But the rebel
government of the slave States possesses no such right. The act would
be no more or less than piracy; and we should not only hang at the
yard-arm all persons caught in the practice, but we should be
compelled, in self-defence, to carry the war into Africa, and deal
with the slaves of the Confederacy precisely as we should, under
similar circumstances, deal with those of Cuba.
"'The richly laden ships of the North,' says the Mobile Advertiser,
'swarm on every sea, and are absolutely unprotected. The harvest is
ripe.' We admit it; but gather it if you dare. Venture upon the
capture of the poorest of those richly laden ships,' and, from that
moment, your slaves become freemen, doing battle in Freedom's cause.
'Hundreds and hundreds of millions of the property of the enemy
invite us to spoil him--to spoil these Egyptians,' says the same
paper. True, but you dare not venture upon the experiment; or, if you
should be so rash as to make the experiment, your fourteen hundred
millions of slave property will cease to exist, and you will find
four millions of liberated slaves in your midst, wreaking upon their
present masters the smothered vengeance of a servile race, who, for
generation after generation, have groaned under the lash of the negro
driver and his inhuman employer.
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