Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864

The last attempt of the House of Commons against the press culminated in Sir Francis Burdett's coming forward in its behalf, and, in an article in Cobbett's paper, among other things he asserted that the House of Commons had no legal right to imprison the People of England. In acting thus, Sir Francis amply atoned for the ridiculous attempt which, prompted by wounded vanity, he had made a few years before to engage the interference of the House of Commons in his behalf in what he called a breach of privilege—the said breach of privilege consisting merely in an advertisement in The True Briton of the resolutions passed at a public meeting to petition against his return to Parliament. The results of his bold attack upon the power of the House of Commons, his imprisonment, the riots, and lamentable loss of life which followed, are so well known as to render any particularizing of them here unnecessary. Originating with this affair was a Government prosecution of The Day, the upshot of which was that Eugenius Roche, the editor—who was also proprietor of another flourishing journal, The National Register—one of the most able, honorable, and gentlemanly men ever connected with the press, of whom it has been truly said that 'during the lapse of more than twenty years that he was connected with the journals of London, he never gained an enemy or lost a friend,' was most unjustly condemned to a year's imprisonment.

The next important event is the trial of the Hunts for a libel in The Examiner in 1811. Brougham was their counsel, and made a masterly defence; and, though Lord Ellenborough, the presiding judge, summed up dead against the defendants—the judges always appear to have done so—the jury acquitted them. Yet Brougham in the course of his address drew the following unfavorable picture of the then state of the press:

'The licentiousness of the press has reached to a height which it certainly never attained in any other country, nor even in this at any former period. That licentiousness has indeed of late years appeared to despise all the bounds which had once been prescribed to the attacks on private character, insomuch that there is not only no personage so important or exalted—for of that I do not complain—but no person so humble, harmless, and retired as to escape the defamation which is daily and hourly poured forth by the venal crew to gratify the idle curiosity or still less excusable malignity of the public. To mark out for the indulgence of that propensity individuals retiring into the privacy of domestic life—to hunt them down and drag them forth as a laughing stock to the vulgar, has become in our days with some men the road even to popularity, but with multitudes the means of earning a base subsistence.'

Soon after this trial and another provincial one connected with the same 'libel'—one gets quite sick of the word—in which the defendants were found guilty in spite of Brougham's exertions in their behalf and the previous verdict of the London jury in the case of the Hunts, a debate arose in the House of Commons on the subject of ex-officio informations generally, and especially with regard to their applicability to the case of newspapers. In the course of this debate Lord Folkestone charged the Government with partiality in their prosecutions, and said: 'It appears that the real rule which guides these prosecutions is this: that The Courier and the other papers which support the ministry of the day, may say whatever they please without the fear of prosecution, whereas The Examiner, The Independent Whig, The Statesman, and papers that take the contrary line, are sure to be prosecuted for any expression that may be offensive to the minister'—an accusation which was decidedly true.

In 1812 the Hunts were again prosecuted for a libel upon the Prince Regent, and sentenced to be imprisoned two years, and to pay a fine of £500. Bat the imprisonment was alleviated in every possible way, as we gather from Leigh Hunt's charming description of his prison in his Autobiography.

'I papered the walls with a trellis of roses; I had the ceiling colored with clouds and sky; the barred windows were screened with venetian blinds; and when my book cases were set up with their busts and flowers, and a pianoforte made its appearance, perhaps there was not a handsomer room on that side of the water.... There was a little yard outside, railed off from another belonging to a neighboring ward. This yard I shut in with green palings, adorned it with a trellis, bordered it with a thick bed of earth from a nursery, and even contrived to have a grass plot. The earth I filled with flowers and young trees. There was an apple tree from which we managed to get a pudding the second year. As to my flowers, they were allowed to be perfect.'

