Chapter XXIV…

Chapter XXIV

THE SUMTER OFF CADIZ--THE PILLARS OF HERCULES--GIBRALTAR--CAPTURE OF THE ENEMY'S SHIPS NEAPOLITAN AND INVESTIGATOR--A CONFLAGRATION BETWEEN EUROPE AND AFRICA--THE SUMTER ANCHORS IN THE HARBOR OF GIBRALTAR--THE ROCK; THE TOWN; THE MILITARY; THE REVIEW AND THE ALAMEDA.

The afternoon was bright and beautiful as the Sumter, emerging from the harbor of Cadiz, felt once more the familiar heave of the sea. There was no sail in sight over the vast expanse of waters, except a few small coasting-craft, and yet what fleets had floated on the bosom of these romantic waters! The names of Nelson, Collingwood, Jervis, and others, came thronging upon the memory. Cape St. Vincent and Trafalgar were both in the vicinity. The sun, as he approached his setting, was lighting up a scene of beauty, peace, and tranquillity, and it was difficult to conjure those other scenes of the storm, and the flying ships, and the belching cannon, so inseparably connected with those great names.

It was too late to attempt the run to Gibraltar that night, with the hope of arriving at a seasonable hour, and so we "held on," in nautical phrase, to the light--that beautiful red flash which I have before described--until midnight, when we gave the ship her steam, and turned her head in the direction of the famous Strait, or Gut, as the sailors sometimes less euphoniously call it. The weather, in the meantime, had changed, the wind had died entirely away, and the sea was calm, but rifts of cloud were passing over the moon, indicating an upper current in the higher atmosphere, that might portend storm or rain on the morrow. We steamed along the bold Spanish coast, at a distance of only a few miles, and entered the Strait before daylight, passing the Tarifa light at about five A. M.

The Pillars of Hercules, that for so many centuries bounded the voyages of the ancient mariners, rose abruptly and majestically on either hand of us, softened and beautified by the moonlight. We had the Strait all to ourselves, there being no sail visible. The Genius of the ancient time seemed to hover over the scene, so solemn and mysterious did everything appear. But no! the Genius of the ancient time could not be there, for the quiet waters were broken by the prow of the steamship, from a hemisphere of which the Genius had not conceived. And that steamship, what flag did she bear? A flag that neither Phoenician, nor Carthaginian, nor Roman had dreamed of. It had arisen amid the wreck and ruin of a new empire, that had decayed before its time, was floating above a thousand dead nationalities, and was struggling, as the polished Greek had struggled, long centuries before, against the "long-haired" barbarian of the North, who was repeating history by overrunning the fair lands of the South.

We made the light at Gibraltar just as the day was dawning, and, hurried on by the current, moved rapidly up the Strait. Several sail that were coming down the Mediterranean became plainly visible from the deck as the twilight developed into day. We could not think of running into Gibraltar before overhauling these sails; we might, perchance, find an enemy among them, and so we altered our course and gave chase; as so many barks, ancient and modern, heathen, Christian, and Moor had done before us, in this famous old Strait. The telescope soon revealed the secret of the nationality of two of the sails; they being, as plainly as symmetry and beauty of outline, the taper and grace of spars, and whiteness of canvas--produced upon our own cotton-fields--could speak, American. To these, therefore, we directed our attention. It was a couple of hours before we came up with the first of these ships. She was standing over toward the African side of the Strait, though still distant from the land, some six or seven miles. We hoisted our own colors, and fired the usual gun. She hauled up her courses, and backed her maintopsail at once, and in a moment more, we could see the brightest of stars and stripes fluttering in the breeze, and glittering, in very joyousness, as it were, in the rays of the morning's sun; for the captain of the prize had evidently treated himself to a new ensign. The cat ran close enough to parley with the mouse, before she put her paw upon it. The bark, for such the prize was, proved to be the Neapolitan, of Kingston, Mass., from Messina, in the island of Sicily, bound for Boston, with a cargo of fruit, dried and fresh, and fifty tons of sulphur. She had been freshly painted, with that old robber, the bald eagle, surrounded by stars, gilded on her stern; her decks looked white and sweet after the morning's ablution which she had just undergone; her sails were well hoisted, and her sheets well home; in short, she was a picture to look at, and the cat looked at her, as a cat only can look at a sleek mouse. And then only to think, that the sly little mouse, looking so pretty and so innocent, should have so much of that villanous material called sulphur in its little pouch!

The master stated in his deposition, that the entire cargo belonged to the British house of Baring Bros., it being consigned to an agent of theirs in Boston. The object of so wording the deposition was, of course, to save the cargo as neutral property, but as I happened to know that the Boston house of the Barings, instead of being an agent merely, was a partner of the London house, the master took nothing by his deposition. Besides, if there had been no doubt as to the British ownership, sulphur going to an enemy's country is contraband of war; and in this case the contraband of war was not only condemnable of itself, but it tainted all the rest of the cargo, which belonged to the same owner. The master, who was as strongly marked in his Puritan nationality, as the Israelite is in the seed of Abraham, feeling himself securely intrenched behind the Baring Bros., was a little surprised when I told him that I should burn his ship, and began to expostulate. But I had no time for parley, for there was another ship demanding my attention; and so, transferring the prisoners from the doomed ship to the Sumter, as speedily as possible, the Neapolitan was burned; burned in the sight of Europe and Africa, with the turbaned Moor looking upon the conflagration, on one hand, and the garrison of Gibraltar and the Spaniard on the other. Previously to applying the torch, we took a small liberty with some of the excellent fruit of the Barings, transferring a number of drums of figs, boxes of raisins and oranges, to the cooks and stewards of the different messes.

We now steamed off in pursuit of the other sail. This second sail proved also to be American, as we had supposed. She was the bark Investigator, of Searsport, Maine, from one of the small ports of Spain, bound for Newport, in Wales, with a cargo of iron ore. The cargo being properly documented as British property, we could not destroy her, but were compelled to release her under ransom bond. The capturing and disposing of these two ships had occupied us several hours, during which the in-draught of the Strait had set us some miles to the eastward of the Rock. We now, at half-past two P. M., turned our head in the direction of Gibraltar, and gave the ship all steam. By this time the portent of last night had been verified, and we had an overcast sky, with a strong northwester blowing in our teeth. With the wind and current both ahead, we had quite a struggle to gain the anchorage.

It was half-past seven P. M., or some time after dark, that we finally passed under the shadow of the historical rock, with the brilliant light on Europa Point throwing its beams upon our deck; and it was a few minutes past eight o'clock, or evening gun-fire, when we ran up to the man-of-war anchorage, and came to. We had no occasion to tell the people of Gibraltar who we were. They were familiar with our Cadiz troubles, and had been expecting us for some days; and accordingly, when the signal-man on the top of the Rock announced the appearance of a Confederate States' steamer in the Strait, every one knew that it was the Sumter. And when, a short time afterward, it was announced that the little steamer was in chase of a Yankee, the excitement became intense. Half the town rushed to Europa Point and the signal-station, to watch the chase and the capture; and when the flames were seen ascending from the doomed Neapolitan, sketch-books and pencils were produced, and all the artists in the crowd went busily to work to sketch the extraordinary spectacle; extraordinary in any age, but still more extraordinary in this.

Here were two civilized nations at war, at the door of a third, and that third nation, instead of mitigating and softening, as much as possible, the barbarities of war, had, by her timidity, caution, or unfriendliness, whichever to the reader may seem more probable, ordered, directed, and decreed that one of the parties should burn all the ships of the other that it should capture! The spectacle of the burning ship which the inhabitants of Gibraltar had witnessed from the top of their renowned rock, was indirectly the work of their own Government. Why might not this Federal ship, when captured, have been taken into Gibraltar, there to await the disposition which a prize-court should make of her, instead of being burned? Because Great Britain would not permit it. Why might she not have been taken into some other neutral port, for this purpose? Because all the world had followed the lead of Great Britain, the chief maritime power of the earth. Great Britain knew when she issued her orders in council, prohibiting both the belligerents in the American war, from bringing their prizes into her ports, precisely what would be the effect of those orders. She knew that the stronger belligerent would shut out the weaker belligerent from his own ports, by means of a blockade. She knew that if she denied this weaker belligerent access to her ports, with his prizes, all the other nations of the earth would follow her lead. And she knew that if this same weaker belligerent should have no ports whatever into which to carry his prizes, he must burn them. Hence the spectacle her people had witnessed from the top of her rock of Gibraltar.

In a few minutes after anchoring, we were boarded by a boat from the English frigate, which had the guard for the day. The officer made us the usual "tender of service" from the Port Admiral. We sent a boat ourselves to report our arrival on board the health ship, and to inquire if there would be any quarantine; and after a long day of excitement and fatigue,--for I had not turned in since I left the Cadiz light, the night before--I sought my berth, and slept soundly, neither dreaming of Moor or Christian, Yankee or Confederate. John spread me the next morning a sumptuous breakfast, and brought me off glowing accounts of the Gibraltar market, filled with all the delicacies both of Spain and Morocco. The prize which we had liberated on ransom-bond, followed us in, and was anchored not far from us. There was another large American ship at anchor.

At an early hour a number of English officers, of the garrison and navy, and citizens called on board to see us; and at ten o'clock I went on board the frigate whose boat had boarded us the previous night, to return the commanding naval officer's visit. He was not living on board, but at his quarters on shore, whither I proceeded at two P. M. Landing at the Navy Yard, an orderly conducted me thence to his neat little cottage, perched half way up the rock, and embowered by shade trees, in the most charming little nook possible. I found Captain--now Rear-Admiral--Sir Frederic Warden a very clever specimen of an English naval officer; and we had a pleasant conversation of half an hour together. Having lost one of my anchors, I asked the loan of one from him until I could supply myself in the market. He replied that he had every disposition to oblige me, but that he must first submit the question to the "law officers of the Crown." I said to him playfully, "these 'law officers of the Crown' of yours must be sturdy fellows, for they have some heavy burdens to carry; when I was at Trinidad the Governor put a whole cargo of coal on their shoulders, and now you propose to saddle them with an anchor!" He said pleasantly, in return, "I have not the least doubt of the propriety of your request, but we must walk according to rule, you know." The next morning, bright and early, a boat came alongside, bringing me an anchor.

