PRIVATEERING.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2939, 17 July 1878, Page 3

PRIVATEERING.

There has been some discussion on the

possibility, in case of war with Eussia, of the -revival of the practice of issuing letters of marque. The public have been, warned tßat" in a war between England and Eussia the latter power will issue letters of marque to American adventurers; and a swarm of A labamas may interrupt our commerce;" but, in reply to this suggestion, a correspondent of the Times writes to state that " the old practice of issuing letters of marque to the subjects of neutral States,,by which they were authorised to. carry on a sort of

legalised piracy against the vessels and ; property of a nation with which they Were not at war, had been abandoned and rigorously--, repressed long before the Declaration'-of Peris> In fact, no such letters of marque have been" issued or accept^ by neutrals .in the present cen- ' triry;£H!vi£ois may be true in the sense of the-fprmabissue of such letters to subjects of neutral natious, but it is not true as to tlie general issue of letters of marque; ; April ;.lT, 1861/ the President of tLie A G6nfederate States issued a prodamalionlofifering letters of niarque to,all persons applying for them.; and it appears that even Prussia, one of the signatories of the Declaration of Paris, which re-

. cites "that privateering is and remains abolished," in the course of the Franco-s-German war found herself, says Sir 8.. iPhiilimoro, so pressed with the superiority of the French navy_ that she issued a decree. if?P the purpose of creating a Ypluntarjr^ marine? which, according to thiit le«fned:wi'ieeri^''it is very difficult to distinguish from the .old system of privateering. With these examples before us, we cannol agree that "there is not the slightest probability "that privateering will be revived:.—Solicitors' Journal; -