Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between the States Part 27

MY LORD:--I have been requested by the Council of this Chamber to inform you that they have had brought before them the facts of the destruction at sea, in one case, and of seizure and release under ransom-bond in another case, of British property on board Federal vessels, (the _Manchester_ and the _Tonawanda_,) by an armed cruiser sailing under the Confederate flag, the particulars of which have been already laid before your Lordship. As the question is one of serious importance to the commerce of this country, the Council wish me most respectfully to solicit the favor of your Lordship's acquainting them, for the information of the mercantile community, what, in the opinion of her Majesty's Government, is the position of the owners of such property, in these and other similar cases.

Submitting this question with every respect to your Lordship, I have the honor to be, my Lord, your most obedient humble servant,

THOMAS CHILTON, _President Chamber of Commerce_.

LIVERPOOL, 8th Nov., 1862.

TO THOMAS CHILTON, ESQ., CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, LIVERPOOL.

SIR:--I am directed by Earl Russell to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 8th inst., calling attention to the recent proceedings of the armed vessel _Alabama_, with regard to British property on board the Federal vessels _Manchester_ and _Tonawanda_, and requesting the opinion of her Majesty's Government with regard to the position of the owners of such property in those and other similar cases which may arise; and I am to request that you will inform the Council of the Chamber of Commerce that the matter is under the consideration of her Majesty's Government.

I am, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

E. HAMMOND.

FOREIGN OFFICE, Nov. 7th, 1862.

After the usual period of gestation, Earl Russell informed his questioners, that British owners of property, on board of Federal ships, alleged to have been wrongfully captured by Confederate cruisers, were in the same position as any other neutral owners shipping in enemy's bottoms during a war; they must look for redress to the country of the captor. But these British owners did what was more sensible--they withdrew, in due time, their freights from the enemy's ships; and British and other neutral ships soon became the carriers of the American trade. It is claimed in the above correspondence, that there was British property destroyed on board the _Manchester_. If so, it was the fault of the British owner, in failing to doc.u.ment his property properly, for there was no certificate or other paper found on board that ship, claiming that any part of the cargo belonged to neutrals.

The _Manchester_ brought us a batch of late New York papers, and I was much obliged to the editors of the New York "Herald," for valuable information. I learned from them where all the enemy's gunboats were, and what they were doing; which, of course, enabled me to take better care of the _Alabama_, than I should otherwise have been enabled to do. The Americans effected many reforms in the art of war during our late struggle. Perhaps this was the only war in which the newspapers ever explained, beforehand, all the movements of armies, and fleets, to the enemy.

The reader will observe, that I received my mails quite regularly, now, from the United States. They were sometimes daily, and rarely less frequent than tri-weekly. I appointed my excellent clerk, Mr. Breedlove Smith, whom I am glad to have this opportunity of introducing to the reader, postmaster, and he delivered the mail regularly to the officers and crew--that is to say, the newspaper and periodical mail--the letters I considered as addressed to myself personally. They might give valuable information of the objects and designs of the enemy, and throw some light upon the true ownership of cargoes, falsely doc.u.mented. I therefore took the liberty, which the laws of war gave me, of breaking the seals. There were some curious developments made in some of these letters, nor were they all written on business. Sometimes, as I would break a seal, a photograph would tumble out, and the first few lines of the letter would inform me of a tender pa.s.sion that was raging in the heart of the writer.

These epistles, photographs, and all, were always pitched, with a pshaw!

into the waste-paper basket, and were soon afterward consigned by Bartelli to the sea. So that the fair writers--and some of the writers were fair if I might judge by their portraits--may rest satisfied that their secrets are safe. My young officers became so accustomed to their morning's newspaper, as they sat down to the breakfast-table, that if it was not forthcoming, they would wonder "what the d----l _Alabama_ had been about, the past night, that she had not gotten hold of a mail?"