From Captain Warden's, I proceeded to the residence of the Governor and Military Commander of the Rock, Sir William J. Codrington, K. C. B. His house was in the centre of the town, and I had a very pleasant walk through shaded avenues and streets, thronged with a gayly dressed population, every third man of which was a soldier, to reach it. The same orderly still accompanied me. I was in uniform, and all the sentinels saluted me as I passed; and I may as well mention here, that during the whole of my stay at this military and naval station, my officers and myself received all the honors and courtesies due to our rank. No distinction whatever was drawn, that I am aware of, between the Sumter, and any of the enemy's ships of war that visited the station, except in the matter of the national salute. Our flag not being yet recognized, except for belligerent purposes, this honor was withheld. We dined at the officers' messes, and they dined on board our ship; the club and reading rooms were thrown open to us, and both military and citizens were particular in inviting us to partake of all the festivities that took place during our stay.

My conductor, the orderly, stopped before a large stone mansion on the principal street, where there was a sentinel walking in front of the door, and in a few minutes I was led to a suite of large, airy, well-furnished rooms on the second floor, to await his Excellency. It was Sunday, and he had just returned from church. He entered, however, almost immediately. I had seen him a hundred times, in the portraits of half the English generals I had ever looked upon, so peculiarly was he English and military. He was a polite gentleman of the old school, though not a very old man, his age being not more than about fifty-five. Governor Codrington was a son of the Admiral of the same name, who, as the commander-in-chief of the combined English, French, and Russian fleets, had gained so signal a victory over the Turkish fleet, in the Mediterranean, in 1827, which resulted in the independence of Greece, and the transfer of Prince Otho of Bavaria to the throne of that country. His rank was that of a lieutenant-general in the British army. I reported my arrival to his Excellency, and stated that my object in visiting Gibraltar was to repair, and coal my ship, and that I should expect to have the same facilities extended to me, that he would extend to an enemy's cruiser under similar circumstances. He assented at once to my proposition, saying that her Majesty was exceedingly anxious to preserve a strict neutrality in our unhappy war, without leaning to the one side or the other. "There is one thing, however," continued he, "that I must exact of you during your stay, and that is, that you will not make Gibraltar, a station, from which to watch for the approach of your enemy, and sally out in pursuit of him." I replied, "Certainly not; no belligerent has the right to make this use of the territory of a neutral. Your own distinguished admiralty judge, Sir William Scott, settled this point half a century and more ago, and his decisions are implicitly followed in the American States."

The Governor gave me permission to land my prisoners, and they were paroled and sent on shore the same afternoon. We could do nothing in the way of preparing the Sumter for another cruise, until our funds should arrive, and these did not reach us until the 3d of February, when Mr. Mason, who had by this time relieved Mr. Yancey, as our Commissioner at the Court of London, telegraphed me that I could draw on the house of Frazer, Trenholm & Co., of Liverpool, for the sum I needed. In the mean time, we had made ourselves very much at home at Gibraltar, quite an intimacy springing up between the naval and military officers and ourselves; whereas, as far as we could learn, the Yankee officers of the several Federal ships of war, which by this time had arrived, were kept at arm's-length, no other than the customary official courtesies being extended to them. We certainly did not meet any of them at the "club," or other public places. I had visited Gibraltar when a young officer in the "old service," and I had often read, and laughed over Marryatt's humorous description of the "Mess" of the garrison in his day; how, after one of their roistering dinners, the naval officers who had been present, would be wheeled down to the "sally-port," where their boats were waiting to take them on board their ships, on wheel-barrows--the following colloquy taking place between the sally-port sentinel (it being now some hours after dark), and the wheeler of the wheel-barrow. Sentinel:--"Who comes there?" Wheeler of wheel-barrow:--"Officer drunk on a wheel-barrow!" Sentinel:--"Pass Officer drunk on a wheel-barrow."

The wheel-barrow days had passed, in the general improvement which had taken place in military and naval habits, but in other respects, I did not find the "Mess" much changed. The military "Mess" of a regiment is like the king; it never dies. There is a constant change of persons, but the "Mess" is ever the same, with its history of this "field," and of that; its traditions, and its anecdotes. Every person who has been in England knows how emphatically dinner is an institution with the English people; with its orthodox hour, the punctual attendance of the guests, the scrupulous attention they pay to dress, and the quantity of wine which they are capable of putting under their vests, without losing sight of the gentlemanly proprieties.

It is still more an institution, if possible, with the garrisons of the colonies. There they do the thing in a business-like way, and the reader will perhaps be curious to know how the young fellows stand such constant wear and tear upon their constitutions. It is done in the simplest manner possible. After a late carouse over night, during which these fellows would drink two bottles to my young men's one, the latter would get up next morning on board the Sumter feeling seedy, and dry, and go on shore in quest of "hock and soda-water." Meeting their late companions, they would be surprised to see them looking so fresh and rosy, with an air so jaunty, and a step so elastic. The secret, upon explanation, would prove to be, that the debauchee of the night was the early bird of the morning. Whilst my officers were still lying in uneasy slumbers, with Queen Mab playing pranks with their imaginations, the officer of the "Mess" would be up, have taken his cold shower-bath, have mounted his "hunter," sometimes with, and sometimes without dogs, and would be off scouring the country, and drinking in the fresh morning air, miles away. Not a fume of the liquor of the overnight's debauch would be left by the time the rider got back to breakfast.

On the day after my visit to the Governor, Colonel Freemantle, of the Coldstream Guards, the Governor's aide-de-camp and military secretary, came off to call on me on behalf of the Governor, and to read to me a memorandum, which the latter had made of my conversation with him. There were but two points in this memorandum:--"First: It is agreed that the Sumter shall have free access to the work-shops and markets, to make necessary repairs and supply herself with necessary articles, contraband of war excepted. Secondly: The Sumter shall not make Gibraltar a station, from which to sally out from the Strait, for the purposes of war." I assented to the correctness of the conversation as recorded, and there the official portion of the interview ended. I could not but be amused here, as I had been at other places, at the exceeding scrupulousness of the authorities, lest they should compromise themselves in some way with the belligerents.

I found Colonel Freemantle to be an ardent Confederate, expressing himself without any reserve, and lauding in the highest terms our people and cause. He had many questions to ask me, which I took great pleasure in answering, and our interview ended by a very cordial invitation from him to visit, in his company, the curiosities of the Rock. This is the same Colonel Freemantle, who afterward visited our Southern States during the war, and made the acquaintance of some of our principal military men; writing and publishing a very interesting account of his tour. I met him afterward in London, more of a Confederate than ever. Freemantle was not an exception. The army and navy of Great Britain were with us, almost to a man, and many a hearty denunciation have I heard from British military and naval lips, of the coldness and selfishness of the Palmerston-Russell government.

Gibraltar, being a station for several steam-lines, was quite a thoroughfare of travel. The mixed character of its resident population, too, was quite curious. All the nations of the earth seemed to have assembled upon the Rock, for the purposes of traffic, and as each nationality preserved its costume and its language, the quay, market-place, streets and shops presented a picture witnessed in few, if in any other towns of the globe. The attractions for traffic were twofold: first, Gibraltar was a free port, and, secondly, there were seven thousand troops stationed there. The consequence was, that Christian, Moor, and Turk, Jew and Gentile, had assembled here from all the four quarters of the earth, bringing with them their respective commodities. The London tailor had his shop alongside that of the Moor or Turk, and if, after having been measured for a coat, to be made of cloth a few days only from a Manchester loom, you desired Moorish slippers, or otto of roses, or Turkish embroidery, you had only to step into the next door.

Even the shopmen and products of the far East were there; a few days of travel only sufficing to bring from India, China, and Japan, the turbaned and sandalled Hindoo, the close-shaved and long-queued Chinaman, and the small-statured, deep-brown Japanese, with their curious stuffs and wares, wrought with as much ingenuity as taste. The market was indeed a curiosity. Its beef and mutton, both of which are very fine, are brought from the opposite Morocco coast, to and from which small steamers ply regularly. But it is the fruits and vegetables that more especially astonish the beholder. Here the horn of plenty seems literally to have been emptied. The south of Spain, and Morocco, both fine agricultural countries, have one of those genial climates which enables them to produce all the known fruits and vegetables of the earth. Whatever you desire, that you can have, whether it be the apple, the pear, or the cherry of the North, or the orange, the banana, or the date of the South. The Spaniards and Moors are the chief market people.

Nor must we forget the fishermen, with their picturesque boats, rigged with their long, graceful latteen yards and pointed sails, that come in laden with the contributions of the sea from the shores of half a dozen kingdoms. Fleets of these little craft crowd the quay day and night, and there is a perfect Babel of voices in their vicinity, as the chaffering goes on for the disposal of their precious freight, much of it still "alive and kicking." By the way, one of the curiosities of this quay, whilst the Sumter lay in Gibraltar, was the frequent proximity of the Confederate and the Federal flag. When landing I often ran my boat into the quay-steps, alongside of a boat from a Federal ship of war; the Kearsarge and the Tuscarora taking turns in watching my movements--one of them being generally anchored in the Bay of Gibraltar, and the other in the Bay of Algeziras, a Spanish anchorage opposite. No breach of the peace ever occurred; the sailors of the two services seemed rather inclined to fraternize. They would have fought each other like devils outside of the marine league, but the neutral port was a powerful sedative, and made them temporarily friends. They talked, and laughed and smoked, and peeled oranges together, as though there was no war going on. But the sailor is a cosmopolite, as remarked a few pages back, and these boats' crews could probably have been exchanged, without much detriment to each other's flag.

Sunday, January 26th.--A charming, balmy day, after the several days of storm and rain that we have had. At ten A. M., I went on shore to the Catholic church. The military attendance, especially of the rank and file, was very large. I should judge that, at least, two thirds of the troops stationed here are Irish, and there is no distinction, that I can discover, made between creeds. Each soldier attends whatever church he pleases. It is but a few years back, that no officer could serve in the British army without subscribing to the Thirty-Nine Articles--the creed of the "Established Church." After church, I took a stroll "up the Rock," and was astonished to find so much arable soil on its surface. The Rock runs north and south. Its western face is an inclined plane, lying at an angle of about thirty degrees with the sea-level. Ascending gradually from the water, it rises to the height of fifteen hundred feet. From this height, a plummet-line let down from its eastern face would reach the sea without obstruction, so perpendicular is the Rock in this direction. This face is of solid rock.