We have now arrived at a period which may almost be called that of the present, inasmuch as many well-known names which still continue to adorn our current literature first begin to appear, together with many others, the bearers of which have but recently departed from among us. Cyrus Redding, John Payne Collier, and Samuel Carter Hall still survive, and, it is to be hoped, are far off yet from the end of their honorable career; and William Hazlitt, Theodore Hook, Lord Campbell, Dr. Maginn, Dr. Croly, Thomas Barnes, William Jordan, and many others, belong as much to the present generation as to the past. Among other distinguished writers must be mentioned Jeremy Bentham and David Ricardo, who contributed articles of sterling merit upon political economy and finance to the newspapers, and especially to The Morning Chronicle, in which journal William Hazlitt succeeded Lord Campbell, then 'plain John Campbell,' as theatrical critic. Cyrus Redding was at one time editor of Galignani's Messenger, and was afterward connected with The Pilot, which was considered the best authority on Indian matters, and in some way or another, at different times, with most of the newspapers of the day. John P. Collier wrote in The Times and Morning Chronicle, Thomas Barnes in The Morning Chronicle and Champion, Croly and S. C. Hall in The New Times—a newspaper started by Stoddart, the editor of The Times, after his quarrel with Walter—Maginn in The New Times, Standard, John Bull, and many others, William Hazlitt in The Morning Chronicle, Examiner, and Atlas, and Theodore Hook in John Bull, of which he was the editor.

In 1815, the advertisement duty, which had hitherto stood at three shillings, was raised to three shillings and sixpence, and an additional halfpenny was clapped on to the stamp duty. There were then fifty-five newspapers published in London, of which fifteen were daily, one hundred and twenty-two in the provinces of England and Wales, twenty-six in Scotland, and forty-nine in Ireland.

And here let us pause to consider the position which the press had reached. It had survived all the attempts made to crush it; nay, more, it had triumphed over all its foes. Grateful to Parliament, whenever that august assemblage befriended it, and standing manfully at bay whenever its liberties had been threatened in either House, it had overcome all resistance, and Lords and Commons recognized in it a safe and honorable tribunal, before which their acts would be impartially judged, as well as the truest and most legitimate medium between the rulers and the ruled. The greatest names of the day in politics and in literature were proud to range themselves under its banners and to aid in the glorious work of extending its influence, developing its usefulness, and elevating its tone and character; and the people at large had learned to look upon it as the firm friend of national enlightenment, and the most trustworthy guardian of their constitutional liberties.

LIFE ON A BLOCKADER

Life in the camp and in the field has formed the staple of much writing since the commencement of the war, and all have now at least a tolerable idea of the soldier's ordinary life. Our sailors are a different matter, and while we study the daily papers for Army news, we are apt to ignore the Navy, and forget that, though brave men are in the field, a smaller proportion of equally brave serve on a more uncertain field, where not one alone but many forms of death are before them. Shot and shell it is the soldier's duty to face, and the sailor's as well, but one ball at sea may do the work of a thousand on shore: it may pass through a vessel, touching not a soul on board, and yet from the flying splinters left in its path cause the death of a score; its way may lie through the boilers, still touching no one, and yet the most horrible of all deaths, that by scalding steam, result. It may chance to hit the powder magazine, and sudden annihilation be the fate of both ship and crew; or, passing below the water line, bring a no less certain, though slower fate—that which met the brave little Keokuk at Charleston, not many months since.

Life at sea is a compound of dangers, and though the old tar may congratulate himself in a stormy night on being safe in the maintop, and sing after Dibdin—

'Lord help us! how I pitysAll unhappy folks on shore'—

to the majority of our present Navy, made up as it is, in part at least, of volunteer officers and men, it is essentially distasteful, and endured only as the soldier endures trench duty or forced marches—as a means of sooner ending the Rebellion, and bringing white-winged Peace in the stead of grim War.

The history of our ironclads, from their first placing on the stocks, to the present time, when Charleston engrosses them all, is read with avidity, but few know anything of life on our blockaders, or, thinking there is not the dignity of danger associated with them, take little or no interest in what they may chance to see concerning them. Those who have friends on blockade duty may be interested to know more of their daily life than can be crowded into the compass of home letters, and the writer, one of the squadron off Wilmington, would constitute himself historian of the doings of at least one ship of the fleet.

Wilmington, Charleston, and Mobile, alone remain of all the rebel ports, but it is with the first we have to do—where it is, how it looks, &c.