For two or three days after capturing the _Manchester_, we fell in with nothing but neutral vessels. When the nationality of these was distinctly marked, as generally it was, we forbore to chase them. The weather began now to give unmistakable signs, of a general disturbance of the atmospheric machine. On the 15th of October, we captured our next ship. It was blowing half a gale of wind, with a thick atmosphere, and rain-squalls. We were lying to, under topsails, when she was reported. As in the case of the _Manchester_, we had only to await her approach, for we were still in the beaten track of these lone travellers upon the sea. She came along quite fast, before the gale, and when within reach, we hove her to, with the accustomed gun. She proved, upon being boarded, to be the bark _Lamplighter_, of Boston, from New York, for Gibraltar, with a cargo of tobacco. There was no attempt to cover the cargo, and when we had removed the crew to the _Alabama_, we burned her.

From the frequent mention which has been made of "uncovered cargoes," the reader will see how careless the enemy's merchants were, and how little they dreamed of disaster. They had not yet heard of the _Alabama_, except only that she had escaped from Liverpool, as the "290." They looked upon her, yet, as a mere myth, which it was not necessary to take any precautions against. But the reader will see how soon their course will change, and in what demand British Consular certificates, vouching for the neutrality of good American cargoes, will be, in the good city of Gotham, toward which, the _Alabama_ is slowly working her way.

We captured the _Lamplighter_ early in the day, and it was well for us she came along when she did. If she had delayed her arrival a few hours, we should probably not have been able to board her, so much had the gale increased, and the sea risen. For the next few days, as the reader will speedily see, we had as much as we could do to take care of ourselves, without thinking of the enemy, or his ships. We had a fearful gale to encounter. As this gale was a cyclone, and the first really severe gale that the _Alabama_ had met with, it is worthy of a brief description. We begin, in our generation, to have some definite knowledge of the atmospheric laws. To our ancestors, of only a generation or two back, these laws were almost a sealed book. It is now well ascertained, that all the great hurricanes which sweep over the seas, are cyclones; that is, circular gales, revolving around an axis, or vortex, at the same time that they are travelling in a given direction. These gales all have their origin in warm lat.i.tudes, or, as has been prettily said, by an officer of the Dutch Navy writing on the subject, they "prefer to place their feet in warm water." They do not, however, confine themselves to the places of their origin, but, pa.s.sing out of the tropics, sweep over large tracts of extra-tropical seas. These circular gales are the great regulators, or balance-wheels, as it were, of the atmospheric machine. They arise in seasons of atmospheric disturbance, and seem necessary to the restoration of the atmospheric equilibrium.

In the East Indian and China seas, the cyclone is called a typhoon. It prevails there with even more destructive effect than in the western hemisphere. It takes its origin during the change of the monsoons.

Monsoons are periodical winds, which blow one half of the year from one direction--the north-east for example--and then change, and blow the other half of the year, from the opposite direction, the south-west. When these monsoons are changing, there is great disturbance in the atmospheric equilibrium. A battle of the winds, as it were, takes place; the out-going wind struggling for existence, and the in-coming wind endeavoring to throttle it, and take its place. Calms, whirlwinds, water-spouts, and heavy and drenching rains set in; the black, wild-looking clouds, sometimes rent and torn, sweeping with their heavy burdens of vapor over the very surface of the sea. Now, the out-going, or dying monsoon will recede, for days together, its enemy, the in-coming monsoon, greedily advancing to occupy the s.p.a.ce left vacant. The retreating wind will then rally, regain its courage, and drive back, at least for a part of the way, the pursuing wind. In this way, the two will alternate for weeks, each watching the other as warily, as if they were opposing armies. It is during these struggles, when the atmosphere is unhinged, as it were, that the typhoon makes its awful appearance. Every reader is familiar with the phenomenon of the miniature whirlwind, which he has so often seen sweep along a street or road, for a short distance, and then disappear; the want of local equilibrium in the atmosphere, which gave rise to it, having been restored.