On the western face, up which I was now walking, is situated near the base, and extending up about half a mile, the town. The town is walled, and after you have passed through a massive gateway in the southern wall, you are in the country. As you approach the Rock from the sea, it matters not from what direction, you get the idea that it is nothing but a barren rock. I now found it diversified with fields, full of clover and fragrant grasses, long, well-shaded avenues, of sufficiently gentle ascent for carriage-drives, beautifully laid-out pleasure-grounds, and well-cultivated gardens. The parade-ground is a level space just outside the southern wall, of sufficient capacity for the manoeuvre and review of five thousand men; and rising just south of this is the Alameda, consisting of a series of parterres of flowers, with shade-trees and shrubbery, among which wind a number of serpentine walks. Here seats are arranged for visitors, from which the exercise of the troops in the parade-ground below may be conveniently witnessed. A colossal statue of General Elliot, who defended the Rock in the famous siege that was laid to it in the middle of the last century by the Spaniards, is here erected.

The review of the troops, which takes place, I believe, monthly, is par excellence, the grand spectacle of Gibraltar. I had the good fortune to witness one of these reviews, and the spectacle dwells vividly, still, in my imagination. Drill of the soldiers, singly, and in squads, is the chief labor of the garrison. Skilful drill-sergeants, for the most part young, active, intelligent men, having the port and bearing of gentlemen, are constantly at work, morning and afternoon, breaking in the raw material as it arrives, and rendering it fit to be moulded into the common mass. Company officers move their companies, to and fro, unceasingly, lest the men should forget what the drill-sergeant has taught them. Battalion and regimental drills occur less frequently.

These are the labors of the garrison; now comes the pastime, viz., the monthly drill, when the Governor turns out, and inspects the troops. All is agog, on the Rock of Gibraltar, on review days. There is no end to the pipe-claying, and brushing, and burnishing, in the different barracks, on the morning of this day. The officers get out their new uniforms, and horses are groomed with more than ordinary care. The citizens turn out, as well as the military, and all the beauty and fashion of the town are collected on the Alameda. On the occasion of the review which I witnessed, the troops--nearly all young, fine-looking men--presented, indeed, a splendid appearance. All the corps of the British army were there, represented save only the cavalry; and they were moved hither and thither, at will; long lines of them now being tied into what seemed the most inextricable knots, and now untied again, with an ease, grace, and skill, which called forth my constant admiration.

But it was not so much the movements of the military that attracted my attention, as the tout ensemble of the crowd. The eye wandered over almost all the nationalities of the earth, in their holiday costumes. The red fez cap of the Greek, the white turban of the Moor and Turk, and the hat of the Christian, all waved in a common sea of male humanity, and, when the eye turned to the female portion of the crowd, there was confusion worse confounded, for the fashions of Paris and London, Athens and Constantinople, the isles and the continents, all were there! What with the waving plumes of the generals, the galloping hither and thither of aides and orderlies, the flashing of the polished barrel of the rifle in the sun, the music of the splendid bands, and the swaying and surging of the civic multitude which I have attempted to describe, the scene was fairly beyond description. A man might dream of it, but could not describe it.

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Chapter XXV

THE SUMTER STILL AT GIBRALTAR--SHIP CROWDED WITH VISITORS--A RIDE OVER THE ROCK WITH COLONEL FREEMANTLE--THE "GALLERIES" AND OTHER SUBTERRANEAN WONDERS--A DIZZY HEIGHT, AND THE QUEEN OF SPAIN'S CHAIR--THE MONKEYS AND THE "NEUTRAL GROUND."

The stream of visitors to the Sumter continued for some days after our arrival. Almost every steamer from England brought more or less tourists and curiosity-hunters, and these did us the honor to visit us, and frequently to say kind words of sympathy and encouragement. Among others, the Duke of Beaufort and Sir John Inglis visited us, and examined our ship with much curiosity. The latter, who had earned for himself the title of the "hero of Lucknow," in that most memorable and barbarous of all sieges, was on his way to the Ionian Islands, of which he had recently been appointed Governor.

January 23d.--Weather clear and pleasant. We received a visit from Captain Warden to-day, in return for the visit I had made him upon my arrival. He came off in full uniform, to show us that his visit was meant to be official, as well as personal. Nothing would have pleased the gallant captain better, than to have been able to salute the Confederate States' flag, and welcome our new republic among the family of nations. We discussed a point of international law while he was on board. He desired, he said, to call my attention to the well-known rule that, in case of the meeting of two opposite belligerents in the same neutral port, twenty-four hours must intervene between their departure. I assented readily to this rule. It had been acted upon, I told him, by the Governor of Martinique, when I was in that island--the enemy's sloop Iroquois having been compelled to cruise in the offing for fear of its application to her. I remarked, however, that it was useless for us to discuss the rule here, as the enemy's ships had adroitly taken measures to evade it. "How is that?" he inquired. "Why, simply," I replied, "by stationing one of his ships in Gibraltar, and another in Algeziras. If I go to sea from Gibraltar, the Algeziras ship follows me, and if I go to sea from Algeziras, the Gibraltar ship follows me." "True," rejoined the captain, "I did not think of that." "I cannot say," continued I, "that I complain of this. It is one of those chances in war which perhaps nine men in ten would take advantage of; and then these Federal captains cannot afford to be over-scrupulous; they have an angry mob at their heels, shouting, in their fury and ignorance, 'Pirate! pirate!'"

The Southampton steamer brought us late news, to-day, from London. We are becoming somewhat apprehensive for the safety of Messrs. Mason and Slidell, who, having embarked on board the British steam-sloop Rinaldo, at Provincetown, Mass., on the 2d inst., bound to Halifax, distant only a few hundred miles, had not been heard from as late as the 10th inst. A heavy gale followed their embarcation. I received a letter, to-day, too, from Mr. Yancey. He writes despondently as to the action of the European powers. They are cold, distrustful, and cautious, and he has no hope of an early recognition. I am pained to remark here, that this distinguished statesman died soon after his return to the United States. He was one of the able men of the South, who, like Patrick Henry, and John C. Calhoun, seemed to be gifted with the spirit of prophecy; or, rather, to speak more correctly, his superior mental powers, and knowledge of men and of governments, enabled him, like his great predecessors, to arrive at conclusions, natural and easy enough to himself, but which, viewed in the light of subsequent events, seemed like prophecy to his less gifted countrymen. Mr. Yancey much resembled Patrick Henry in the simplicity and honesty of his character, and in the fervidness and power of his eloquence.

January 30th.--A fine, clear day, with the wind from the eastward. Having received a note last evening, from Colonel Freemantle, informing me that horses would be in readiness for us, this morning, at the Government House, to visit the fortifications, I went on shore the first thing after breakfast, and finding the Colonel in readiness, we mounted, and accompanied by an orderly to take care of our horses, rode at a brisk pace out of the western gate, and commenced our tour of inspection. Arriving at the entrance of the famous "galleries" situated about half-way up the Rock, we dismounted, and dived into the bowels of mother Earth.

The Spaniards have been celebrated above all other people for fortifications. They have left monuments of their patience, diligence, and skill all over the world, wherever they have obtained a foothold. The only other people who have ever equalled them, in this particular, though in a somewhat different way, are the people of these Northern States, during the late war. No Spaniard was ever half so diligent in his handling of stone, and mortar, as was the Yankee soldier in throwing up his "earth-work." His industry in this regard was truly wonderful. If the Confederate soldier ever gave him half an hour's breathing-time, he was safe. With pick and spade he would burrow in the ground like a rabbit. When the time comes for that New-Zealander, foretold by Macaulay, to sit on the ruins of London bridge, and wonder what people had passed away, leaving such gigantic ruins behind them, we would recommend him to come over to these States, and view the miles of hillocks that the industrious Yankee moles threw up during our late war; and speculate upon the genus of the animal gifted with such wonderful instincts.

But to return to our tour of inspection. The famous underground "galleries" of the Rock of Gibraltar, are huge tunnels, blasted and bored, foot by foot, in the living rock, sufficiently wide and deep to admit of the placing, and working of heavy artillery. They are from one third of a mile, to half a mile in length, and there are three tiers of them, rising one above the other; the embrasures or port-holes of which resemble, when viewed from a distance, those of an old-time two-decker. Besides these galleries for the artillery, there have also been excavated in the solid rock, ample magazines, and store and provision rooms, and tanks for the reception of water. These receptacles are kept constantly well supplied with munitions, both de guerre, and de bouche, so that if the garrison should be driven from the fortifications below, it could retreat to this citadel, close the massive doors behind them, and withstand a siege.

We passed through all the galleries, ascending from one to the other, through a long, rough-hewn stairway--the Colonel frequently stopping, and explaining to me the history of some particular nook or battlement--until we finally emerged into the open air through a port-hole, or doorway at the very top of the Rock, and stood upon a narrow footway or platform, looking down a sheer precipice of fifteen hundred feet, upon the sea breaking in miniature waves at the base of the Rock. There was no rail to guard one from the precipice below, and I could but wonder at the nonchalance with which the Colonel stepped out upon this narrow ledge, and walked some yards to get a view of the distant coast of Spain, expecting me to follow him. I did follow him, but I planted my feet very firmly and carefully, feeling all the while some such emptiness in the region of the "bread-basket," as Marryatt describes Peter Simple to have experienced when the first shot whistled past that young gentleman in his first naval engagement.

