The ravages of the Shenandoah in the North Pacific continue,.
though Captain Waddell must well know that the destruction of the government which accredited him—never more than a de facto government by international law—leaves him in' the position of a common pirate. Accounts from San Francisco to the 3rd August stated that ships were repeatedly coming in with news of the de- struction of more New Bedford whalers, of which a whole fleet, not fearing further injury after the fall of the Southern Govern- ment, were pursuing their trade in Behring's Straits. These Massachusetts (New Bedford) whalers belong to small shareholders, the money of the poorest being usually invested in the purchase of a sixteenth or thirty-second part of a whaler, and even the crews being paid by a per-tentage on the profits. This does not of course aggravate Captain Waddell's legal crime, but it aggra- vates the guilt of a sort of piracy which is no dbubt aimed expressly at these poor Massachusetts shareholders, as of course it is utterly without any politiCal effect, except exciting still more irritation against the South. After the mess we have made in permitting the escape of the Alabanzas, Shenandoahs, and so forth, from our ports, we owe it no less to our own dignity than to inter- national law to give instructions, as the Times suggests, to our commanders to capture this pirate wherever they can find her. Captain Waddell affects disbelief, it is said, of the Northern papers' statements as to the end of the war. The question, how- ever, for a' jury would be simply as to whether he really disbelieved it, or only affected to do so.
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