of humanity, but rather by what occurred in the British House of Lords, on the 16th of May, soon after Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, declaring the Confederate privateers pirates, reached that country.
On this subject the Earl of Derby said:
"He apprehended that if one thing was clearer than another, it was that privateering was not piracy, and that no law could make that piracy, as regarded the subjects of one nation, which was not piracy by the law of nations. Consequently the United States must not be allowed to entertain this doctrine, and to call upon Her Majesty's Government not to interfere. He knew it was said that the United States treated the Confederate States of the South as mere rebels, and that as rebels these expeditions were liable to all the penalties of high treason. That was not the doctrine of this country, because we have declared that they are entitled to all the rights of belligerents. The Northern States could not claim the rights of belligerents for themselves, and, on the other hand, deal with other parties not as belligerents, but as rebels"
Lord Brougham said that "it was clear that privateering was not piracy by the law of nations."
Lord Kingsdown took the same view. "What was to be the operation of the Presidential proclamation upon this subject was a matter for the consideration of the United States." But he expressed the opinion that the enforcement of the doctrine of that proclamation "would be an act of barbarity which would produce an outcry throughout the civilized world."
Up to this time there had been no formal cartel for the exchange of prisoners, and the policy of the Washington Government seemed to be that they would not treat with "Rebels" in any way which would acknowledge them as "belligerents." But many prisoners on both sides were released on parole, and a proposition made in the Confederate Congress to return the Federal prisoners taken at First Manassas, without any formality whatever would doubtless have prevailed but for the difficulty in reference to the crew of the Savannah.
The pressure upon the Federal Government by friends of the prisoners became so great that they were finally induced to enter into a cartel for the exchange of prisoners on the very basis that the Confederates had offered in the beginning. The Confederate General Howell Cobb and the Federal General Wool entered into this arrangement on the 14th of February, 1862—the only unadjusted point being that General Wool was unwilling that each party should agree to pay the expenses of transporting their prisoners to the frontier, and this he promised to refer to his Government.
