Richmond Whig

The Volunteer Navy.

We are glad to note an effort in Georgia and Alabama to awaken public interest in behalf of the Volunteer Navy. The legislation of Congress on the subject is very liberal, and nothing is needed but a contribution of a portion of the superabundant means of the country, under judicious direction, to make this a mode of most seriously damaging the enemy, as well as of reaping large profits by those who embark in it. With the Montgomery Advertiser, we desire to see the rich merchants of the United States feel more of the hardships of the war which their fanaticism and cupidity are forcing upon us. When we think of the unemployed millions of money now in the Confederacy; when we look upon the huge warehouses filled with cotton, for which the civilized world is suffering a famine, the surplus of this money and this cotton invested in a volunteer navy, of good, substantial privateers, and under the command of such men as Semmes and Maffitt, our very heart leaps with the thought of what they might—and what they would—do to cripple the enemy and hasten the cry for peace! What did Paul Jones do in the war of the Revolution? What did our privateers do against the commerce of England in the war of 1812? That war lasted a shorter period than we have now been struggling with the vindictive Yankees, and in two years and a half England lost over two thousand vessels burnt, sunk or destroyed, and mostly by a volunteer navy of private armed vessels, provided with Letters of Marque. The people of the United States in two years and a half built or purchased and put afloat two hundred and fifty-two privateers, which did more towards making England sick of the war and desirous for peace than all the armies that the Government had in the field. The few privateers that we have afloat have made more impression upon the mercantile classes of the North than all our armies. Suppose we had a hundred such vessels as the Alabama and Florida afloat, what would be their effect upon the commerce of the North? How many of the rich cargoes of gold would have fallen into our hands, instead of going to enrich our foe, and encourage them in their unhallowed crusade against our rights!

We may say with our Georgia friends, let the idle capital and the useless cotton be promptly converted into privateers, (which can be bought and equipped abroad,) and let every ocean and every sea be illuminated with the Southern Cross, and let them burn, sink or otherwise destroy every Yankee vessel they can meet and capture, and we shall soon hear the groans of the merchant princes of New York and Boston, and have them clamoring for peace with the South.