ascertained by verdict of a jury" whether a ship had violated the law.
To show how this law operated we may quote a passage from the life of the noted James Bowie, of New Orleans, who gave his name to the famous sheathknife. Bowie, with his brother, Rezin Bowie, and two others of like adventurous minds, formed a company, and entered into treaty with Lafitte, who was still a chief spirit among the smugglers in the Gulf region. Lafitte "sold them sound and likely blacks off his slave-ships at the rate of a dollar a pound. That made the average price something like $140 the head. In the open market the blacks would fetch from $500 to$1,000 each." Having purchased the slaves, the ordinary course was to sneak them through bayous to any purchaser they could find. But taking advantage of the law that gave half the proceeds of the sale of the negroes to the informer, besides a bounty of $50 a head, they often informed on each other, under false names, and had the slaves condemned and sold by due process of law. At the sale no competitors appeared, because it was fully understood in the community that Bowie was evading the law, and, slaves being in demand, public sentiment supported the transaction. The Bowies made a good profit in these transactions, the Government officials got fat fees, and planters got the slaves at market prices.
"Altogether the company realized a profit of some $65,000 within a couple of years. But the business involved such mummery and flummery of false names, pretended disguises, and pretended seizures that the Bowies pretty soon tired of it." They were a rough lot, but they were not sneaks. They proved, long be-