The object of the Colonel, in this flank movement, was to show me a famous height some distance inland, called the "Queen of Spain's Chair," and to relate to me the legend in connection with it. The Rock of Gibraltar has always been the darling of Spain. It has been twice wrested from her, once by the Moors, and once by the English. She regained it from the Moors, when she drove them out of her Southern provinces, after an occupation of eight hundred years! Some of the remains of the old Moorish castles are still visible. Afterward, an English naval captain, returning from some expedition up the Mediterranean, in which he had been unsuccessful, stormed and captured the Rock with a handful of sailors. Spain, mortified beyond measure, at the result, made strenuous efforts to recover it. In 1752 she bent all her energies in this direction, and fitted out large expeditions, by land and by sea, for the purpose. The Queen came down from Madrid to witness the siege, and causing her tent to be pitched near the "Chair," vowed she would never leave it, until she saw the flag of Spain floating once more from the coveted battlements. But General Elliot, with only a small garrison, beat back the immense armaments, and the Spaniards were compelled to raise the siege. But the poor Queen of Spain! what was to become of her, and her vow? English gallantry came to her relief. The Spanish flag was raised for a single day from the Rock, to enable the Queen to descend from her chair! The reader will judge whether this legend was worth the emptiness in the "bread-basket" which I had experienced, in order to get at it.

Descending back through the galleries, to where we had left our horses, we remounted, and following a zigzag path, filled with loose stones, and running occasionally along the edges of precipices, down which we should have been instantly dashed in pieces, if our sure-footed animals had stumbled, we reached the signal-station. On the very apex of the rock, nature seemed to have prepared a little plateau, of a few yards square, as if for the very purpose for which it was occupied--that of over-looking the approaches from every direction, to the famous Rock. A neat little box of a house, with a signal-mast and yard, and a small plot of ground, about as large as a pocket-handkerchief, used as a garden, occupied the whole space. Europe, and Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic were all visible from this eyry. The day was clear, and we could see to great distances. There were ships in the east coming down the Mediterranean, and ships in the west coming through the famous Strait; they all looked like mere specks. Fleets that might shake nations with their thunder, would be here mere cock-boats. The country is mountainous on both sides of the Strait, and these mountains now lay sleeping in the sunshine, covered with a thin, gauzy veil, blue and mysterious, and wearing that air of enchantment which distance always lends to bold scenery.

"We had a fine view of your ship, the other day," said the signal-man to me, "when you were chasing the Yankee. The latter was hereaway, when you set fire to her"--pointing in the direction. "Are there many Yankee ships passing the Rock now?" I inquired. "No. Very few since the war commenced." "It would not pay me, then, to cruise in these seas?" "Scarcely."

As we turned to go to our horses, we were attracted by the appearance of three large apes, that had come out of their lodging-place in the Rock, to sun themselves. These apes are one of the curiosities of the Rock, and many journeys have been made in vain to the signal-station, to see them. The Colonel had never seen them before, himself, and the signal-man congratulated us both on our good fortune. "Those are three old widows," said he, "the only near neighbors I have, and we are very friendly; but as you are strangers, you must not move if you would have a good look at them, or they will run away." He then gave us the history of his neighbors. Years ago there was quite a colony of these counterfeit presentments of human nature on the Rock, but the whole colony has disappeared except these three. "When I first came to the signal-station," continued our informant, "these three old widows were gay, and dashing young damsels, with plenty of sweethearts, but unfortunately for them, there were more males than females, and a war ensued in the colony in consequence. First one of the young males would disappear, and then another, until I at last noticed that there were only four of the whole colony left: one very large old male, and these three females. Peace now ensued, and the old fellow lived apparently very happily with his wives, but no children were born to him, and finally he died, leaving these three disconsolate widows, who have since grown old--you can see that they are quite gray--to mourn his loss." And they did indeed look sad and disconsolate enough. They eyed us very curiously, and when we moved toward our horses, they scampered off. They subsist upon wild dates, and a few other wild fruits that grow upon the Rock.

We passed down the mountain-side to the south end of the Rock, where we exchanged salutations with the General and Mrs. Codrington, who had come out to superintend some repairs upon a country house which they had at this end; and reaching the town, I began to congratulate myself that my long and fatiguing visit of inspection was drawing to a close. Not so, however. These Englishmen are a sort of cross between the Centaur and the North American Indian. They can ride you, or walk you to death, whichever you please; and so Freemantle said to me, "Now, Captain, we will just take a little gallop out past the 'neutral ground,' and then I think I will have shown you all the curiosities." The "neutral ground" was about three miles distant, and "a gallop" out and back, would be six miles! Imagine a sailor who had not been on horseback before, for six months; who had been riding for half a day one of those accursed English horses, with their long stride, and swinging trot, throwing a man up, and catching him again, as if he were a trap-ball; who was galled, and sore, and jaded, having such a proposition made to him! It was worse than taking me out on that narrow ledge of rock fifteen hundred feet above the sea, to look at the Queen of Spain's Chair. But I could not retreat. How could an American, who had been talking of his big country, its long rivers, the immense distances traversed by its railroads and steam-boats, and the capacity for endurance of its people in the present war, knock under to an Englishman, and a Coldstream Guardsman at that, on this very question of endurance? And so we rode to the "neutral ground."

This is a narrow strip of territory, accurately set off by metes and bounds, on the isthmus that separates the Rock from the Spanish territory. As its name implies, neither party claims jurisdiction over it. On one side are posted the English sentinels, and on the other, the Spanish; and the all's-well! of the one mingles strangely, at night, with the alerta! of the other. We frequently heard them both on board the Sumter, when the night was still. I got back to my ship just in time for a six o'clock dinner, astonished John by drinking an extra glass of sherry, and could hardly walk for a week afterward.

A day or two after my visit to the Rock, I received a visit from a Spanish naval lieutenant, sent over, as he stated, by the Admiral from Algeziras, to remonstrate with me against the burning of the ship Neapolitan within Spanish jurisdiction. The reader who has read the description of the burning of that ship, will be as much astonished as I was at this visit. The Spanish Government owns the fortress of Ceuta, on the African shore opposite Gibraltar, and by virtue of this ownership claims, as it would appear, jurisdiction for a marine league at sea, in the neighborhood of the fortress. It was claimed that the Neapolitan had been captured within this league. The lieutenant having thus stated his case, I demanded to know on what testimony the Admiral relied, to establish the fact of the burning within the league. He replied that the United States Consul at Gibraltar had made the statement to the Admiral. Here was the "cat out of the bag" again; another United States Consul had turned up, with his intrigues and false statements. The nice little piece of diplomacy had probably been helped on, too, by the commanders of the Federal ships of war, that had made Algeziras a rendezvous, since I had been anchored in the Bay of Gibraltar. When the Spanish officer had done stating his case, I said to him:--"I do not recognize the right of your Admiral to raise any question with me, as to my capture of the Neapolitan. The capture of that ship is an accomplished fact, and if any injury has been done thereby to Spain, the Spanish Government can complain of it to the Government of the Confederate States. It has passed beyond the stage, when the Admiral and I could manage it, and has become an affair entirely between our two Governments."

This was all the official answer I had to make, and the lieutenant, whose bearing was that of an intelligent gentleman, assented to the correctness of my position. I then said to him:--"But aside from the official aspect of the case, I desire to show you, that your Admiral has had his credulity played upon by his informant, the Consul, and whatever other parties may have approached him on this subject. They have made false statements to him. It is not only well known to hundreds of citizens of the Rock, who were eye-witnesses of the burning of the Neapolitan, that that vessel was burned at a distance of from six to seven miles from the African coast, but I have the testimony of the master of the captured vessel himself, to the same effect." I then sent for my clerk, whom I directed to produce and read the deposition of the master, which, according to custom, we had taken immediately upon effecting the capture. In that deposition, after having been duly sworn, the master had stated that the capture was made about five miles from Europa Point, the southern extremity of the Rock of Gibraltar. The Strait is about fourteen miles wide at this point, which would put the ship, when captured, nine miles from Ceuta! The lieutenant, at the conclusion of the reading, raised both hands, and with an expressive smile, ejaculated, "Es possible?" "Yes," I replied, "all things are possible to Federal Consuls, and other Federal pimps and spies, when the Sumter and Yankee ships are concerned."

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Chapter XXVI

THE SUMTER IN TROUBLE--FINDS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO COAL, BY REASON OF A COMBINATION AGAINST HER, HEADED BY THE FEDERAL CONSUL--APPLIES TO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT FOR COAL, BUT IS REFUSED--SENDS HER PAYMASTER AND EX-CONSUL TUNSTALL TO CADIZ--THEY ARE ARRESTED AND IMPRISONED AT TANGIER--CORRESPONDENCE ON THE SUBJECT--THE SUMTER LAID UP AND SOLD.

The Sumter's boilers were very much out of condition when she arrived at Gibraltar, and we had hoped, from the fact that Gibraltar was a touching-point for several lines of steamers, that we should find here, machine and boiler shops sufficiently extensive to enable us to have a new set of boilers made. We were disappointed in this; and so were compelled to patch up the old boilers as best we could, hoping that when our funds should arrive, we might be enabled to coal, and run around to London or Liverpool, where we would find all the facilities we could desire. My funds arrived, as before stated, on the 3d of February, and I at once set about supplying myself with coal. I sent my first lieutenant and paymaster on shore, and afterward my engineer, to purchase it, authorizing them to pay more than the market-price, if it should be necessary. The reader will judge of my surprise when these officers returned, and informed me that they found the market closed against them, and that it was impossible to purchase a pound of coal in any direction!

It has been seen, in the course of these pages, how often I have had occasion to complain of the conduct of the Federal Consuls, and one can scarcely conceive the trouble and annoyance which these well-drilled officials of Mr. Seward gave me. I could not, of course, have complained, if their bearing toward me had been simply that of open enemies. This was to be expected. But they descended to bribery, trickery, and fraud, and to all the other arts of petty intrigue, so unworthy of an honorable enemy. Our Southern people can scarcely conceive how little our non-commercial Southern States were known, in the marts of traffic and trade of the world. Beyond a few of our principal ports, whence our staple of cotton was shipped to Europe, our nomenclature even was unknown to the mass of mere traders. The Yankee Consul and the Yankee shipmaster were everywhere. Yankee ships carried out cargoes of cotton, and Yankee ships brought back the goods which were purchased with the proceeds. All the American trade with Europe was Yankee trade--a ship here and there excepted. Commercial men, everywhere, were thus more or less connected with the enemy; and trade being the breath of their nostrils, it is not wonderful that I found them inimical to me. With rare exceptions, they had no trade to lose with the South, and much to lose with the North; and this was the string played upon by the Federal Consuls. If a neutral merchant showed any inclination to supply the Sumter with anything she needed, a runner was forthwith sent round to him by the Federal Consul, to threaten him with the loss of his American--i. e. Yankee--trade, unless he desisted.

