means anything.


THE REBEL CRUISERS.

The question of the rebel cruisers on the high seas is a question by
itself. The anger excited among us by the injuries we have suffered from
these vessels is not strange; nor is it strange that our anger should
beget a disposition to quarrel with Great Britain and France for
conceding the rights of lawful belligerents to the perpetrators of such
atrocities. The rebels have no courts of admiralty, carry their prizes
to no ports, submit them to no lawful adjudication--but capture,
plunder, and burn private vessels in mid ocean. Such proceedings by the
laws of nations are undoubtedly piratical in their nature. We have a
right so to hold and declare. We may think that Great Britain and France
are bound so to hold and declare. But what then? Should they have
ordered their men of war to cruise against these rebel cruisers or to
capture every one which they might chance to encounter, and to send them
home for trial? We may think they were bound in vindication of public
law to do so; but could we make their not doing so a matter of formal
complaint and a cause of war? There are a number of things to be well
considered before any one should permit himself to quarrel with our
Government for not quarrelling with Great Britain and France on this
matter.


BRITISH VIOLATION OF NEUTRAL OBLIGATIONS.

But the conduct of the British Government in allowing her ports to be
made the basis of these nefarious operations--in permitting vessels of