Statement of the case.

as "about to try to enter your Mississippi, touching, previously, at Havana." So others, with similar expressions. A British house of Belfast, sending a letter by her to Havana, "takes it for granted that she will proceed with her freight to New Orleans." A French one of Bordeaux had a different view as to her getting there. This one writes:

"We are going to have a British steamer here of a thousand tons cargo for your port. We shall ship nothing by her, because the affair has been badly managed. Instead of keeping it a secret. it has been announced in Paris, London, and Bordeaux. Of course, the American Government is well informed as to all its details; and if the steamer ever enters New Orleans, it will be because the commanding officer of the blockading squadron shuts his eyes. If he does not, she must be captured."

In addition to this evidence, it appeared that a package of letters, which were sent on board at Panillac, a small place at the mouth of the Gironde, after the Circassian had cleared from Bordeaux, and was setting off to sea, were burned after the vessel hove to, and before the officers of the Somerset came on board, at the time of capture.

So far with regard to evidence of intent to break the blockade. This case, however, presented a special feature.

The capture, as already noted, took place on the 4th of May, 1862; at which date the city of New Orleans, for whose port the libellants alleged that the vessel had been really about to run, was in possession, more or less defined and firm, of the United States. The history was thus:

A fleet of the United States, under Commodore Farragut, having captured Forts Jackson and St. Philip on the 23d of April,* reached New Orleans on the 25th. On the 26th, the commodore demanded of the mayor the surrender of the city. The reply of the mayor was "that the city was under martial law, and that he would consult General Lovell."

These forts were situated on opposite banks of the Mississippi River, about one-third of the way up to New Orleans from its mouths, and com. manded the river approaches to the city. See chart, infra, page 140.

Statement of the case.

The rebel Lovell declared, in turn, that "he would surrender nothing;" but, at the same time, that he would retire, and leave the mayor unembarrassed. On the 26th, the flagofficer sent a letter, No. 2, to the mayor, in which he says:

“I came here to reduce New Orleans to obedience to the laws, and to vindicate the offended majesty of the Government. The rights of persons and property shall be secured. I therefore demand the unqualified surrender of the city, and that the emblem of sovereignty of the United States be hoisted upon the City Hall, Mint, and Custom House, by meridian of this day. And all emblems of sovereignty other than those of the United States must be removed from all public buildings from that hour.”

To this the mayor transmitted, on the same day, an answer, which he says "is the universal sense of my constituents, no less than the prompting of my own heart." After announcing that "out of regard for the lives of the women and children who crowd this metropolis," General Lovell had evacuated it with his troops, and "restored to me the custody of its power,” he continues:

"The city is without the means of defence. To surrender such a place were an idle and an unmeaning ceremony. The place is yours by the power of brutal force, not by any choice or consent of its inhabitants. As to hoisting any flag other than the flag of our own adoption and allegiance, let me say to you that the man lives not in our midst whose hand and heart would not be paralyzed at the mere thought of such an act; nor can I find in my entire constituency so wretched and desperate a renegade as would dare to profane with his hand the sacred emblem of our aspirations.

Your occupying the city does not transfer allegiance from the government of their choice to one which they have deliberately repudiated, and they yield the obedience which the conqueror is entitled to

extort from the conquered."

At 6 A. M. of the 27th, the National flag was hoisted, under directions of Flag-officer Farragut, on the Mint, which building lay under the guns of the Government fleet; but at 10 A. M. of the same day an attempt to hoist it on the Custom House was abandoned; "the excitement of the

Statement of the case.

crowd was so great that the mayor and councilmen thought that it would produce a conflict and cause great loss of life."

On the 29th, General Butler reports that he finds the city under the dominion of the mob. "They have insulted," he says, "our flag; torn it down with indignity. . . . . I send a marked copy of a New Orleans paper containing an applauding account of the outrage."