Such was the game now being played in Gibraltar, to prevent the Sumter from coaling. The same Federal Consul, who, as the reader has seen a few pages back, stated in an official letter to the Spanish Admiral, that the Neapolitan had been captured within the marine league of the Spanish-African coast, whilst the captain of the same ship had sworn positively that she was distant from it, nine miles, was now bribing and threatening the coal-dealers of Gibraltar, to prevent them from supplying me with coal. Whilst I was pondering my dilemma, I was agreeably surprised, one morning, to receive a visit from an English shipmaster, whose ship had just arrived with some coal on board. He was willing, he said, to supply me, naming his price, which I at once agreed to give him. I congratulated myself that I had at last found an independent Englishman, who had no fear of the loss of Yankee trade, and expressed as much to him. "If there is anything," said he, "of which I am proud, it is just that thing, that I am an independent man." It was arranged that I should get up steam, and go alongside of him the next day. In the meantime, however, "a change came o'er the spirit" of the Englishman's dream. He visited the shore. What took place there, we do not know; but the next morning, whilst I was weighing my anchor to go alongside of him, according to agreement, a boat came from the ship of my "independent" friend to say, that I could not have the coal, unless I would pay him double the price agreed upon! He, too, had fallen into the hands of the enemy. The steam was blown off, and the anchor not weighed.

Finding that I could do nothing with the merchants, I had recourse to the Government. There was some coal in the Dock-Yard, and I addressed the following note to my friend, Captain Warden, to see if he would not supply me:--

CONFEDERATE STATES STEAMER SUMTER, February 10, 1862.

SIR:--I have the honor to inform you, that I have made every effort to procure a supply of coal, without success. The British and other merchants of Gibraltar, instigated I learn by the United States Consul, have entered into the unneutral combination of declining to supply the Sumter with coal on any terms. Under these circumstances I trust the Government of her Majesty will find no difficulty in supplying me. By the recent letter of Earl Russell--31st of January, 1862--it is not inconsistent with neutrality, for a belligerent to supply himself with coal in a British port. In other words, this article has been pronounced, like provisions, innoxious; and this being the case, it can make no difference whether it be supplied by the Government or an individual (the Government being reimbursed the expense), and this even though the market were open to me. Much more then may the Government supply me with an innocent article, the market not being open to me. Suppose I had come into port destitute of provisions, and the same illegal combination had shut me out from the market, would the British Government permit my crew to starve? Or suppose I had been a sailing-ship, and had come in dismasted from the effects of a recent gale, and the dock-yard of her Majesty was the only place where I could be refitted, would you deny me a mast? The laws of nations are positive on this last point, and it would be your duty to allow me to refit in the public dock. And if you would not, under the circumstances stated, deny me a mast, on what principle will you deny me coal--the latter being as necessary to a steamer as a mast to a sailing-ship, and both being alike innoxious?

The true criterion is, not whether the Government or an individual may supply the article, but whether the article itself be noxious or innoxious. The Government may not supply me with powder--why? Not because I may have recourse to the market, but because the article itself is interdicted. A case in point occurred when I was in Cadiz recently. My ship was admitted into a Government dock, and there repaired. The reasons were, first, the repairs, themselves, were such as were authorized by the laws of nations; and secondly, there were no private docks in Cadiz. So here, the article is innocent, and there is none in the market--or rather none accessible to me, which is the same thing. Why, then, may not the Government supply me? In conclusion, I respectfully request that you will supply me with 150 tons of coal, for which I will pay the cash; or, if you prefer it, I will deposit the money with an agent, who can have no difficulty, I suppose, in purchasing the same quantity of the material from some of the coal-hulks, and returning it to her Majesty's dock-yard.

This application was telegraphed to the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, in London, and after the lapse of a week--for it took the "law-officers of the Crown" a week, it seems, to decide the question--was denied. On the same day on which I wrote the above letter, I performed the very pleasant duty of paying to the Spanish Consul at Gibraltar, on account of the authorities at Cadiz, the amount of the bill which the dock-yard officers at Caracca had rendered me, for docking my ship. The dock-yard Admiral had behaved very handsomely about it. I was entirely destitute of funds. He docked my ship, with a knowledge of this fact, and was kind enough to say that I might pay at my convenience. I take pleasure in recording this conduct on the part of a Spanish gentleman, who held a high position in the Spanish Navy, as a set-off to the coarse and unfriendly conduct of the Military Governor of Cadiz, of whom I have before spoken.

Failing with the British Government, as I had done with the merchants of Gibraltar, to obtain a supply of coal, I next dispatched my paymaster for Cadiz, with instructions to purchase in that port, and ship the article around to me. A Mr. Tunstall, who had been the United States Consul at Cadiz, before the war, was then in Gibraltar, and at his request, I sent him along with the paymaster. They embarked on board a small French steamer plying between some of the Mediterranean ports, and Cadiz. Tangier, a small Moorish town on the opposite side of the Strait of Gibraltar, lies in the route, and the steamer stopped there for a few hours to land and receive passengers, and to put off, and take on freight. Messrs. Myers and Tunstall, during this delay, went up into the town, to take a walk, and as they were returning, were set upon by a guard of Moorish soldiers, and made prisoners! Upon demanding an explanation, they were informed that they had been arrested upon a requisition of the United States Consul, resident in that town.

By special treaties between the Christian powers, and the Moorish and other non-Christian powers on the borders of the Mediterranean, it is provided that the consuls of the different Christian powers shall have jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, over their respective citizens. It was under such a treaty between the United States and Morocco, that the United States Consul had demanded the arrest of Messrs. Myers and Tunstall, as citizens of the United States, alleging that they had committed high crimes against the said States, on the high seas! The ignorant Moorish officials knew nothing, and cared nothing, about the laws of nations; nor did they puzzle their small brains with what was going on, on the American continent. All they knew was, that one "Christian dog," had demanded other "Christian dogs," as his prisoners, and troops were sent to the Consul, to enable him to make the arrest as a matter of course.

The Consul, hoping to recommend himself to the mad populace of the United States, who were just then denouncing the Sumter as a "pirate," and howling for the blood of all embarked on board of her,--with as little brains as their Moorish allies,--acted like the brute he was, took the prisoners to his consular residence, ironed them heavily, and kept them in close confinement! He guarded them as he would the apple of his eye, for had he not a prize which might make him Consul for life at Tangier? Alas for human hopes! I have since learned that he was kicked out of his place, to make room for another Sans Culotte, even more hungry, and more "truly loil" than himself.

Intelligence of the rich prizes which he had made, having been conveyed by the Consul, to the commanding United States naval officer, in the Bay of Algeziras, which bay had by this time become a regular naval station of the enemy, that officer, instead of releasing the prisoners at once, as he should have done, on every principle of honor, if not out of regard for the laws of nations, which he was bound to respect and obey, sent the sailing bark Ino, one of his armed vessels, to Tangier, which received the prisoners on board, and brought them over to Algeziras--the doughty Consul accompanying them.

There was great rejoicing on board the Yankee ships of war, in that Spanish port, when the Consul and his prisoners arrived. They had blockaded the Sumter in the Mississippi, they had blockaded her in Martinique, they had chased her hither and thither; Wilkes, Porter, and Palmer, had all been in pursuit of her, but they had all been baffled. At last, the little Tangier Consul appears upon the scene, and waylaying, not the Sumter, but her paymaster, unarmed, and unsuspicious of Yankee fraud, and Yankee trickery, captures him in the streets of a Moorish town, and hurries him over to Algeziras, ironed like a felon, and delivers him to Captain Craven, of the United States Navy, who receives the prisoner, irons and all, and applauds the act!

In a day or two, after the Consul's trophies had been duly exhibited in the Bay of Algeziras; after the rejoicings were over, and lengthy despatches had been written, announcing the capture to the Washington Government, the Ino sets sail for Cadiz, and there transfers her prisoners to a merchant-ship, called the Harvest Home, bound for the goodly port of Boston.

The prisoners were gentlemen,--one of them had been an officer of the Federal Navy, and the other a Consul,--but this did not deter the master of the Yankee merchant-ship from practising upon them the cruelty and malignity of a cowardly nature. His first act was to shave the heads of his prisoners, and his second, to put them in close confinement, still ironed, though there was no possibility of their escape. The captain of the Ino, or of the Harvest Home, I am not sure which,--they may settle it between them,--robbed my paymaster of his watch, so as not to be behindhand with their countrymen on the land, who were just then beginning to practise the art of watch and spoon stealing, in which, under the lead of illustrious chiefs, they soon afterward became adepts. I blush, as an American, to be called upon to record such transactions. It were well for the American name, if they could be buried a thousand fathoms deep, and along with them the perpetrators.

At first, a rumor only of the capture and imprisonment of my paymaster, and his companion, reached me. It appeared so extraordinary, that I could not credit it. And even if it were true, I took it for granted, that the silly act of the Federal Consul would be set aside by the commander of the Federal naval forces, in the Mediterranean. The rumor soon ripened, however, into a fact, and the illusion which I had labored under as to the course of the Federal naval officer, was almost as speedily dispelled. I had judged him by the old standard, the standard which had prevailed when I myself knew something of the personnel of the United States Navy. But old things had passed away, and new things had come to take their places. A violent, revolutionary faction had possessed itself of the once honored Government of the United States, and, as is the case in all revolutions, coarse and vulgar men had risen to the surface, thrusting the more gentle classes into the background. The Army and the Navy were soon brought under the influence of these coarser and ruder men, and the necessary consequence ensued--the Army and the Navy themselves became coarser and ruder. Some few fine natures resisted the unholy influences, but the mass of them went, as masses will always go, with the current.

