

for the favor of England. She saw, also, other and stronger grounds of hope. England was a manufacturing nation. On her manufactures, she chiefly relied for the support of her dense population. She needed the raw material, and she also needed a market for her goods. The South could furnish her both. She had, as she thought, the entire monopoly of cotton, and that all the manufacturing nations were dependent upon her for it. From her peculiar labor, she could not profitably engage in manufacturing, and preferred simply to grow and sell her few peculiar products, and buy all her manufactured goods. Hence, the South was prepared to offer a tempting bribe to the commercial avarice of England, when ever the former should become free from the restraints of the North, in which different interests and a different policy prevailed.

In the North there was great diversity of interests and of labor. Manufacturing had already become prominent; and tariffs had been enacted to protect them from the unequal competition of the oppressed and degraded labor of Europe, to place our manufacturing labor in wholesome and just competition only with itself,-with those living under similar institutions, enjoying similar advantages, and encountering like obstacles.

Those tariffs affected the manufacturing interests of Europe unfavorably, and were therefore obnoxious to them. The stringent tariff enacted by Congress, at the session immediately preceding the opening of the rebellion, gave especial offense; and was regarded as a God-send by the South, as a means to secure foreign sympathy and aid.

Commissioners, selected from their most talented and influential citizens, had been early dispatched to Europe by the rebel government, to advance its interests there, by intercourse with prominent individuals, and the purchased control of prominent presses. Unfortunately, before the Government had

VAIN BOASTING.

443 had time to recover from the first shock of the rebellion, and before its power to suppress it could be manifested, those rebel emissaries secured an acknowledgment from the Government of England, which gave them much encouragement, stimulated their energies, and doubtless added greatly to the duration and the violence of the contest. England conceded to them the rights of belligerents, and thus encouraged them to hope for ultimate recognition.

The Queen's proclamation of neutrality, however, and the refusal by the principal maratime nations, to permit privateers to stay in their ports longer than twenty-four hours, and prohibiting the condemnation and sale of prizes therein, with stringent orders against the fitting out of privateers in foreign ports, rendered the concession of less importance; and silenced, effectually, such vain boastings as the following, in which the rebel press at that time indulged:

"Armed with letters of marque and reprisal, our privateersmen will sweep the seas, capturing northern vessels, and confiscating northern commerce. The insane menace of considering and treating privateers as pirates, has been uttered by the Federal Government. To demonstrate the folly and fatuity of such a threat, it is only necessary to remark that where one privateer falls into the hands of the enemy, a dozen merchant vessels are captured, and that if the crew of a privateer thus taken, were murdered, under pretext that they were pirates, for every one executed, the Confederate States might retaliate upon the citizens of the North. We fancy Mr. Lincoln, under such circumstances, will be glad speedily to revoke the inhuman order.

"Hundreds and hundreds of millions of the property of the enemy invite them to spoil him-to 'spoil these Egyptians' of the North, who would coerce us to staying, when we strove peaceably to make our exodus to independence of their oppressive thrall; to go forth from degrading fellowship with