These little whirlwinds generally occur at street-corners, or at cross-roads, and are produced by the meeting of two winds. When these winds meet, the stronger will bend the weaker, and a whirl will ensue. The two winds still coming on, the whirl will be increased, and thus a whirlwind is formed, which immediately begins to travel--not at random, of course, but in the direction of least pressure. The meeting of two currents of water, which form a whirlpool, may be used as another ill.u.s.tration. It is just so, that the typhoon is formed. It steps in as a great conservator of the peace, to put an end to the atmospherical strife which has been going on, and to restore harmony to nature. It is a terrible scourge whilst it lasts; the whole heavens seem to be in disorder, and that which was only a partial battle between outposts of the aerial armies, has now become a general engagement. The great whirl sweeps over a thousand miles or more, and when it has ceased, nature smiles again; the old monsoon has given up the ghost, and the new monsoon has taken its place. All will be peace now until the next change--the storms that will occur in the interval, being more or less local. We have monsoons in the western hemisphere, as well as in the eastern, though they are much more partial, both in s.p.a.ce and duration.

The cyclones which sweep over the North Atlantic are generated, as has been remarked, to the eastward of the West India Islands--somewhere between them and the coast of Brazil. They occur in August, September, and October--sometimes, indeed, as early as the latter part of July. In these months, the sun has drawn after him, into the northern hemisphere, the south-east trade-winds of the South Atlantic. These trade-winds are now struggling with the north-east trade-winds, which prevail in these seas, for three fourths of the year, for the mastery. We have, thus, another monsoon struggle going on; and the consequence of this struggle is the cyclone. The reader may recollect the appearances of the weather, noted by me, some chapters back, when we were in these seas, in the _Sumter_, in July and August, of 1861; to wit, the calms, light, baffling winds, water-spouts, and heavy rains.

If the reader will pay a little attention to the diagram on page 473, it will a.s.sist him, materially, in comprehending the nature of the storm into which the _Alabama_ had now entered. The outer circle represents the extent of the storm; the inner circle, the centre or vortex; the arrows along the inner edge of the outer circle represent the direction, or gyration of the wind, and the dotted line represents the course travelled by the storm. The figures marked, 1, 2, and 3, represent the position of the _Alabama_, in the different stages of the storm, as it pa.s.sed over her; the arrow-heads on the figures representing the head of the ship.

If the reader, being in the northern hemisphere, will turn his face toward the sun, at his rising, and watch his course for a short time, he will observe that this course is from left to right. As the course of the arrows in the figure is from right to left, the reader observes that the gyration of the wind, in the storm, is _against the course of the sun_.

This is an invariable law in both hemispheres; but, in the southern hemisphere, the reader will not fail to remark, that the gyration of the wind is in the opposite direction from its gyration in the northern hemisphere, for the reason, that, to an observer in the southern hemisphere the sun appears to be moving, not from left to right, but from right to left. Whilst, therefore, the storm, in the northern hemisphere, gyrates from right to left, in the southern hemisphere, it gyrates from left to right; both gyrations being _against the course of the sun_.

This is a curious phenomenon, which has, thus far, puzzled all the philosophers. It is a double puzzle; first, why the storm should gyrate always in the same direction, and secondly, why this gyration should be different in the two hemispheres. The law seems to be so subtle, as utterly to elude investigation. There is a curious phenomenon, in the vegetable world, which seems to obey this law of storms, and which I do not recollect ever to have seen alluded to by any writer. It may be well known to horticulturists, for aught that I know, but it attracted my attention, in my own garden, for the first time, since the war. It is, that all creeping vines, and tendrils, when they wind themselves around a pole, invariably wind themselves from right to left, or _against the course of the sun_! I was first struck with the fact, by watching, from day to day, the tender unfolding of the Lima bean--each little creeper, as it came forth, feeling, as with the instinct of animal life, for the pole, and then _invariably_ bending around it, in the direction mentioned. I have a long avenue of these plants, numbering several hundred poles, and upon examining them all, I invariably found the same result. I tried the experiment with some of these little creepers, of endeavoring to compel them to embrace the pole from left to right, or _with the course of the sun_, but in vain. In the afternoon I would gather blades of gra.s.s, and tie some of the tendrils to the poles, in a way to force them to disobey the law, but when I went to inspect them, the following morning, I would invariably find, that the obedient little plants _had turned back_, and taken the accustomed track! What is the subtle influence which produces this wonderful result? May it not be the same law which rides on the whirlwind, and directs the storm?

