Port-Royalists

“ These terms are milestones in our progress; and they are yet to be lost in the better and more comprehensive designation of citizens, or, when discrimination is convenient, citizens of African descent.
The enterprise for the protection and development of the freedmen at Port Royal has won its way to the regard of mankind. The best minds of Europe, as well as the best friends of the United States, like Cairnes and Gasparin, have testified much interest in its progress. ”

“ AT PORT ROYAL. In November, 1861, a Union force under Commodore Dupont and General Sherman captured Port Royal, and from this point as a basis of operations, the neighboring islands between Charleston and Savannah were taken possession of. The early occupation of this district, where the negro population was greatly in excess of the white, gave an opportunity which was at once seized upon, of practically emancipating the slaves and of beginning that work of civilization which was accepted as the grave responsibility of those who had labored for freedom. ”

“ The general in chief has returned from Port-au-Prince. Three days after his arrival the Cape was blockaded by five British ships, and news was received of war having been declared between England and France.
Every body is in the greatest consternation, for inevitable ruin threatens the place. The English will no doubt prevent all vessels from entering the port, and take all that go out; at the same time the negroes are said to be preparing another attack. ”

“ He was desirous that the State officials should control the freedmen. It was suggested that the freedmen, being in some sections in the majority, and in all having the advantage of loyalty, might better control the State officials. “Why, they’ll all starve. They are shiftless, improvident, idle, 165and incapable of taking care of themselves.” The experiences of Port Royal were recited. He was incredulous. He didn’t know what the Port Royal negroes were like; but it was exceedingly strange if any negroes could save enough during the summer to support them through the winter. ”

“ But there is not a breath of wind; she lies helpless off the port of Marseilles, which the English are blockading, deeply laden with a cargo, every article of which is contraband of war.
It is the period when, after the outbreak of the French revolution, England had declared war against France, and, supreme at sea, was capturing the French West Indies, and blockading their home ports. The great majority of the people in this country, especially all the mercantile portion of the community, sympathized with France ”

“ Saint Louis is but a halting place in the middle of the river, where merchants who were going up it to seek slaves and gum, moored their vessels, and deposited their provisions, and the goods they had brought with them to barter.
What is said in the narrative of the means of attacking this port, is correct. When the enemy have appeared, the Negroes have always been those who have defended it with the most effect. But unhappily, there, as in the Antilles, persons are already to be found, who are inclined to hold out their hands to the English. ”

“ Many years ago the Elliots were staunch Union men, and Stephen Elliot, a gentleman of talent, wrote many very able arguments against nullification and in favor of the Union. He always thought that Port Royal must some day be the great naval and commercial depot of the South. He may yet live to see his former anticipations realized, though not in the way he desired. ”

“ News came from France that Monts's monopoly of the fur-trade had been rescinded. The merchants of various ports in France, incensed at being shut out from a lucrative traffic, had used money freely at court and had succeeded in having his grant withdrawn. All the money spent in establishing the colony was to go for nothing.
Worst of all, Port Royal must be abandoned. Its cornfields and gardens must become a wilderness, and the fair promise of a permanent colony must wither. ”

“ British cruisers captured many American ships on the ground that they were carrying on trade between the ports of France and her colonies.
Napoleon attacked British commerce by decrees which closed the ports of Europe to British goods, declared a blockade of the British Isles, and made subject to capture any neutral vessels that touched at a British port. Great Britain replied with orders in council, blockading the ports of France and her allies, and requiring all neutral vessels going to a closed port to stop at some British port and pay tribute. ”

“ In their enthusiasm many slave-owners signed their adherence to this great act of social reparation, on registers previously prepared for that purpose. Two days after, the name of Port-au-Prince was changed to Port-Républicain, [7] "in order that the inhabitants be kept continually in mind of the obligations which the French revolution imposed on them." ”

“ It is of very little importance that in your proclamation you have prohibited the ships of your nation from going to the ports of Saint-Domingue, except to Cap-Français and Port Républicain; such a measure will be of no avail if you have not some strong way to cause it to be respected. ”

“ The appeal to the interests of France against the ambition of England is striking and powerful. Whatever disposition the emperor may cherish against us, the French people ought to be our friends; they have a common interest in maintaining the freedom of the seas, and we have yet to complain that any port of France has sent out cruisers to assail our commerce on the ocean. ”

“ Following the example of England, Louis Napoleon acknowledges the Rebel Slavemongers as ocean belligerents, so that, with the sanction of France, our ancient ally, their pirate ships, although without a single [Pg 42] open port which they can call their own, enjoy complete immunity as lawful cruisers, while all who sympathize with them furnish supplies and munitions of war. This fatal concession was aggravated by the concurrence of the two great powers. ”

“ Sulpice, to St. Lazare, to the Christian doctrine, and even to the Oratoire, as regarded consistency in reasoning and talent in writing, but which lacked the most essential of Catholic virtues, docility. Port-Royal, like Protestantism, passed through every phase of misfortune. It was distasteful to the majority, and was always in opposition. When you have excited the antipathy of your country you are too often led to take a dislike to your country. ”

“ If, on the contrary, there be but one Government pervading all the States, there will be, as to the principal part of our commerce, but one side to guard—the Atlantic coast. Vessels arriving directly from foreign countries, laden with valuable cargoes, would rarely choose to hazard themselves to the complicated and critical perils which would attend attempts to unlade prior to their coming into port. ”

