430 Norra Carotina Troops, 1861-’65.

penditure to as small a quantity as possible. However, we
were well out to sea, and after having passed the line of
ernisers between Wilmington and Bermuda, we had not much
to fear till we approached the British possessions of Nassau
and the adjacent islands, where two or three very fast Amer-
ican vessels were cruising, although 500 miles from American
waters. I am ignorant, I confess, of the laws of blockade,
or indeed if a law there be that allows its enforcement, and
penalties to be enacted, 500 miles away from the ports block-
aded. But it did seem strange that the men-of-war of a na-
tion at peace with England should be allowed to cruise off her
ports, to stop and examine trading vessels of all descriptions,
to capture and send to New York, for adjudication, vessels on
the mere suspicion of their being intended blockade-runners,
and to chase and fire into real blockade-runners so near to the
shore that on one occasion the shot and shell fell into a fishing
village, and that within sight of an English man-of-war
lying at anchor in the harbor of Nassau. Surely it is time
that some well-understood laws should be made and rules laid
down, or such doing will sooner or later recoil on their au-
thors.

“Having so little coal on board, we determined on making
for the nearest point of the Bahama Islands, and luckily
reached a queer little island called Green Turtle Quay, on the
extreme north of the group, where was a small English col-
ony, without being seen by the cruisers. We had not been
there long, however, before one of them came sweeping round
the shore, and stopped unpleasantly near to us; even though
we were inside the rock, she hovered about outside, not a mile
from us.

“We were a tempting bait, but a considerable risk to snap,
and I suppose the American captain could not quite make up
his mind to capture a vessel (albeit a blockade-runner piped
full of cotton) lying in an English port, insignificant though
that port might be. We got a large white English ensign
hoisted on a pole, thereby showing the nationality of the
rock, should the cruiser be inclined to question it. After
many longing looks, she steamed slowly away, much to our
satisfaction. Coals were sent to us from Nassau the next

BLocKADE RUNNING. 431

day which, having been taken on board, we weighed anchor,
keeping close to the reefs and islands all the way. We
steamed towards that port, and arrived safely, having made
the in and out voyage, including the time in unloading and
loading at Wilmington, in sixteen days.

“To attempt to describe at length the state of things at this
usually tranquil and unfrequented little spot is beyond my
powers. I will only mention some of its most striking features.
Nassau differed much from Wilmington, inasmuch as at the
latter place there was a considerable amount of poverty and
distress, and men’s minds were weighed with many troubles
and anxieties; whereas at Nassau everything at the time I
speak of was couleur de rose. Every one seemed. prosperous
and happy. You met calculating, far-seeing men who were
steadily employed in feathering their nests, let the war in
America end as it might; others, who, in the height of their
enthusiasm for the Southern cause, put their last farthing
into Confederate securities, anticipating enormous profits ;
some men, careless and thoughtless, living for the hour, were
spending their dollars as fast as they made them, forgetting
that they would ‘never see the like again.’ There were rol-
licking captains and officers of blockade-runners, and drunk-
en, swaggering crews; sharpers looking out for victims; Yan-
kee spies, and insolent, worthless, free niggers—all these
combined made a most heterogenous, though interesting,
crowd.

“The inhabitants of Nassau, who, until the period of
blockade-running, had, with some exceptions, subsisted on a
precarious and somewhat questionable livelihood gained by
wrecking, had their heads as much turned as the rest of the
world. Living was exorbitantly dear, as can well be im-
agined when the captain of a blockade-runner could realize in
a month a sum as large as the Governor’s salary. The ex-
pense of living was so great that the officers of the West India
Regiment quartered here had to apply for special allowance,
and I believe their application was successful. The hotel,
a large building, hitherto a most ruinous speculation, began
to realize enormous profits; in fact, the almightly dollar was