The cyclone, of which I am writing, must have travelled a couple of thousand miles, before it reached the _Alabama_. Its approach had been heralded, as the reader has seen, by several days of bad weather; and, on the morning of the gale, which was on the 16th of October, the barometer--that faithful sentinel of the seaman--began to settle very rapidly. We had been under short sail before, but we now took the close reefs in the topsails, which tied them down to about one third of their original size, got up, and bent the main storm-staysail, which was made of the stoutest No. 1 canvas, and scarcely larger than a pocket-handkerchief, swung in the quarter-boats, and pa.s.sed additional lashings around them; and, in short, made all the requisite preparations for the battle with the elements which awaited us. If the reader will cast his eye upon the diagram, at _Alabama_, No. 1, he will see that the ship has her head to the eastward, that her yards are braced up on the starboard tack, and that she took the wind, as indicated by the arrows, from S. to S. S. E.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram of the Cyclone experienced by the _Alabama_ on the 16th of October, 1862.]

The ship is lying still, and the storm, which the reader sees, by the dotted line, is travelling to the north-east, is approaching her. She was soon enveloped in its folds; and the winds, running around the circle, in that mad career represented by the arrows, howled, and whistled, and screeched around her like a thousand demons. She was thrown over, several streaks, and the waves began to a.s.sault her with sledge-hammer blows, and occasionally to leap on board of her, flooding her decks, and compelling us to stand knee-deep in water. By this time, we had furled the fore-topsail; the fore-staysail had been split into ribbons; and whilst I was anxiously debating with myself, whether I should hold on to the main-topsail, a little longer, or start its sheets, and let it blow to pieces--for it would have been folly to think of sending men aloft in such a gale, to furl it--the iron bolt on the weather-quarter, to which the standing part of the main-brace was made fast, gave way; away went the main-yard, parted at the slings, and, in a trice, the main-topsail was whipped into fragments, and tied into a hundred curious knots. We were now under nothing but the small storm-staysail, described; the topgallant yards had been sent down from aloft, there was very little top-hamper exposed to the wind, and yet the ship was pressed over and over, until I feared she would be thrown upon her beam-ends, or her masts swept by the board. The lee-quarter-boat was wrenched from the davits, and dashed in pieces; and, as the sea would strike the ship, forward or aft, she would tremble in every fibre, as if she had been a living thing, in fear of momentary dissolution.

But she behaved n.o.bly, and I breathed easier after the first half hour of the storm. All hands were, of course, on deck, with the hatches battened down, and there was but little left for us to do, but to watch the course of the storm, and to ease the ship, all it was possible to ease her, with the helm. Life-lines had been rove, fore and aft the decks, by my careful first lieutenant, to prevent the crew from being washed overboard, and it was almost as much as each man could do, to look out for his own personal safety.

The storm raged thus violently for two hours, the barometer settling all the while, until it reached 28.64. It then fell suddenly calm. Landsmen have heard of an "ominous" calm, but this calm seemed to us almost like the fiat of death. We knew, at once, that we were in the terrible vortex of a cyclone, from which so few mariners have ever escaped to tell the tale! Nothing else could account for the suddenness of the calm, coupled with the lowness of the barometer. We knew that when the vortex should pa.s.s, the gale would be renewed, as suddenly as it had ceased, and with increased fury, and that the frail little _Alabama_--for indeed she looked frail and small, now, amid the giant seas that were rising in a confused ma.s.s around her, and threatening, every moment, to topple on board of her, with an avalanche of water that would bury her a hundred fathoms deep--might be dashed in a thousand pieces in an instant. I pulled out my watch, and noted the time of the occurrence of the calm, and causing one of the cabin-doors to be unclosed, I sent an officer below to look at the barometer. He reported the height already mentioned--28.64. If the reader will cast his eye upon the diagram again--at figure No. 2--he will see where we were at this moment. The _Alabama's_ head now lies to the south-east--she having "come up" gradually to the wind, as it hauled--and she is in the south-eastern hemisphere of the vortex. The scene was the most remarkable I had ever witnessed. The ship, which had been pressed over, only a moment before, by the fury of the gale as described, had now righted, and the heavy storm staysail, which, notwithstanding its diminutive size, had required two stout tackles to confine it to the deck, was now, for want of wind to keep it steady, jerking these tackles about as though it would snap them in pieces, as the ship rolled to and fro! The aspect of the heavens was appalling. The clouds were writhing and twisting, like so many huge serpents engaged in combat, and hung so low, in the thin air of the vortex, as almost to touch our mast-heads. The best description I can give of the sea, is that of a number of huge watery cones--for the waves seemed now in the diminished pressure of the atmosphere in the vortex to _jut up into the sky_, and a.s.sume a conical shape--that were dancing an infernal reel, played by some necromancer.

