Miscellaneous Back Matter [pp. 472A-RD06]

PRIVATEERS AND PRIVATEERJNG.
most worthless catch-penny affairs —mnere hasty compilations
of the commonplace, the trite, the superficial and the false.
On tile other hand, we found that the series of -thle Edinburgh
Review, from its commencement, was invaluable for reference
on almost all subjects. Every topic is treated wNith studious
care, labor, fulness, and originality of thought; treated fre quently, and presented in a variety of lights.
Already this Review occupies a much wvider range than any
English periodical, and as an Encyclopedia would be more
valuable than any other Review, were equal pains and labor
bestowed upon its articles. All who read it must discover that
each number evinces improvement, and that it has already
become the favorite medium of the highest order of Southern
thought and Southern attainments. Preserved in hundreds of
public libraries in the North and the South, in Europe and
America, it will be, in not long distant futurity, the favorite
book of reference and the higihest authority on all subjects
relating to America. I know, Air. Editor, you intend, so soon
as the war is over, to enlarge the Review, without increasin(
the subscription price, and to republish, in condensed form, all
of the previous volumes, and then, if Southern patronage ceases
to be bestowed chiefly on the flimsy and immoial literature of
the Northl, and Southern pens cease to prostitute themselves
for pay, by ministering to the vile and sensual literaiy aplpetites of the Yankees, then, we say, this Review will lrankc with
the ablest for ability, and far above them for usefulness. But
this result can be attained only when we cease to be Yank]eeworshippers, and when the semi-traitorous imbeeiles of the
Virginia Convention and Kentucky Legislature are remenbered( only to be detested and despised. Already hundreds of
scientific and philosophic minds, who have thrown off the debasing influence of Yan-kee authority, have contributed learned
and valuable articles to your pages. And as it will be looked
to hereafter as the American repository of useful knowledge,
we are sure the length of the following extract will be excused:
"A proposition made by the Legislative Assembly in 1792, to abolish the
taking of private property and of privatcering, by mutual arrangement
among nations, met with no success, and at no time was privateering carried
on more extensively than during the wars of the Fren(h Revolution.
France having, in her last war against Spain, declared that she would
grant no commissions to privateers, and that neither the commerce of Spain
herself, nor of neutral nations, should be. molested by the naval force of
Fran( e, except in the breach of a lawful blockade, President Monroe stated
in his annual message of 1823 to Congress, that instructions had been given
to our Ministers with France, Russia and Great Britain, to propose to their
respective Governments the abolition, in all future hostilities of private war
on the sea.-Annual Register, 1823, p. 185.
This-subject was fuIlly brought to the notice of the British Government
during the negotiations at London, in 1823,'4, betwe(n the Amierican
Minister, Mr. Rush, and the British Plenipotentiaries, Messrs. Huskisson
and Stratford Canning.
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