Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

[186] the name of Jefferson Davis. He read the commission carefully, and when he had done, remarked, as he handed it back to me, ‘Mr. Davis's is a smooth, bold signature.’ I replied ‘You are an observer of signatures, and you have hit it exactly, in the present instance. I could not describe his character to you more correctly, if I were to try-our President has all the smoothness, and polish of the ripe scholar and refined gentleman, with the boldness of a man, who dares strike for the right, against odds.’

Monday, August 5th.—Weather clear, and fine. Flocks of parrots are flying overhead, and all nature is rejoicing in the sunshine, after the long, drenching rains. Far as the eye can reach, there is but one sea of verdure, giving evidence, at once, of the fruitfulness of the soil, and the ardor of the sun. At eleven A. M., Captain Hillyar, of the Cadmus, came on board, to visit me, and we had a long and pleasant conversation on American affairs. He considerately brought me a New York newspaper, of as late a date, as the 12th of July. ‘I must confess,’ said he, as he handed me this paper, ‘that your American war puzzles me—it cannot possibly last long.’ ‘You are probably mistaken, as to its duration,’ I replied; ‘I fear it will be long and bloody. As to its being a puzzle, it should puzzle every honest man. If our late co-partners had practised toward us the most common rules of honesty, we should not have quarrelled with them; but we are only defending ourselves against robbers, with knives at our throats.’ ‘You surprise me,’ rejoined the Captain; ‘how is that?’ ‘Simply, that the machinery of the Federal Government, under which we have lived, and which was designed for the common benefit, has been made the means of despoiling the South, to enrich the North;’ and I explained to him the workings of the iniquitous tariffs, under the operation of which the South had, in effect, been reduced to a dependent colonial condition, almost as abject, as that of the Roman provinces, under their proconsuls; the only difference being, that smooth-faced hypocrisy had been added to robbery, inasmuch as we had been plundered under the forms of law.

‘All this is new to me, I assure you,’ replied the Captain; ‘I thought that your war had arisen out of the slavery question.’