They were not running in any given direction, there being no longer any wind to drive them, but were jostling each other, like drunken men in a crowd, and threatening, every moment, to topple, one upon the other.

With watch in hand I noticed the pa.s.sage of the vortex. It was just thirty minutes in pa.s.sing. The gale had left us, with the wind from the south-west; the ship, the moment she emerged from the vortex, took the wind from the north-west. We could see it coming upon the waters. The disorderly seas were now no longer jostling each other; the infernal reel had ended; the cones had lowered their late rebellious heads, as they felt the renewed pressure of the atmosphere, and were being driven, like so many obedient slaves, before the raging blast. The tops of the waves were literally cut off by the force of the wind, and dashed hundreds of yards, in blinding spray. The wind now struck us "b.u.t.t and foremost," throwing the ship over in an instant, as before, and threatening to jerk the little storm-sail from its bolt-ropes. It was impossible to raise one's head above the rail, and difficult to breathe for a few seconds. We could do nothing but cower under the weather bulwarks, and hold on to the belaying pins, or whatever other objects presented themselves, to prevent being dashed to leeward, or swept overboard. The gale raged, now, precisely as long as it had done before we entered the vortex--two hours--showing how accurately Nature had drawn her circle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Alabama in a cyclone, in the Gulf Stream, on the 16th October, 1862.

KELLY, PIET & CO. PUBLISHERS.----LITH. BY A. HOEN & CO. BALTO.]

At the end of this time, the _Alabama_ found herself in position No. 3.

The reader will observe that she is still on the starboard tack, and that from east, she has brought her head around to nearly west. The storm is upon the point of pa.s.sing away from her. I now again sent an officer below, to inspect the barometer, and he reported 29.70; the instrument having risen a little more than an inch in two hours! This, alone, is evidence of the violence of the storm. During the whole course of the storm, a good deal of rain had fallen. It is the rain which adds such fury to the wind. These storms come to us, as has been said, from the tropics, and the winds, by which they are engendered, are highly charged with vapor. In the course of taking up this vapor from the sea, the winds take up, along with it, a large quant.i.ty of latent heat, or heat whose presence is not indicated by the thermometer. As the raging cyclone is moving onward in its path, the winds begin to part with their burden--it begins to rain. The moment the vapor is condensed into rain, the latent heat, which was taken up with the vapor, is liberated, and the consequence is, the formation of a furnace in the sky, as it were, overhanging the raging storm, and travelling along with it. The more rain there falls, the more latent heat there escapes; the more latent heat there escapes, the hotter the furnace becomes; and the hotter the furnace, the more furiously the wind races around the circle, and rushes into the upper air to fill the vacuum, and restore the equilibrium.

In four hours and a half, from the commencement of the gale, the _Alabama_ was left rolling, and tumbling about in the confused sea, which the gale had left behind it, with scarcely wind enough to fill the sails, which, by this time, we had gotten upon her, to keep her steady. Little more remains to be said of the cyclone. If the reader will take a last look at the diagram, he will see how it is, that the wind, which appears to him to change, has not changed in reality. The wind, from first to the last, is travelling around the circle, changing not at all. It is the pa.s.sage of the circle over the ship--or over the observer upon the land--which causes it apparently to change. The _Alabama_ lay still during the whole gale, not changing her position, perhaps, half a mile. As the circle touched her, she took the wind from S. to S. S. E., and when it had pa.s.sed over her, she had the wind at north-west. In the intermediate time, the wind had _apparently_ hauled first to one, and then to the other, of all the intermediate points of the compa.s.s, and yet it had not changed a hair's breadth.