As soon as the misfortunes of my agents were known to me, I resorted to all the means within my reach, to endeavor to effect their release, but in vain, as they were carried to Boston, and there imprisoned. I first addressed a note to General Codrington, the Governor of Gibraltar, requesting him to intercede with her Britannic Majesty's Charge, at the Court of Morocco, for their release. This latter gentleman, whose name was Hay, resided at Tangier, where the Court of Morocco then was, and was said to have great influence with it; indeed, to be all-powerful. I then wrote to the Morocco Government direct, and also to Mr. Hay. I give so much of this correspondence below as is necessary to inform the reader of the facts and circumstances of the case, and of the conduct of the several functionaries to whom I addressed myself.

CONFEDERATE STATES STEAMER SUMTER, BAY OF GIBRALTAR, February 22, 1862.

SIR:--I have the honor to ask the good offices of his Excellency, the Governor of Gibraltar [this letter was addressed to the Colonial Secretary, who conducted all the Governor's official correspondence], in a matter purely my own. On Wednesday last, I dispatched from this port, in a French passenger-steamer for Cadiz, on business connected with this ship, my paymaster, Mr. Henry Myers, and Mr. T. T. Tunstall, a citizen of the Confederate States, and ex-United States Consul at Cadiz. The steamer having stopped on her way, at Tangier, and these gentlemen having gone on shore for a walk during her temporary delay there, they were seized by the authorities, at the instigation of the United States Consul, and imprisoned.

A note from Paymaster Myers informs me that they are both heavily ironed, and otherwise treated in a barbarous manner. * * * An occurrence of this kind could not have happened, of course, in a civilized community. The political ignorance of the Moorish Government has been shamefully practised upon by the unscrupulous Consul. I understand that the British Government has a diplomatic agent resident at Tangier, and a word from that gentleman would, no doubt, set the matter right, and insure the release of the unfortunate prisoners. And it is to interest this gentleman in this humane task, that I address myself to his Excellency. May I not ask the favor of his Excellency, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, to address Mr. Hay a note on the subject, explaining to him the facts, and asking his interposition? If any official scruples present themselves, the thing might be done in his character of a private gentleman. The Moorish Government could not hesitate a moment, if it understood correctly the facts, and principles of the case; to wit: that the principal powers of Europe have recognized the Confederate States, as belligerents, in their war against the United States, and consequently that the act of making war against these States, by the citizens of the Confederate States, is not an offence, political, or otherwise, of which a neutral can take cognizance, &c.

Governor Codrington did kindly and humanely interest himself, and write to Mr. Hay, but his letter produced no effect. In reply to my own note to Mr. Hay, that gentleman wrote me as follows:--

"You must be aware, that her Majesty's Government have decided on observing a strict neutrality, in the present conflict between the Northern and Southern States; it is therefore incumbent on her Majesty's officers, to avoid anything like undue interference in any questions affecting the interests of either party, which do not concern the British Government; and though I do not refuse to accede to your request, to deliver the letter to the Moorish authorities, I think it my duty to signify, distinctly, to the latter, my intention to abstain from expressing an opinion regarding the course to be pursued by Morocco, on the subject of your letter."

In reply to this letter of Mr. Hay, I addressed him the following:--

CONFEDERATE STATES STEAMER SUMTER, GIBRALTAR, February 25, 1862.

SIR:--I have had the honor to receive your letter of yesterday's date, in reply to mine of the 23d inst., informing me that "You [I] must be aware that her Britannic Majesty's Government have decided on observing a strict neutrality, in the present conflict between the Northern and Southern States; it is therefore incumbent on her Majesty's officers to avoid anything like undue interference in any questions affecting the interests of either party, which do not concern the British Government; and though I do not refuse to accede to your request, to deliver the letter to the Moorish authorities, I think it my duty to signify distinctly to the latter my intention to refrain from expressing an opinion regarding the course to be pursued by Morocco on the subject-matter of your letter."

Whilst I thank you for the courtesy of delivering my letter, as requested, I must be permitted to express to you my disappointment at the course which you have prescribed to yourself, of refraining from expressing any opinion to the Moorish Government, of the legality or illegality of its act, lest you should be charged with undue interference.

I had supposed that the "Trent affair," of so recent occurrence, had settled, not only the right, but the duty of the civilized nations of the earth to "interfere," in a friendly manner, to prevent wars between nations. It cannot have escaped your observation, that the course pursued by Europe in that affair, is precisely analogous to that which I have requested of you. In that affair a quarrel arose between the United States, one of the belligerents in the existing war, and Great Britain, a neutral in that war; and instead of "refraining" from offering advice, all Europe made haste to volunteer it to both parties. The United States were told by France, by Russia, by Spain, and other Powers, that their act was illegal, and that they could, without a sacrifice of honor, grant the reparation demanded by Great Britain. Neither the nation giving the advice nor the nation advised, supposed for a moment that there was a breach of neutrality in this proceeding; on the contrary, it was the general verdict of mankind, that the course pursued was not only legal, but eminently humane and proper, as tending to allay excitement, and prevent the effusion of blood.

If you will run a parallel between the Trent case, and the case in hand, you will find it difficult, I think, to sustain the reason you have assigned for your forbearance. In that case, the quarrel was between a neutral, and a belligerent, as in this case. In that case, citizens of a belligerent State were unlawfully arrested on the high seas, in a neutral ship, by the opposite belligerent, and imprisoned. In this case, citizens of a belligerent State have been unlawfully arrested by a neutral, in neutral territory, and imprisoned. Does the fact that the offence was committed in the former case, by a belligerent against a neutral, and in the latter case, by a neutral against a belligerent, make any difference in the application of the principle we are discussing? And if so, in what does the difference consist? If A strikes B, is it lawful to interfere to preserve the peace, and if B strikes A, is it unlawful to interfere for the same purpose? Can the circumstance, that the prisoners seized by the one belligerent, in the Trent affair, were citizens of the other belligerent, alter the application of the principle? The difference, if any, is in favor of the present case, for whilst the belligerent in the former case was compelled to release its enemies, whom, under proper conditions it would have had the right to capture, in the latter case I requested you to advise a neutral to release prisoners, who were not the enemies of the neutral, and whom the neutral could have no right to capture under any circumstances whatever.

Upon further inquiry, I learn that my first impression, that the two gentlemen in question had been arrested under some claim of extradition, was not exactly correct. It seems that they were arrested by Moorish soldiery, upon the requisition of the United States Consul, who claimed to exercise jurisdiction over them, as citizens of the United States, under a provision of a treaty common between what are called the non-civilized and the civilized nations. This state of facts does not alter, in any degree, the reasoning applicable to the case. If Morocco adopts the status given to the Confederate States by Europe, she must remain neutral between the two belligerents, not undertaking to judge of the nationality of the citizens of either of them, or to decide any other question growing out of the war, which does not concern her own interests. She has no right, therefore, to adjudge a citizen of the Confederate States, to be a citizen of the United States; and not having this right, herself, she cannot convey it by treaty to the United States, to be exercised by their Consul in Tangier.

I trust that you will not understand, that I have written in a tone of remonstrance, or complaint. I have no ground on which to demand anything of you. The friendly offices of nations, like those of individuals, must be spontaneous; and if in the present instance, you have not deemed yourself at liberty to offer a word of friendly advice, to a Barbarian Government which has evidently erred through ignorance of its rights and duties, in favor of unfortunate citizens of a Government, in amity with your own, and whose people are connected with your people by so many ties of consanguinity and interest, I have no word of remonstrance to offer. You are the best judge of your own actions.

I never received any reply to this letter from Mr. Hay. The fact that the prisoners were permitted to be delivered up to the enemy, as before stated, is conclusive that he was as good as his word, and "signified distinctly" to the Moorish Government, that he should refrain from giving it any advice on the subject--which, of course, under the circumstances, was tantamount to advising it to do what it did. If he had contented himself with handing in my protest to the Moorish authorities, without any remark whatever, his conduct would not have been so objectionable, but when he made it a point to inform them, as he took pains to tell me he would, that he had no advice to offer them, this was saying to them in effect, "I have no objection to offer to your course;" for it must be borne in mind, that Mr. Hay was a great favorite with the Government to which he was accredited, and was in the constant habit of giving it advice on every and all occasions. The consuls of the different powers resident in Tangier behaved no better than Mr. Hay. A serious commotion among the Christian residents took place, upon the arrest and imprisonment of Messrs. Myers and Tunstall, which would probably have resulted in their release by the Government, but for the interference of these consuls, headed by Mr. Hay. They advised their respective countrymen to disperse, and "refraining distinctly," each and all of them, from giving a word of advice to the perplexed authorities, though implored by the Moors themselves to do so, the latter construed the whole course of Hay and the consuls to mean, that they must comply with the Federal Consul's demand, and hand over the prisoners to him.

The news of this arrest and imprisonment created great excitement in most of the Christian capitals, particularly in London. A formal call was made in the British Parliament, upon the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, for an official statement of the facts; but it being rumored and believed, soon afterward, in London, that the prisoners had been released, no steps were taken by the British Government, if any were contemplated, until it was too late. Mr. Mason, our Commissioner in London, interested himself at once in the matter, but was deceived like the rest, by the rumor. The following extract from a letter written by me to him on the 19th of March will show how the British Government had been bamboozled by some one, although there was a continuous line of telegraph between London and Gibraltar:--

"I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 8th inst. informing me that, as late as the 7th of March, the English Government was under the impression that Paymaster Myers and Mr. Tunstall, had been released from imprisonment; and requesting me to telegraph you, if the contrary should be the fact. This lack of information on the part of the Under Secretary of State is somewhat remarkable, as no rumor has prevailed here, at any time, that these gentlemen had been liberated. On the contrary, the sloop-of-war Ino, of the enemy, came into this Bay--Spanish side--on the 28th of February, with the prisoners on board, and sailed with them the next day. On the 6th of March, the Ino transferred the prisoners to the enemy's merchant-ship, Harvest Home, off Cadiz, which sailed immediately for Boston. You will perceive, from the narration of these facts, that it was unnecessary to telegraph to you, as the prisoners, though they had not been released, had been placed beyond the reach of the British Government through its Charge at Tangier--even if you could have induced that Government to interfere, which I very much doubt.

