Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/167

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report, to have been $5,296,000 in ^pecie. hipped out between Julv ist and December i,

I III MM I.

A list of \rssrls which were running the blockade from Nassau and other ports in the period intervening between November, 1861, and March, 1X04, shou<<l that eighty-four steamers were engaged; "1 these, thirty-seven were captured by the enemy, twelve were totally lost. eleven were last and the cargoes partially saved, and one toundered at sea. They made 363 trips to Nassau, and sixty- tive to other ports. Among the highest number of runs made were those of the A'. /:. Lc(\ which ran twenty-one times; the Fannv, which ran eighteen times; the Margaret and Jessie, which performed the same feat. Out of 425 runs from Nassau alone (including schooners) only sixty-two, about one in seven, were unsuccessful. As freights were enormous, ranging from $300 to $1,000 per ton, some idea may be formed of the profit of a business in which a party could afford to lose a vessel after two successful trips. In ten months of 1X63, from January to October, ninety vessels ran into Wilmington. During August, one ran in every other day. On the nth of July, four, and five on the igth of October.

With the termination of blockade running, the commercial import- ance of Matamoras, Nassau, Bermuda, and other West India ports departed. On March n, 1865, there were lying in Nassau thirty- five British blockade-runners which were valued at $15,000,000 in greenbacks, and there were none to do them reverence. Their occu- pation was gone; their profits at an end, and some other service must be sought to give them employment.

A description of Nassau at the time of which I write will be both interesting and instructive. It was a busy place during the war, the chief depot of supplies for the Confederacy, and the port to which most of the cotton was shipped. Its proximity to the ports ol Charleston and Wilmington gave it superior advantages, whilst it was easily accessible to the swift, light-draft blockade-runners, all of which carried Bahama bank pilots, who knew every channel. The United States cruisers having no bank pilots, and drawing more water, were compelled to keep the open sea. Occasionally one of the latter would heave to outside the harbor, and send in a boat to communicate with the American Consul, but their usual cruising- ground was off Abaco light. Nassau is situate upon the island of