Right down the coast, some 450 miles from New York, and a hundred or more from the stormy cape of Hatteras, you will see the river which floats the merchandise to and from the docks at Wilmington, emptying into the ocean at Cape Fear, from which it takes its name. The river has two mouths, or rather a mouth proper, which opens to the south of the cape, and an opening into the side of the river, north of the cape called New Inlet. Perhaps more seek entrance by this inlet than the mouth, which is guarded by Fort Caswell, a strong, regularly built fort, once in Union hands, mounting some long-range English Whitworth guns. One other fort has been built here since the commencement of the war. This inlet is guarded by a long line of earthworks, mounted by Whitworth and other guns of heavy caliber. Wilmington lies some twenty miles from the mouth, and fifteen north of New Inlet.

One great characteristic of this coast is the columns of smoke, which every few miles shoot up from its forests and lowlands. All along the coasts may be seen mounds where pitch, tar, and turpentine are being made. These primitive manufactories for the staple of North Carolina are in many places close down to the water's edge, whence their products may easily be shipped on schooners or light-draft vessels, with little danger of being caught by the blockaders, who draw too much water to make a very near approach to shore. So much for the coast we guard; now for ourselves.

Our vessel, of some thirteen hundred tons, and manned by a crew of about 200 all told, reached blockade ground the early part of March. Our voyage down the coast had been unmarked by any special incident, and when at dusk, one spring afternoon, we descried a faint blue line of land in the distance, and knew it as the enemy's territory, speculation was rife as to the prospect of prizes. About 11 P. M. a vessel hove in sight, which, as it neared, proved to be a steamer of about half our tonnage. Our guns were trained upon the craft, but, instead of running, she steamed up toward us. We struck a light, but it was as loth to show its brightness as the ancient bushel-hidden candle. A rope was turpentined, and touched with burning match, but the flame spread up and down the whole spiral length of the rope torch, to the infinite vexation of the lighter. Fierce stampings and fiercer execrations swiftly terrorized the trembling quartermaster, who, good fellow, did his best, and then, frightened into doing something desperate, made this blaze. We hailed them while waiting for fire to throw signals, letting them know who we were; but the wind carried away our shoutings, and the vessel actually seemed inclined to run us down. Worse yet—what could the little vixen mean?—a bright light, flashed across her decks, showed gathering round her guns a swift-moving band of men. Her crew were training their guns upon us for our swift capture or destruction: she could not see our heavy weight of metal, for our ports were closed. She might be a friend, for so her signal lights seemed to indicate; but if of our fleet, how should we let her know in time to save the loss of life and irreparable harm a single ball from her might do? She had waited long enough for friendly signals from us, and the wind, which swept our shouts from hearing, brought to us from them, first, questions as to who we were, then threats to fire if we did not quickly tell, and then orders passed to the men at the foremost gun: 'One point to the starboard train her!'—words which made their aim on us more sure and fatal. 'Bear a hand with that fire and torch! Be quick, for God's sake, or we'll have a shot through us, and that from a friend, unless we blaze away like lightning with our rockets.' The crew were stepping from the gun to get out of the way as it was fired; the captain of the gun held the lock string in his hand; but the instant had not been lost, and our rockets, springing high in air, told our story. Danger is past: we learn they are not only friends, but to be neighbors, and steam in together to our post rather nearer the shore than other vessels here.

Days pass on in watching, and as yet no foreign sail. We study the line of our western horizon, and find it well filled in with forts, embrazures, earthworks, black-nosed dogs of war, and busy traitors. As time goes on, a new thing opens to the view: a short week ago it seemed but a molehill: now it has risen to the height of a man, and hourly increases in size. Two weeks, and now its summit is far above the reach of spade or shovel throw, and crowned by a platform firmly knit and held together by well-spliced timbers. As to its object we are somewhat dubious, but think it the beginning of an earthwork fortress, built high in order that guns may be depressed and brought to bear on the turrets of any Monitors which might possibly come down upon this place or Wilmington.

At night we draw nearer to the shore, watching narrowly for blockade runners, which evade us occasionally, but oftener scud away disappointed. One night or early morning, 3 A. M. by the clock, we tried to heave up anchor; the pin slipped from the shackles, and the anchor, with forty fathoms of chain attached, slipped and sank to the bottom in some eight fathoms of water.

