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passengers from the steamer.' True, because they and their baggage were surreptitiously landed miles below the usual landing-place, without the knowledge of any person friendly to the United States, but evidently with the knowledge of the secessionists, because the captain says, in his protest, that crowds invaded the vessel as soon as she made the wharf.'

"She was ordered back to quarantine; but many frivolous excuses and delays were interposed by her officers until a most peremptory order, accompanied by a threat, was given, which she obeyed.

"After a proper quarantine, the Cardenas' came up-not of thirty days, but one precisely such as was thought sufficient. I do not understand Mr. Tarsara's notions about reciprocity in quarantine. He seems to insist that if we require a long quarantine at New Orleans, the governor-general of Cuba will require an equally long one at Havana. But what need of quarantines at all against epidemic yellow fever in its most virulent form? What possible reciprocity of quarantine could there be between Iceland and Vera Cruz? I have endeavored to make quarantine a sensible, not a useless regulation.

"It is complained, however, that the U. S. steamship 'Roanoke' suffered a shorter detention at quarantine than the 'Cardenas,' and that she sailed from Havana on the day after.

"This is an uncandid way of stating the fact. The 'Roanoke' sailed from New York, went into the harbor at Havana, stayed there less than twenty-four hours, and held little or no communication with the shore. Her captain reported her at the quarantine station as direct from New York. "Was there any reason for so.long a quarantine for her as for a vessel loaded at Havana?

"When the 'Roanoke' was about to sail for New York on her return from New Orleans, a large number of Spanish persons were desirous of taking passage in her for Havana, and engaged passage accordingly. Upon application to the Spanish consul for a bill of health, as the purser of the 'Roanoke' informed me, the consul or vice-consul told him that as 'I had quarantined the 'Cardenas,' the consul would not give the 'Roanoke' a bill of health, but would report that New Orleans was afflicted with epidemic fever unless I would permit the 'Cardenas' to come up, and if so a clean bill of health would be given.'

"The effect of and motive for this conduct was obvious. If the 'Roanoke' went to Havana and carried her passengers, she would take away this business from the 'Cardenas.' If she carried such a bill of health as to put her in quarantine at Havana, no New York passengers would sail in her, so that she must lose one or the other lot of passengers.

"This seemed to me so unjust that I sent for the consul for an explanation. I understood his explanations to be exactly what the purser of the 'Roanoke' informed me had been given him.

"It is proper here to remark that I have since been assured by the Spanish consul, for whom I really entertain high respect, that this conversation was misunderstood by all parties, neither understanding the other's language.

"I told the consul at that interview, that any retaliation upon the 'Roanoke' for any supposed wrong done by me to the 'Cardenas' ought not to be, and could not be permitted; that if he slandered the health of the city of New Orleans, by giving any report that epidemic yellow fever existed here, when he knew it not to be the fact, preventing trade and commerce coming to this port by such false report, that I would certainly send him out of the city to Havana, and report his conduct to the captain-general, as the nearest Spanish authority;' and, in that event, this I would most assuredly have done. I told him, that the bill of health of the 'Roanoke' must be such as was required by the laws and his instructions, precisely as if nothing had been done to the Cardenas.'

"To this (as he was interpreted to me to say) the consul replied, that he would not give a clean bill of health to the 'Roanoke,' because it was now past the first of June, and whatever might be the health of the city in fact, he must report it unhealthy. Farther, that if I still held the 'Cardenas' under quarantine, he would write to the captain-general of Cuba, not to send any more vessels here.

"To that I replied, that he should give my compliments to the captaingeneral, and say that, until the yellow fever season was over, he could do me and the city no greater favor than to prevent vessels from coming here.

"I then put in writing, and handed the consul my claim, that he should give a bill of health to the Roanoke required by the laws and regulations of his government, regardless of my treatment of the 'Cardenas.'

"The interview here ended. The bill of health, however, which was given to the Roanoke, was such (although the city was perfectly healthy) that her officers did not dare to sail to Havana, lest they should be held to quarantine there, in a city where the small-pox and yellow fever were both raging. She was in consequence obliged to discharge her Havana passengers, and pay back the passage money.

"I take leave here to observe upon a remark of Mr. Tarsara, the Spanish minister, that I had not the authority to send out of my lines the Spanish consul,' for so gross a dereliction of duty: in the first place, that I should have done it, if the occasion had called; and that secondly, I know of no law, national or municipal, that requires the commander of a captured city, occupied as a military post, to keep any person in it, consul or other, who is deliberately working to render the place untenable, by keeping away supplies of provisions from it through false reports.

"I wish, however, again to repeat, that subsequent conversations, through

a more intelligent interpreter in his understanding of English, has convinced me that the consul's remarks were misinterpreted and mistaken by me, as mine were by him. These subsequent explanations have, I believe, established the most cordial relations between us. I have also learned that 1 have done Mr. Callijon an injustice in another respect, in supposing him, as I was informed, to be a Spanish inerchant. Such I am now convinced is not the case; but that he is a soldier, who has won honorable distinction in the wars of his country.