The weather did not become fine, for several days after the gale. On the following night, it again became thick and cloudy, and the wind blew very fresh from the south-west. The sea, though it had somewhat subsided, was still very rough, and the night was so dark, that the officer of the deck could not see half the length of the ship in any direction. The south-west wind was a fair wind from the enemy's ports, to Europe, and we kept a very bright look-out, to prevent ourselves from being run over, by some heavy ship of commerce, hurrying, with lightning speed, before wind and sea.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF SHIPS--CAPTURE OF THE LAFAYETTE--DECREE OF THE ADMIRALTY COURT ON BOARD THE ALABAMA IN HER CASE, AND IN THAT OF THE LAURETTA--THE CRITICISMS OF THE NEW YORK PRESS--FARTHER PROOF OF THE ROTARY NATURE OF THE WIND--THE LAURETTA CAPTURED--THE CRENSHAW CAPTURED--THE NEW YORK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE CRIES ALOUD IN PAIN--CAPTURE OF THE BARON DE CASTINE, AND THE LEVI STARBUCK--CAPTURE OF THE T. B.

WALES--LADY PRISONERS.

The day after the gale recorded in the last chapter, we set all hands at work repairing damages--the carpenters fishing, and the boatswain and his gang refitting the broken main-yard; the gunners putting their battery in order, the sailmaker repairing sails, and the old signal-quartermaster "breaking out" his signal-lockers, which had been invaded by the sea-water, and airing his flags. The latter was enabled, by this time, to make quite a display of Yankee flags, from his signal-halliards--the _Alabama_ having captured seventeen ships in six weeks. As the Yankee ships now began to wear, out of pure patriotism, (though they were out of the war, and profitably chasing the honest penny,) the biggest sort of "flaunting lies," there were several bagsful of these flags.

We began now to overhaul sails again. From the 16th to the 20th of October, we chased and boarded nine, all of which were neutral! We were, in fact, in an American sea--the Gulf Stream being the thoroughfare of American and West Indian commerce to Europe--and yet the American flag was beginning to disappear from it. Such of the Federal ships as could not obtain employment from the Government, as transports, or be sold under neutral flags, were beginning to rot at the wharves of the once thrifty sea-ports of the Great Republic. Our "nautical enterprise" was beginning to tell on the enemy, and if we had had the ability to imitate Ma.s.sachusetts, in the war of the first revolution, in the way of putting forth armed cruisers, to prey upon the enemy's commerce, the said enemy would not have had so much as a rope-yarn upon the sea, in the course of twelve months. But at the time of which I am writing, the _Alabama_ and the _Florida_ were the only two Confederate ocean cruisers afloat.

On the 21st of October, we observed in lat.i.tude 39 35', and longitude 63 26', and on that day, we made our first capture since the gale. We were lying to, as usual, when a large ship was descried, in the north-west, running in our direction. Though the wind was very fresh, she had her royals and fore-topmast studding-sails set, and was, in consequence, running before the wind, with great speed. I shook the reefs out of my own topsails, and prepared to set the topgallant-sails if it should be necessary, and filled away, and moved toward the path of the stranger as she approached, with the English colors at my peak. The fine, large ship, as she ran down to us, presented a beautiful picture--all the more beautiful because we knew her to be Yankee, although she had not yet shown her colors.

We had become now very expert in detecting the nationalities of ships. I had with me a master's mate--Evans--who had a peculiar talent in this respect. He had been a pilot out of Savannah, and had sailed in the _Savannah_, privateer, at the beginning of the war. He escaped the harsh treatment, and trial for piracy, which, as the reader may recollect, were the fate of the prisoners captured in that little vessel, by being absent in a prize at the time of her capture. He afterward joined me at Liverpool. Whenever I had any doubt about the nationality of a ship, I always sent for Mr. Evans, and putting my telescope in his hand, I would say to him, "Look at that ship," pointing in the given direction, "and tell me to what nation she belongs." A glance of a minute or two was all he required. Lowering his gla.s.s at the end of this time, he would say to me, "She is a Yankee, sir," or, "She is not a Yankee," as the case might be; and if she was not a Yankee, he would say, "I think she is English,"

or French, or Dutch, or whatever other nation to which he supposed her to belong. He sometimes failed, of course, in a.s.signing their proper nationality to neutrals, but his judgment seemed to amount to an instinct, with regard to the question, Yankee, or no Yankee. When he p.r.o.nounced a ship a Yankee, I was always certain of her. I never knew him to fail, in this particular, but once, and that can scarcely be said to have been a failure. He once mistook a St. John's, New Brunswick-built ship, for an enemy; and the ships built in the British Colonies, on the Yankee border, are such counterparts of American ships, that it is very difficult to distinguish one from the other.