"You have, of course, been informed through the press, that the Moorish Government was anxious to liberate the prisoners, but that it was bullied into acquiescence, by the truculent Federal Consul, who was backed by a force of forty armed men, landed from the Ino, and who threatened to haul down his flag, and quit the country, if his demand was not complied with. A word of advice given, unofficially even, by Mr. Hay, or some one of the consuls present, would have been an act of kindness to the ignorant Moors, in keeping them out of a scrape, as well as to ourselves. As the case now stands, we shall be obliged, as soon as we shall have gotten rid of this Yankee war, to settle accounts with his Majesty of Morocco."

One more letter, and the reader will have full information of this Tangier difficulty. Myers and Tunstall had embarked, as has been stated, under the French flag, and I wrote to Mr. Slidell in Paris, requesting him to call the attention of the French Government to this fact. Having received from him in reply a note informing me that he had done so, I wrote him again as follows:--

"I have had the honor to receive your note of the 8th of March, informing me that you had referred the subject of the capture of Messrs. Myers and Tunstall to Mons. Thouvenal, the French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but that the impression prevailed in Paris that those gentlemen had been liberated. With regard to the latter fact, you will, of course, have been undeceived before this. The prisoners will probably be in Fort Warren, before this reaches you. The French Consul-General at Tangier must have kept his Government badly informed on the subject, since the latter supposed, as late as the 8th inst., that the prisoners had been liberated.

"I trust that you will be able to make something out of the case. It is one in which all the Christian powers are interested. If this precedent is to stand, a French or an English subject may be seized, to-morrow, upon the simple requisition of a consul, and handed over to his enemy. And then, as I stated to you, in my first letter, is not the honor of the French flag involved? It is admitted that, as between civilized states, this question of the flag would not arise, the parties having disembarked. But a different set of rules has been applied to the dealings of the Christian powers, with the non-Christian, as is shown by this very arrest, under a claim of jurisdiction by a consul. A Frenchman in Morocco is, by treaty, under the protection of the French Consular flag. If he commits an offence, he is tried and punished by his Consul, regardless of the fact that he is literally within the jurisdiction of Morocco. And these concessions have been demanded by the Christian nations, for the security of their subjects.

"A French citizen, on board a French merchant-ship, lying in the waters of Morocco, would be subject to the same rule. Should, now, a French traveller, landing in Morocco, in itinere, only, from a French ship, be subject to a different rule? and if so, on what principle? And if a Frenchman would be protected under these circumstances--protected because of the flag which has brought him hither, and not because he is a Frenchman, simply, why may not Messrs. Myers and Tunstall claim French protection? Though they were on the soil of Morocco, when arrested, they were there, in itinere, under the French flag, which not only exterritorialized the ship, over which it floated, but every one who belonged to the ship, whether on ship-board or on shore, for the time being.

"But what appears to me most extraordinary in this case, is the apathy, or rather the fear of their own governments, which was manifested by the representatives of the Christian powers, on the occasion of the arrest. A friend of mine, the Captain of an English steam-frigate, on this station, visited Tangier, with his ship, a day or two only after the occurrence, and he informs me that the Moorish authorities were sorely perplexed, during the pendency of the affair, and that they implored the counsel and assistance of the representatives of the Christian powers, to enable them to solve the difficulty, but that not one word of advice was tendered." * * *

I was sorry to lose my very efficient paymaster, but there was no remedy. He was incarcerated for a while, after his arrival in Boston, but was treated as a prisoner of war, and was finally released on parole. The Secretary of the Federal Navy directed his stolen watch to be returned to him which is worthy of record, as being something exceptional, but I have never learned whether any punishment was inflicted upon the party committing the theft. Probably not, as by this time, entire Federal armies had become demoralized and taken to plundering.

The Sumter was now blockaded by three ships of the enemy, and it being impossible for me to coal, I resolved to lay her up, and proceed to London, and consult with my Government as to my future course. I might possibly have had coal shipped to me from London, or some other English port, but this would have involved expense and delay, and it was exceedingly doubtful besides, whether I could elude the vigilance of so many blockading ships, in a slow ship, with crippled boilers. In her best days, the Sumter had been a very inefficient ship, being always anchored, as it were, in the deep sea, by her propeller, whenever she was out of coal. A fast ship, propelled entirely by sail-power, would have been better.

When I look back now, I am astonished to find what a struggle it cost me to get my own consent to lay up this old ship. As inexplicable as the feeling is, I had really become attached to her, and felt as if I would be parting forever with a valued friend. She had run me safely through two vigilant blockades, had weathered many storms, and rolled me to sleep in many calms. Her cabin was my bed-room and my study, both in one, her quarter-deck was my promenade, and her masts, spars, and sails, my playthings. I had handled her in all kinds of weather, watching her every motion in difficult situations, as a man watches the yielding and cracking ice over which he is making a perilous passage. She had fine qualities as a sea-boat, being as buoyant, active, and dry as a duck, in the heaviest gales, and these are the qualities which a seaman most admires.

And then, there are other chords of feeling touched in the sailor's heart, at the end of a cruise, besides the parting with his ship. The commander of a ship is more or less in the position of a father of a family. He necessarily forms an attachment for those who have served under him, and especially for such as have developed honorable qualities, and high abilities, and I had a number on board the Sumter who had developed both. I only regretted that they had not a wider field for the exercise of their abilities. I had officers serving with me, as lieutenants, who were equal to any naval command, whatever. But, unfortunately for them, our poor, hard-pressed Confederate States had no navy worth speaking of; and owing to the timidity, caution, and fear of neutrals, found it impossible to improvise one. And then, when men have been drenched, and wind-beaten in the same storm, have stood on the deck of the same frail little ship, with only a plank between them and eternity, and watched her battling with the elements, which threaten every moment to overwhelm her, there is a feeling of brotherhood that springs up between them, that it is difficult for a landsman to conceive.

There was another, and if possible, stronger chord which bound us together. In the olden time, when the Christian warrior went forth to battle with the Saracen, for the cross, each knight was the sworn brother of the other. They not only slept in the same tents, endured the same hardships, and encountered the same risks, but their faith bound them together with hooks of steel. Without irreverence be it spoken, we of the Southern States had, too, our faith. The Saracen had invaded our beloved land, and was laying it waste with fire and sword. We were battling for our honor, our homes, and our property; in short, for everything that was dear to the human heart. Yea, we were battling for our blood and our race, for it had been developed, even at this early stage of the war, that it was the design of the Northern hordes that were swarming down upon us, not only to liberate the slave, but to enable him to put his foot upon the neck of his late master, and thus bastardize, if possible, his posterity. The blood of the white man in our veins could not but curdle at the contemplation of an atrocity which nothing but the brain of a demon could have engendered.

Besides my officers, I had many worthy men among my crew, who had stood by me in every emergency, and who looked forward with sorrowful countenances, to the approaching separation. The reader has been introduced to my Malayan steward, John, on several occasions. John's black, lustrous eyes filled with ill-concealed tears, more than once, during the last days of the Sumter, as he smoothed the pillow of my cot with a hand as tender as that of a woman, or handed me the choicest dishes at meals.

I had governed my crew with a rigid hand, never overlooking an offence, but I had, at the same time, always been mindful of justice, and I was gratified to find, both on the part of officers and men, an apparent forgetfulness of the little jars and discords which always grow out of the effort to enforce discipline, it matters not how suavely and justly the effort may be made.

Being more or less cut off from communication with the Navy Department, I deemed it but respectful and proper to consult with our Commissioner in London, Mr. Mason, and to obtain his consent before finally laying up the Sumter. Mr. Mason agreed with me entirely in my views, and telegraphed me to this effect on the 7th of April. The next few days were busy days on board the Sumter. Upon the capture of Paymaster Myers, I had appointed Lieutenant J. M. Stribling Acting Paymaster, and I now set this officer at work, closing the accounts of the ship and paying off the officers and men. The officers were formally detached from the command, as fast as paid off, and they embarked for London, on their way to another ship, or to the Confederate States, as circumstances might determine; and the men, with snug little sums in their pockets, were landed, and as is usually the case with sailors, soon dispersed to the four quarters of the globe; each carrying with him the material for yarn-spinning for the balance of his life.

By the 11th of April we had completed all our preparations for turning over the ship to the midshipman who was to have charge of her, and in two or three days afterward, accompanied by Mr. Kell, my first lieutenant, and several other of my officers, I embarked on board the mail-steamer for Southampton. The following is an extract from the last letter that was written to the Secretary of the Navy from on board the Sumter:--

"I now have the honor to report to you, that I have discharged and paid off, in full, all the crew, numbering fifty, with the exception of the ten men detailed to remain by the ship, as servants, and to form a boat's crew for the officer left in charge. I have placed Midshipman R. F. Armstrong, assisted by Acting Master's Mate I. T. Hester, in charge of the ship, with provisions and funds for ten or twelve months, and I have directed all the other officers to return to the Confederate States, and report themselves to the Department. I will myself proceed to London, and after conferring with Mr. Mason, make the best of my way home. I trust the Department will see, in what I have done, an anxious desire to advance the best interests of our country, and that it will justify the responsibility, which, in the best exercise of my judgment, I felt it my duty to assume, in the difficult circumstances by which I was surrounded and embarrassed. Enclosed is a copy of my order to Midshipman Armstrong, and a list of the officers and men left on board the ship."

A brief summary of the services of the Sumter, and of what became of her, may not be uninteresting to the reader, who has followed her thus far, in her wanderings. She cruised six months, leaving out the time during which she was blockaded in Gibraltar. She captured seventeen ships, as follows: the Golden Rocket, Cuba, Machias, Ben. Dunning, Albert Adams, Naiad, Louisa Kilham, West Wind, Abby Bradford, Joseph Maxwell, Joseph Parke, D. Trowbridge, Montmorency, Arcade, Vigilant, Eben Dodge, Neapolitan, and Investigator. It is impossible to estimate the damage done to the enemy's commerce. The property actually destroyed formed a very small proportion of it. The fact alone of the Sumter being upon the seas, during these six months, gave such an alarm to neutral and belligerent shippers, that the enemy's carrying-trade began to be paralyzed, and already his ships were being laid up, or sold under neutral flags--some of these sales being bona fide, and others fraudulent. In addition to this, the enemy kept five or six of his best ships of war constantly in pursuit of her, which necessarily weakened his blockade, for which, at this time, he was much pressed for ships. The expense to my Government of running the ship was next to nothing, being only $28,000, or about the price of one of the least valuable of her prizes. The Sumter was sold in the course of a month or two after being laid up, and being put under the English flag as a merchant-ship, made one voyage to the coast of the Confederate States, as a blockade-runner, entering the port of Charleston. Her new owner changed her name to that of Gibraltar. She was lost afterward in the North Sea, and her bones lie interred not far from those of the Alabama.