"In Mr. Tarsara's letter of complaint, it is alleged that I have permitted the French brigantine Marie Felicia,' and the English schooner 'Virginia Antoinette,' and other vessels, to come up without the same length of quarantine as the 'Cardenas.' These facts, it is said, will convict me of capricious discrimination against Spain in favor of other European nations. There is no reason given why I should be possessed of feelings which would lead me thus to discriminate. Indeed, if I permitted my indignation and sense of wrong as regards the manner in which my government has been treated by other nations to influence my official action, I assure you Spain would not be the nation toward which these feelings would most actively operate. On the contrary, I have felt that the conduct of Spain has been most friendly, especially taking in view the wrong done her by some of the citizens of the United States in the invasion of Cuba. No rebel privateers have fitted out from her ports. I have not known that any of her islands have been made arsenals and naval dépôts for the Confederacy, and I have yet to be informed of any discrimination made by her between our armed vessels and those of the enemy. I have ventured to say thus much because, in weighing one's acts, motives are specially to be looked at.

Perhaps, however, the two cases of the 'Marie Felicia' and the 'Virginia Antoinette' deserve a word of comment, as they illustrate the animus with which our quarantine has been conducted.

"The 'Marie' having an acclimated crew, having been loaded at Havre, and only touched at Havana without landing, was detained only long enough to examine her present condition as to health, presuming that she contained no latent disease or malaria which develops itself by time. The 'Virginia' having only touched at Havana, was without passengers, and laden wholly with loose salt, a powerful disinfectant itself. One might as weil quarantine a barrel of chloride of lime. And yet permitting this schooner to come up after twenty days' absence from the infected port, is brought forward as evidence of a 'capricious discrimination against the Spanish government.'

"Mr. Tarsara, in his communication of the 28th of June, wishes the secretary to require me 'to treat the consuls of foreign nations with more consideration; and that I must refrain from expressions which are not suited to

give security to trade or maintain friendly relations between the authorities of the Island and those of the United States.'

"It will be seen by examination of the letter of the commander of the 'Blasco de Garay,' hereto annexed, under date of August 13th, that he complains that my acts do not come up to my professions of friendship and the courtesies of my language. I have, therefore, appended all of the more important of my correspondence with the Spanish authorities here, so that the department may see whether, either in the manner or matter of that correspondence, there is anything which should be a casus belli between two otherwise friendly nations.

"That I answered somewhat sharply the letter of the captain of the 'Blasco de Garay,' who seized the occasion in replying to a note, wherein I offered him assistance and courtesy, to read me a lecture on my duties, I admit. I thought, and still think, I was justified in so doing.

"A nation may be friendly and its consul quite the reverse, as witness the late Prussian consul, who is now a general in the rebel army, for which he recruited a battalion of his countrymen.

"When, therefore, I find a consul aiding the rebels, I must treat him as a rebel; and the exceptions are very few indeed among the consuls here. Bound up with the rebels by marriage and social relations, most of the consular offices are only asylums where rebels are harbored and rebellion fostered.

"Before I close this report, which pressure of public duties more urgent has delayed till the departure of the mail on the 6th of October, allow me to repeat that, with the blessing of God, to whom our most devout thanks are daily due for His goodness, the fell scourge, the yellow fever, has been kept from my command and the city of New Orleans till now, when all danger is past, by the firm administration of sanitary and quarantine regulations, in spite of complaints and difficulties; and if my acts need it, I point to the results as an unanswerable vindication."

Here, I believe, we may take leave of the consuls for a while. As time wore on, they came to understand the altered conditions of their tenure of office. They learned that there really was in the world such a power as the United States. They changed their opinion, too, of the man who represented that power in New Orleans; and during the latter half of General Butler's administration, his intercourse with them was generally of the most friendly and agreeable character.

CHAPTER XXI.

EFFORTS TOWARD RESTORATION.

To revive the business of New Orleans and cause its stagnant life to flow again in its ordinary channels, was among the first endeavors of General Butler after reducing the city to order and providing for its subsistence. It was necessary, at first, to compel the opening of retail stores, by the threat of a fine of a hundred dollars a day for keeping them closed. Mechanics refused to work for the United States. Certain repairs upon the light steamers, essential to the supply of the troops, could only be got done by the threat of Fort Jackson. One burly contractor was imprisoned and kept upon bread and water till he consented to undertake a piece of work of urgent necessity. The cabmen and draymen, as we have seen, required to be cajoled or impressed. This state of feeling, however, soon passed away. It was half affectation, half terror-the men only needed such a show of compulsion as would serve them as an excuse to their comrades. The ordinary business of the city soon went on as it had before the capture. The railroads were set running as far as the Union lines extended. "Will it pay to run it ?" the general would ask.

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So the people trafficked, and rode, and passed their days as they had been wont to do while under the sway of Mayor Monroe, General Lovell, and Mr. Soulé. Perfect order generally prevailed. The general walked and rode about the city with a single attendant, by day and by night. A child could have carried a purse in its hand from Carrollton to Chalmette without risk of molestation.

The commerce of the city could not be revived before the opening the port. In one of his earliest dispatches, General Butler advised that measure, as well as a general amnesty for all past political offenses. The planters, however, were distrustful, and feared to place their sugar within reach of the Union authorities. To remove their apprehensions, the following general order was

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