The next day we steamed into our moorings of the previous night and sought to drag for it. While arranging to do so, we saw a puff of smoke from the shore. Bang! and a massive cannon ball tore whizzing over our heads. The shore batteries had us in their range, and the firing from the far-reaching Whitworth guns grows more rapid. Puff after puff rolls up from the long line of battery-covered hillocks, under the bastard flag, and the rolling thunder peals on our ears with the whizzing of death-threatening balls. Oh! the excitement of watching and wondering where the next ball will strike, and whether it will crush a hole right through us, wasting rich human life, and scattering our decks with torn-off limbs and running pools of blood. Quickly as possible we up anchor and away, and soon are out of reach of balls, which splash the water not a ship's length from us. Even then we involuntarily dodge behind some pine board or other equally serviceable screen; and a newspaper, if that were nearest, would be used for the same purpose—so say those who have tasted many a naval fight. In fact, the dodge is as often after the ball has hit as before, as this story of one of our brave quartermasters will prove: Under fire from rebel batteries, he noted the cloud of smoke which burst from one of the fort's embrazures—watched sharply for the ball—heard the distant roar and its cutting whiz overhead—watched still further, saw it fall into the sea beyond, and then sang out to the captain, 'There it fell, sir!' and like lightning dodged behind a mast, as though the necessity had but just occurred to him.

As our rebel friends see their shot falling short of us, the firing ceases, and thus harmlessly ends the action which for a few moments threatened so much, teaching us the folly of too near approaches to land, or attempts to batter down, to which we have often been tempted, the earthworks daily erecting. It is folly to attempt it, because the disabling of these few blockade steamers would open the port to all who choose to barter with our Southern foes; and, en passant, this will explain why here and elsewhere the rebels build their works under the very noses of our men-of-war. Thus a vessel runs the blockade, and takes into them English Whitworth guns, which send balls flying through the air a good five miles, and whose range is longer than our far-famed Parrott rifled cannon. These Whitworths they place concealed in hillsides, or in forests back of the places where they build the regular fort to protect them. If our vessels approach to batter down these germs of forts, fire is opened on us from these long rangers, and nine chances out of ten we are disabled before we can so much as touch them with our guns; so that for ourselves we accomplish nothing, thereby benefiting them.

Week days and Sundays pass on alike as far as outside incident is concerned, but new features in each other open to view as time goes on. Naval discipline develops the bump of reverence, or at any rate fosters it for a time, and to the volunteer in his first days or weeks passed on board a man-of-war, the dignified captain in the retirement of his cabin is an object of veneration, and the slight peculiarities of some other officers, merely ornamental additions to shining characters. On a Sunday, for instance, in the early part of the cruise, the said bump receives as it were a strengthening plaster, at the sight of officers and men in full dress—the first resplendent in gold-banded caps—multiplied buttons—shining sword hilts, et cetera, et cetera, and the men in white ducks, blue shirts, et cetera, scattered about the decks in picturesque groups. The captain, from the fact of his occupying a private cabin, and seeing the officers merely to give orders or receive reports in the line of their duty, comes but little in contact with them, and, as there is a certain idea of grandeur in isolation, obliges a degree of reverence not accorded to those with whom one is in constant intercourse. A slight feeling of superiority always exists in the minds of those of the regular navy over the volunteer officers, and though at first the ward-room mess all seemed 'hail fellow, well met,' familiarity develops various traits and tendencies, which, in a mess of eight or nine, will not be persuaded to form a harmonious whole. Our lieutenant, for instance, who, in the first days of the cruise, appeared a compound of all the Christian graces, and a 'pattern of a gentleman,' develops a pleasant little tendency to swear viciously on slight provocation, and, though, rather afraid to indulge his propensities to the full, lest the rules of naval service be violated, and disgrace follow, still recreates himself privately, by pinching the little messenger boys till they dance, and gritting his teeth, as if he longed to do more, but didn't dare. It is wonderful how salt water develops character. Our (on land) debonnaire, chivalrous executive, is merged in the swearing blackguard as far as he can be; and yet strange as it may seem, no man can be braver in time of danger, or apparently more forgetful of self. Our paymaster, too, has suffered a sea change: the gentleman is put away with his Sunday uniform, and taken out to air only when it is politic to do so: wine and cigars, owned by somebody else, occasion its instant appearance. No man on ship can show more deference for another's feelings where the captain is concerned; no man more thorough disregard where the sailors come into question. Yet this man has also his redeeming points or point, made perceptible by a solitary remark, remembered in his favor at times when the inclination has been to call him a hypocritical scoundrel. One of the mess, rather given to profanity, said to him one day: 'Paymaster, what's the reason you never swear?' 'Because,' was the answer, 'I never set an example at home which I would not wish my children to follow, and so I've got out of the way of it.'

