Note 214 — Chapter IX · THE HEIR-PRESUMPTIVE.
Reading edition
The Confederate cruisers that had escaped from British ports—the Florida, Alabama, Virginia, and Rappahannock—had taken 187 ships and destroyed property exceeding in value £3,000,000. There was only one thing distinguishing them from English privateers—namely, that their chief officers carried Confederate commissions. Some of them got away because the Courts, from the ambiguous state of our law, could not condemn them. Others escaped through the delay and negligence of the authorities.