“ In every port thrown open of recent years to European commerce the Imperial Government sets aside what are called concessions to the foreign residents, whom the authorities still look upon as unwelcome intruders, though the citizens are not slow to appreciate the difference between their own unsavoury and crowded quarters, and the well-built, airy streets occupied by the English, the French, or the Germans. ”

“ Invested by land, the citizens of Rochelle might have felt alarm if their fine port had been also subjected to blockade; but their own powerful fleets, and the certain aid of England, made them contemn the small though numerous ships of the enemy, and they never comprehended, till too late, that the gigantic mind of their enemy was then planning a vast undertaking destined to deprive them of all the advantages of their position. ”

“ At last, one after another, every French port in the islands was taken by the British, and there was no longer a nook belonging to France to which this privateer could resort for protection, supplies, or repairs, It was furthermore rumored that this vessel was not regularly commissioned; and that, if captured by an enemy, the officers and crew to a man, and the captain more especially, would be hanged at the yard arm, AS PIRATES, without any very formal process of law. ”

“ But this reluctance has passed away with participation in active service, with the adventure and inspiration of a soldier’s life, and the latent manhood has recovered its rightful sway. Said a superintendent who was of the first delegation to Port Royal in March, 1862,— a truthful man, and not given to rose-colored views, — “I did not have faith. in arming negroes, when I visited the North last autumn, but I have now. They will be not mere machines, but real tigers, aroused ”

“ This reception irritated the colonists of Cap-Français, and more especially those of Port-au-Prince. The latter, in order to avenge what they considered as a humiliation put upon the white race, plotted the expulsion of the Civil Commissioners and the extermination of the colored men when the agents of France would be no longer in the island to protect them.
For a while they forgot their own differences and united firmly against their common enemy. In their turn they succeeded in stirring up against the colored men the slaves of "Fond-Parisien" and of the Cul-de-Sac plain. ”

“ If the fishermen were driven into port by the violence of the wind, or other cause, they were to be received freely and treated reasonably, paying the dues and customs as of old, and be at liberty to return to their own ports. ”

“ You see, during the Revolution, Statia, being Dutch and a free port, was used as a clearing place for the French, British, and Americans. It was neutral, and all the goods going in or out of the West Indies were sent there and stored until called for by ships. But the English sent a warship and seized everything, and then auctioned off the whole lot--ships and merchandise both--and of course, the business was never resumed. ”

“ Captain Lloyd, in a somewhat elaborate report to explain the propriety of his conduct, enclosed affidavits to prove that the Americans had violated the neutrality of the port. The affidavits proved that, knowing the character of the vessel, he sent two boats from his own ship to assist the boats of the “Carnation” to “watch” the privateer. His report told the story as he wished it to be understood: [306]
“On the evening of the 26th instant I put into this port for refreshments, previous to my return to Jamaica. ”

“ “I left in a French steamer, and she called in every blamed port they have out there, for, as far as I could see, the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom-house officers. I watched the coast. ”

“ Great Britain sees, with a jealous eye, her rivals possessed of a settlement, which may prove the ruin of her flourishing trade with Asia. At the breaking out of a war her utmost efforts will certainly be aimed at a colony that threatens her richest treasures. What a misfortune to France, should she suffer herself to be deprived of it!”
Fatal experience has proved that no position could be more successfully adapted to the annoyance of British commerce in the Indian seas, than the Mauritius, while in the possession of France. ”

“ From the moment that France takes possession of New Orleans * * we must marry ourselves to the British Fleet and Nation. We must turn all our attention to a maritime force, * * and having formed and connected together with a power which may render reinforcements of her settlement here impossible to France, make the first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the signal for the tearing up of any settlement she may have made, and for holding the two continents of America in sequestration for the common purposes of the United British and American Nations. ”

“ You’re hand and glove with the best of the Separationists in this island, I know, but they won’t save you from being committed—for rebellion, perhaps. You know it as well as I do. You were down here to take a passage to-day, weren’t you, now?”
I remembered that the Island Loyalists said that the pirates and Separationists worked together to bother the admiral and raise discontent. Living in the centre of Separationist discontent with the Macdonalds, I knew it was not true. But nothing was too bad to say against the planters who clamoured for union with the United States. ”

“ There is not one worth looking at. They have made one or two artificial ports, and they are no great things; there is no getting out or getting in. In fact, they have no harbours in the Channel, while we have the finest in the world; a peculiar dispensation of Providence, because it knew that we should want them, and France would not. In France, what are called ports are all alike,—nasty, narrow holes, only to be entered at certain times of tide and certain winds; made up of basins and backwaters, custom-houses, and cabarets; just fit for smugglers to run into, and nothing more ”

“ In substance this was clearly a demand that France should combine with them to resist the English pretension to the sovereignty of the sea, on the point in which it chiefly affected the United Provinces—namely, the fishery. The French met it by suggesting that, as a quid pro quo, the States should guarantee them in the same way against the claim of the English to make French ships lower their flag to them in the narrow seas. France, as we have seen, was not troubled by England about the fishery, although many French vessels fished off the English coast. ”

“ No despotism can make a commercial marine where no commercial spirit is. And no voice, charm it ever so wisely, can draw the peasant of France from his vine-clad hills and plains. The French rulers have done what they could. They have fostered, with a steady and liberal hand, the fisheries. Every spring, twenty thousand men have set sail to that best nursery of seamanship,—the Banks of Newfoundland. ”