The ship which was now running down for us was, as I have said, a picture, with her masts yielding and swaying to a cloud of sail, her tapering poles shooting skyward, even above her royals, and her well-turned, _flaring_ bows--the latter a distinctive feature of New York-built ships. She came on, rolling gracefully to the sea, and with the largest kind of a "bone in her mouth." She must have suspected something, from our very equivocal att.i.tude in such weather, and in such a place; but she made no change in her course, and was soon under our guns. A blank cartridge brought her to the wind. If the scene was beautiful before, it was still more so now. If she had been a ship of war, full of men, and with hands stationed at sheets, halliards, and braces, she could not have shortened sail much more rapidly, or have rounded more promptly and gracefully to the wind, with her main topsail aback. Her cloud of canvas seemed to shrivel and disappear, as though it had been a scroll rolled up by an invisible hand.

It is true, nothing had been furled, and her light sails were all flying in the wind, confined to the yards only by their clew-lines, but the ship lay as snugly and conveniently for boarding, as I could desire. I frequently had occasion, during my cruises, to admire the seamanship of my enemies. The Yankee is certainly a remarkable specimen of the _genus h.o.m.o_. He is at once a duck, and a chicken, and takes to the water, or the land, with equal facility. Providence has certainly designed him for some useful purpose. He is ambitious, restless, scheming, energetic, and has no inconvenient moral nature to restrain him from the pursuit of his interests, be the path to these never so crooked. In the development of material wealth he is unsurpa.s.sed, and perhaps this is his mission on this new continent of ours. But he is like the beaver, he works from instinct, and is so avid of gain, that he has _no time to enjoy the wealth he produces_. Some malicious demon seems to be goading him on, in spite of himself, to continuous and exhausting exertion, which consigns him to the tomb before his time, leaving a "pile" of untouched wealth behind him.

The prize, upon being boarded, proved to be the _Lafayette_, from New York, laden with grain, chiefly for Irish ports. We learned from newspapers captured on board of her, that news of our capture of the _Brilliant_ and _Emily Farnum_ off the Banks of Newfoundland, had reached the United States, and, as was to be expected, I found, when I came to examine the papers of the _Lafayette_, plenty of certificates to cover her cargo. In fact, from this time onward, I rarely got hold of an enemy's ship, whose cargo was not certificated all over--oaths for this purpose being apparently as cheap, as the much-derided custom-house oaths, that every ship-master is expected to take, without the least regard to the state of the facts. Upon examination of these certificates, I p.r.o.nounced them fraudulent, and burned the ship.

As the burning of this vessel, with her cargo nicely "covered," as the shippers had hoped, with British Consular seals and certificates, seemed to warm up the Northern press, and cause it to hurl fresh denunciations of "piracy" against me, I will detain the reader, a moment, from the thread of my narrative, to look a little into the facts. The reader has already been told that I held a regular prize-court on board the _Sumter_. I did the same thing on board the _Alabama_, never condemning a ship or cargo, when there was any claim of neutral property, without the most careful, and thorough examination of her papers, and giving to the testimony the best efforts of my judgment. I had every motive not to offend neutrals. We were hoping for an early recognition of our independence, by the princ.i.p.al powers of the earth, and were covetous of the good-will of them all. I had, besides, the most positive instructions from Mr. Mallory, our Secretary of the Navy, to pay the utmost attention and respect to neutral rights.

Referring to the records of "The Confederate States Admiralty Court, held on board the Confederate States steamer _Alabama_, on the High Seas," I find the following decree entered, in the case of the _Lafayette_.