On the same day that General reported thus:

"The rebels have abandoned all their defensive works in and around New Orleans, including Forts Pike and Wood on Lake Pontchartrain, and Fort Livingston on Barataria Bay. They have retired in the direction of Corinth, beyond Manchac Pass, and abandoned everything in the river as far as Donaldsonville, some seventy miles beyond New Orleans."

Statement of the case.

To the reader who does not recall these places in their relations to New Orleans, the diagram on the page preceding will present them.

A small body of Federal troops began to occupy New Orleans on the 1st of May. On the 2d, the landing was completed. The rebel mayor and council were not deposed. There was no armed resistance, but the city was bitterly disaffected, and was kept in order only by severe military discipline, and the rebel army was still organized and in the vicinity.*

The blockade in question, as already mentioned, was declared by proclamation of President Lincoln in April, 1861; and was a blockade of the whole coast of the rebel States. No action to terminate it was taken by the Executive until the 12th of May, 1862, when, after the success of Flag-officer Farragut, the President issued a proclamation that the blockade of the port of New Orleans might be dispensed with, except as to contraband of war, on and after July 1st following.

* The state of things was thus described by the commanding general, at a later date, in justification of some severe measures adopted by him:

"We were two thousand five hundred men in a city seven miles long, by two to four wide, of a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, all hostile, bitter, defiant, explosive; standing, literally, on a magazine, a spark only needed for destruction." (General Butler in New Orleans, by Parton, 342.)

In the record in this case, there was a copy of a proclamation by General Butler at New Orleans, dated May 1st, 1862, reciting that the city of New Orleans and its environs, with all its interior and exterior defences, had surrendered, and making known the purposes of the United States in thus taking possession, &c., and the rules and regulations by which the laws of the United States would, for the present, and during the state of war, be enforced and maintained. It appears (see infra, p. 258, The Venice) that, though dated on the 1st, this paper was not published so early. The printing offices of the city were still under rebel management, and would not print it. The True Delta, the chief one, on the 2d, positively refused to do so, even as a handbill, no request having been ventured to have it printed in the columns of the paper. Some of General Butler's troops having been printers, half a dozen of them were sent to the office; and while a file of soldiers stood beside, a few copies were printed as a handbill, "enough for the general's immediate purpose." It did not appear in the paper till the 6th, and then with a defiant protest. (See Parton, 282.)

Argument for the claimants.

The case thus presented two principal questions:

1. Was the port of New Orleans, on the 4th of May, under blockade?

2. If it was, was the Circassian, with a cargo destined to that place, then sailing with an intent to violate it?

Supposing the cargo generally guilty, a minor question was, as to a particular part of it, asserted to have been shipped by Leech & Co., of Liverpool, British subjects, and of which a certain William Burrows was really, or in appearance, "supercargo."

Burrows himself swore-his own testimony being the only evidence on the subject-that he did not know of any charter-party for the voyage; that he received the bills of lading (which, like all the bills, were in French) from Messrs. Desbordes & Co., the ship's agents at Bordeaux; that he knew nothing about any papers relating to other portions of the cargo; that he was going to Ilavana to sell this merchandise, shipped by Leech, Harrison & Co., and was to return to Liverpool, either by the way of St. Thomas or New York; that he knew of no instructions to break the blockade; had heard nothing about the vessel's entering or breaking the blockade of any port, either before sailing or on the voyage, from any person as owner or agent, or connected with the vessel or cargo. No letters or other papers were found compromising this portion of the cargo other than as above stated.

The statutory port of New Orleans, as distinguished from the city of New Orleans itself, it may here be said, includes an extended region along the Mississippi above the city, parts of which were, at this date and afterwards, in complete possession of the rebels. .

Messrs. A. F. Smith and Larocque, for the claimants of the ship and cargo:

I. A blockade is an interruption, by one belligerent, of communication, by any persons whatever, with a place occupied by another belligerent. No right exists in a belligerent,