National Gazette

An Essay on the business of Privateering.

HOWEVER the promoters of this business may have been at a loss, touching the derivation of the word, they could not have been at a loss after a few moments reflection, as to the derivation of the practice, or touching its nature and tendency, which carries its brand in its forehead.--No practice ever sanctioned by a christian power has ever struck the feelings of reflection with more abhorrent sensations. --Privateering (or in more plain terms, Piracy) authorised by government! Who but strangers to the rules of right, can withhold their execrations, while reflecting on the subject? A privateer Ship is a sort of sea-serpent, and an application for a commission of that kind, ought to be esteemed as a violent insult on government. When the qualifications requisite to this undertaking are duly considered, the man applying for such a commission must be esteemed as a person much better fitted for a state of confinement, than for the command of an armed vessel. No man ought, and perhaps never will make an application of this kind, till he is prepared to perpetrate the most horrid acts of barbarity: he must be proof against all the most moving solicitations, remonstrances and agonizing sensations of those who fall into his hands; he must be divested of humanity to that degree as without remorse to make the industrious mariner a victim to the voracious cravings of a heart devoted to infernal dictates. He must be hardy enough to treat those whose only crime is, that they have been born subjects of a monarch, who to aggrandize himself, or to revenge some little conceived affront, will expose millions of his subjects to the horrors of war.---I say he must disdain every consideration of the kind, as being beneath his notice: He must be nervous enough to hear his victim bewailing the state of a numerous family, whose support in life was dependent on his return from his voyage, without the least relaxation: He must be able to strip the decent good man of his last farthing, the covering of his body not excepted, without the least relenting; and if that should be most convenient, send him and his crew adrift in their plundered vessel, without bread or water. All these are requisite to the accomplishment of a captain of a privateer: And if any having in contemplation to enter upon the business, should on examination find themselves deficient touching those requisites, they ought not to take umbrage at the description; but to acknowledge themselves unqualified for the business. When this infernal genius has obtained his commission, his next business will be to elect, out of the most abandoned class, their most finished characters, his complement of men. Then let reflection attend him while he ascends his proper station on board the ship, with his commission in his hand, and calls his crew around him, to whom he addresses himself in the following manner: "Here my lads, says he, is my commission, you see the national seal, perhaps some of you, through the influence of a whimsical education, have been taught to believe, that nothing but self-preservation can justify the shedding of human blood, or that to take the life of a fellow creature, to avail yourselves of his property, is wicked. These, my lads, are mere old wives fables, and all suspicions of this kind must be erased from your minds, before you are prepared for the business before you. Wisdom and knowledge, my lads, are deposited with our rulers, and to follow their dictates is to be good subjects-- they tell us, that avarice or gain has an indisputable claim to their patronage:"

begins to read & comment on the contents of his commission:] "here, my hearty boys, they tell us, that what old women would call rapine, massacre and murder, is justifiable, when avarice may be indulged, or gain procured thereby: here they tell us, that not only the little defenceless shallop may be sent to the bottom, and its owners hurried into the other world. but that we may sacrifice whole ships crews to those sanctioned objects. Ships of public property are restrained by the laws of nations, and perhaps in some measure by the laws of humanity. They must treat their captives as prisoners of war, and a deal of ceremony they have to attend to: property, my lads, is the object of our pursuit, and our measures are left to our own choice. The laws of nations are to be attended to by those who are in their employ; the laws of humanity by those who profess subjection thereto, but we are not fettered by either of them. Let sailors and mariners on board national ships boast of their humanity and manhood, they may tell us that they would scorn to rummage the pockets or strip a prisoner of his cloaths; well they may, for if they rummage or rob, they gain nothing by it, but every shilling we get, my boys, is our own, and he who don't shear close, when the fleece is his own, is a bad husband; not only all shipping belonging to nations with whom we are at war, are free plunder for us, but all shipping from neutral ports are liable to our search, and if any goods on board bear the most remote complexion of contraband, the vessel and cargo is ours. Now boys, weigh your anchors, and let us see how much in the character of your profession you will behave."

May the absurdity and cruelty of this toleration stare nations in the face, till they blush at their past errors, and release the world from the horrors attending privateering.

[Republican Journal.]