Various criticisms might be made on officers and men: there are characters enough among them to furnish material for a volume. Some are moderately patriotic, but would have been as much so on the other side, had as strong inducements been held out in the way of 'loaves and fishes.' Others love the cause for itself, and hold life cheap if its sacrifice may in any way advance it. Blockade duty is perhaps a harder test of this love than actual field service; and as months pass on, it becomes almost unendurable. The first few days can be taken up in sight seeing on board, and the most novel of these said sights is the drill which follows the daily call to quarters. The rapid roll of the drum is the signal: here, there, everywhere, on berth deck, spar deck, quarter deck, men spring to their feet, jump from their hammocks, and every door and passage way is blocked up by the crowd, who rush to their respective quarters, and about the armory, each seeking to be the first, who, fully equipped with cutlass, gun, and sabre-bayonet affixed, shall be in his place. Another instant, and all stand about their several guns in rows, awaiting orders from their officers, who sing out in clear commanding tones, as though a real fight were impending: 'Pass 9-inch shell and load!' They drive it home. 'Now run out! train her two points off port quarter; elevate for five hundred yards! Fire! Run her in! Run out starboard gun! Run her home! Train her three points off starboard quarter! Fire!'

High up on the bridge of the hurricane deck, stands the first lieutenant, overlooking the men as they work the guns, train, load, run out, and mimic fire. Suddenly he shouts through the trumpet: 'Boarders and pikemen at port quarter! First boarders advance! Second boarders advance! Repel boarders! Retreat boarders! Pikemen cover cutlass division! Fire! Repel boarders!' The second hand scarcely sweeps over a quarter of its dial before the men have crowded around the port bulwarks, and are slashing the air with a most Quixotic fury—then crouch on bent knee, to make ready their pistols, while in their rear, marines and pikemen, musket and rifle armed, snap their pieces, and pour into an imaginary foe a vast volley of imaginary balls; then pierce the air with savage bayonet thrusts. The farce, and yet a most useful farce, is gone through with. The retreat is ordered to be beat, and all retire; refill the armory with their deadly rifles and side arms, and then return to their respective watches, work, or recreation—some gathering round a canvas checker board; some polishing up bright work; others making pants, shirts, or coats, or braiding light straw hats. Some are aloft, and watching with eager eyes to catch the first glimpse of a sail on the distant horizon; and this he must do from his loftly outlook before the officer of the deck or quartermaster espies one, as they sweep the sky with their long-reaching glasses—else he may suffer reprimand and prison fare.

These and our meals are epochs which measure out the time, between which the minutes and hours pass most wearily, and are filled with longings for home or some welcome words from there, the next meal, or the drum beat to quarters. Said one to me whose time is not used up as is that of the watch officers, by four-hour watches twice in the twenty-four hours: 'When breakfast's done, the next thing I look forward to is dinner, and when that's done, I look for supper time, and then wait in patience till the clock strikes ten, and the 'master at arms' knocks at our several doors, saying: 'Four bells, gentlemen; lights out, sirs.'' So time drags often for weeks together. No new excitement fills the head with thought, and more or less of ennui takes hold on all. In fact, some consider life on shipboard not many removes from prison life; and a man overflowing with the sap of life, whose muscles from head to foot tingle for a good mile run across some open field, a tramp through a grand forest, or climb of some mountain crag, and who loves the freedom of good solid terra firma—he, I say, feels like a close-caged lion.