in this act shall be construed to prohibit the Confederate States, or any of them, from exporting any of the articles herein enumerated on their own account." I learn, therefore, it is conceded in conformity with the letter of the law that a ship owned wholly by the State may sail unmolested by the claims of the Confederate Government. Under these regulations, which it is asserted, as I believe, in derogation from this spirit of the law as well as of the rights of the States, independent of the law of Congress, that ships owned jointly by the State and individuals, and though sailed under contract with the State and with the whole benefit which the individual can afford to surrender already conceded, must suffer the imposition of the "regulation" as to the individual share and be made to surrender more than as much more to the Confederate States. In the experience and practice of North Carolina it has been found that convenience, economy, and success have been best attained by inducing individuals with their ships and capital to conduct the enterprise of exporting and importing on joint account. If the Confederate Government seizes the shares of individuals in the ships thus indicated in the enterprise of the State, it not only destroys the means and power for performing these contracts, but by indirection prohibits the State from exporting on her own account and in the way most convenient and advantageous to her, while it constrains on the State a breach of contract and of faith with the individual and exposes her to a claim for damages. In these cases the State of North Carolina, having by well-considered contracts secured herself and adequate benefit and advantage, as great as the enterprise will permit form the individual shareholders for the portion of the vessels secured to them, is warranted in asserting an interest in the whole voyage and claiming that it is a voyage of exportation as well as of importation "on her own account." Seeing nothing in the law requiring the State to surrender these contracts or to suffer them to be interfered with by these "regulations," is there anything in policy or the public interest to induce the abandonment of her enterprise? The State undertook them when the Confederate Government with the offer of liberal contracts to individuals had failed to obtain the requisite ships and supplies and when the necessities of our armies were pressingly great.

Now that the Confederate Government has no ships, little money abroad, and inflexible terms which will drive the fleet now so usefully employed in evading the blockade away and prevent others from entering the trade, it is more than ever necessary for this State to continue to relieve her troops and people by persisting in her own enterprises. While it would be a grateful relief to the Government of this State from responsibility and risk to discontinue the trade and leave a monopoly of Government commerce in the hands of the Confederate Government the evident operation and tendency of the regulations to diminish commerce would make a cessation of the State's enterprise more severely felt and complained of by her troops and people now than ever before. I only desire to be allowed to adhere to a system long since entered into, without interference by these "regulations" or otherwise, which has given so much success and done so much good. It is said that one scheme is at variance or in competition with the Confederate one and destroys its chance of success; so in like manner, it appears to me, the scheme of the "regulations" offers an opportunity and alternative in the thirteenth section for individuals to bnds, now at near 50 per cent. of depreciation, and to export the cotton paid on them at about half the "regulation" price, without benefit to the Government in the outward voyage and without importation of needed goods in return; much more out of harmony with the general system sought