February 6, 1863, The New York Herald
We learn from the Richmond papers which arrived yesterday that immediately after the scattering of our vessels by the rebel rams in the recent unfortunate affair at Charleston a Confederate steamer was despatched to Nassau to give formal notice to the authorities there of the raising of the blockade. step, taken in connection with the fact that the British steamer Petrel was kept waiting the issue of the conflict to convey the British Consul to the entrance of the port, so that he might satisfy himself that their dispersion was complete, sufficiently attest the understanding that existed with agents of the European governments as to the objects intended to be accomplished by it. And to show how thorough and general that understanding was, we have only to point to the additional fact that scarcely had the plan been consummated when the British war steamer Cadmus arrived off the port from Fortress Monroe, having, no doubt, been despatched there by the British Minister at Washington.
It is evident that considerable weight is attached by the rebels to all these formalities. They are intended to constitute the rounds for another appeal against us to the great international tribunal of the world. How far the facts will sustain it has as yet to be ascertained; for we have only their own account of the affair. To enable our readers to form their own judgment as to the legal bearings of the latter, we yesterday placed before them the declarations of such high international authorities as General Magruder, General Beauregard, Commodore Ingraham, Judge Kent, Sir William Scott, the continental writers Hautefeuill and Ortolan, the rebel Secretary of State and Lord John Russell. Notwithstanding all the light thus thrown upon the points at issue, people seem to be none the wiser for it; but, even if they were, it would affect but little their ultimate decision. The writers on international law are not held in much account now-a-days. Our own authority, Judge Kent, has but little weight abroad; and as to Sir William Scott, although his recorded opinions fully sustained us in the Trent affair, they were not listened to. It will no doubt be the same with the continental authorities Ortolan and Hautefeuille, whose views seem to bear in our favor in this Charleston matter. It is in fact unnecessary for us to trouble ourselves about what the text writers may say in regard to the question raised by it. England has set the world an example that will for the future render utterly nugatory their decisions. In the Trent affair she asserted the principle that might constitutes right, and in this Charleston business we shall have to follow her example.
Instead, therefore, of concerning itself about the legal and diplomatic difficulties of the question – of which there is promise of a plentiful crop – let the government at once set itself to avoid all such quibblings, by taking measures for the immediate reduction and capture of Charleston. The enterprise should not be undertaken, however, without such a force as will insure, beyond all chance of failure, the object aimed at. We should no longer underrate the military and naval strength of the rebels, but should prepare for this enterprise as if Charleston was one of the strongest places in the world, and as if its capture was to end the war. Let there be no more peddling, no more cheese-paring of our resources, in connection with it. When the blow is struck it should be decisive and crushing. In this way, and in this way alone, we may bid defiance to the efforts of the rebels and their European sympathizers to embroil us with foreign governments, and to defeat the object of all the sacrifices that this unhappy war has cost us.