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Chapter XXVII

AUTHOR LEAVES GIBRALTAR, AND ARRIVES IN LONDON--MR. MASON--CONFEDERATE NAVAL NEWS--SOJOURN IN LONDON--AUTHOR EMBARKS ON BOARD THE STEAMER MELITA, FOR NASSAU--SOJOURN IN NASSAU--NEW ORDERS FROM THE NAVY DEPARTMENT--AUTHOR RETURNS TO LIVERPOOL--THE ALABAMA GONE.

We had been long enough in Gibraltar to make many warm friends, and some of these came on board the mail-steamer in which we had taken passage to take leave of us; among others, Captain Lambert, R. N., in command of her Majesty's steam frigate, the Scylla, to whom I am much indebted, for warm sympathy, and many acts of kindness. The captain was the son of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Lambert, whose hospitality I had enjoyed, for a single night, many years before, under peculiar circumstances. When the United States brig Somers was capsized and sunk, off Vera Cruz, and half her crew drowned, as briefly described some pages back, Sir Charles Lambert, then a captain, was in command of the sailing frigate Endymion, and it was on board that ship that I was carried, more dead than alive, on the evening of the fatal disaster. I recollect distinctly the plight in which I ascended the side of this English frigate. Like a waif which had been picked up from the sea, I had nothing on me but shirt and trousers, and these, as well as my hair, were dripping water. I had lost my ship only an hour or two before, and had witnessed the drowning of many helpless men, who had struggled in vain for their lives. My heart was oppressed with the weight of my misfortune, and my strength nearly exhausted. Sir Charles received me at the foot of the ladder, as I descended to the deck of his ship, as tenderly, and with as much genuine sympathy and compassion, as if I had been his own son, and taking me into his cabin, had my wants duly cared for. There are said to be secret chords of sympathy binding men together in spite of themselves. I know not how this may be, but I felt drawn toward the son of my benefactor, even before I knew him to be his son. I take this public mode of expressing to both father and son my thanks for the many obligations under which they have placed me.

As the swift and powerful steamer on which we were embarked, moved silently, but rapidly out of the harbor, in the evening twilight, I took a last, lingering look at the little Sumter. Her once peopled decks were now almost deserted, only a disconsolate old sailor or two being seen moving about on them, and the little ship herself, with her black hull, and black mast-heads and yards, the latter of which had been stripped of their sails, looked as if she had clad herself in mourning for our departure.

A pleasant passage of a few days carried us rapidly past the coasts of Spain, Portugal, and a portion of France, into the British Channel, and on the sixth day, we found ourselves in Southampton, which I was afterward destined to revisit, under such different circumstances. On the same night I slept in that great Babel, London. I remained in this city during the month of May, enjoying in a high degree, as the reader may suppose, the relaxation and ease consequent upon so great a change in my mode of life. There were no more enemies or gales of wind to disturb my slumbers; no intrusive officers to come into my bed-room at unseasonable hours, to report sails or land discovered, and no half drowned old quartermasters to poke their midnight lanterns into my face, and tell me, that the bow-ports were stove in, and the ship half full of water! If the storm raged without and the windows rattled, I took no notice of it, unless it was to turn over in my bed, and feel all the more comfortable, for my sense of security.

Kell and myself took rooms together, in Euston Square; our windows looking out, even at this early season, upon well-grown and fragrant grasses, trees in leaf, and flowers in bloom, all in the latitude of 52 deg. N.--thanks, as formerly remarked, to our American Gulf Stream. I called at once upon Mr. Mason, whom I had often seen in his seat in the Senate of the United States, as a Senator from the grand old State of Virginia, but whom I had never known personally. I found him a genial Virginia gentleman, with much bon hommie, and a great favorite with everybody. In his company I saw much of the society of the English capital, and soon became satisfied that Mr. Davis could not have intrusted the affairs of the Confederacy, to better hands. English hearts had warmed toward him, and his name was the sesame to open all English doors. I soon learned from him the status of Confederate States' naval affairs, on the European side of the Atlantic. The gun-boat Oreto, afterward the Florida, had sailed for Nassau, in the Bahamas, and the new ship being built by the Messrs. Laird at Birkenhead, was well on her way to completion. Other contracts were in hand, but nothing tangible had as yet been accomplished under them.

I had also interviews with Commander North, and Commander Bullock, agents of the Confederate States Navy Department, for the building and equipping of ships, in these waters. It being evident that there was nothing available for me, I determined to lose no time in returning to the Confederacy, and it was soon arranged that I should depart in the steamer Melita, an English steamer preparing to take a cargo of arms, ammunition, and clothing to Nassau. This ship belonged to the Messrs. Isaac, brothers, large blockade runners, who kindly tendered free passages to myself, and to my first lieutenant, and surgeon, who were to accompany me.

I trust the reader will pardon me--as I hope the family itself will if I intrude upon its privacy--if I mention before leaving London, one of those old English households, immortalized by the inimitable pen of Washington Irving. One day whilst I was sitting quietly, after breakfast, in my rooms at Euston Square, running over the column of American news, in the "Times," Commander North entered, and in company with him came a somewhat portly gentleman, with an unmistakable English face, and dressed in clerical garb--not over clerical either, for, but for his white cravat, and the cut of the collar of his coat, you would not have taken him for a clergyman at all. Upon being presented, this gentleman said to me, pleasantly, "I have come to take the Captain of the Sumter prisoner, and carry him off to my house, to spend a few days with me." I looked into the genial face of the speaker, and surrendered myself to him a captive at once. There was no mistaking the old-time English gentleman--though the gentleman himself was not past middle age--in the open countenance, and kindly expression of my new friend. Making some remarks to him about quiet, he said, "That is the very thing I propose to give you; you shall come to my house, stay as long as you please, go away when you please, and see nobody at all unless you please." I dined with him, the next day, in company with a few Confederate and English friends, and spent several days at his house--the ladies president of which were his mother and maiden sister. I shall return hereafter to this house, as the reader will see. It became, in fact, my English home, and was but little less dear to me than my own home in America. The name of the Rev. Francis W. Tremlett, of the "Parsonage, in Belsize Park, near Hampstead, London," dwells in my memory, and in that of every other Confederate who ever came in contact with him--and they are not few--like a household word.

We embarked on board the Melita in the latter part of May. The vessel had already dropped some distance down the Thames, and we went thither to join her by rail; one of the Messrs. Isaac accompanying us, to see us comfortably installed. The Melita was to make a bona fide voyage to Nassau, having no intention of running the blockade. I was particular to have this point settled beyond the possibility of dispute, so as to bring our capture, if the enemy should undertake it, within the precedent set by the Trent case. The Sumter having dared to capture and destroy Yankee ships upon the high seas, in defiance of President Lincoln's proclamation, denouncing her as a "pirate," had wounded the ridiculous vanity of the enemy past forgiveness, to say nothing of that other and sorer wound which resulted from the destruction of his property, and he was exceedingly anxious, in consequence, to get hold of me. I was resolved, therefore, that, if another zealous, but indiscreet Captain Wilkes should turn up, that another seven days of penance and tribulation should be imposed upon Mr. Secretary of State Seward. We were not molested, however, and after a pleasant run of about twenty days we entered the harbor of Nassau, about 2 P. M. on the 13th of June, 1862.

On the same evening of our arrival, I was quartered, with my small staff, in the Victoria Hotel, then thronged with guests, Federal and Confederate; for the Yankee, in obedience to his instincts of traffic, had scented the prey from afar, and was here to turn an honest penny, by assisting the Confederates to run the blockade! "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," and Nassau was a living witness of this old adage. The island of New Providence, of which Nassau is the only town, is a barren limestone rock, producing only some coarse grass, a few stunted trees, a few pine-apples and oranges, and a great many sand-crabs and "fiddlers." Before the war, it was the rendezvous of a few wreckers and fishermen. Commerce it had none, except such as might grow out of the sponge-trade, and the shipment of green turtle and conch-shells. The American war which has brought woe and wretchedness to so many of our States, was the wind which blew prosperity to Nassau.

It had already put on the air of a commercial city; its fine harbor being thronged with shipping, and its warehouses, wharves, and quays filled to repletion with merchandise. All was life, bustle, and activity. Ships were constantly arriving and depositing their cargoes, and light-draught steamers, Confederate and English, were as constantly reloading these cargoes, and running them into the ports of the Confederate States. The success which attended many of these little vessels is surprising. Some of them made their voyages, as regularly as mail packets, running, with impunity, through a whole fleet of the enemy's steamers. Notwithstanding this success, however, the enemy was reaping a rich harvest, for many valuable prizes fell into his hands. It soon became a bone of contention among the Federal naval officers, which of them should be assigned to the lucrative commands of the blockading squadrons. The admiral of one of these squadrons would frequently awake, in the morning, and find himself richer, by ten, twenty, or thirty thousand dollars, by reason of a capture made by some one of his subordinates, the night before. This was the "mess of pottage" for which so many unprincipled Southern men, in the Federal Navy, sold their "birthright."

Some of these men are enjoying princely fortunes, but they have purchased these fortunes at the price of treason, and of blood, and by selling into bondage to the stranger, the people of their native States. Whilst poor old Virginia, for example, the "mother of States and statesmen," is wearing the chains of a captive, and groaning under the tortures inflicted upon her, by her hereditary enemy, the Puritan, some of her sons are counting the "thirty pieces of silver" for which they sold her! "Pity 'tis, but pity 'tis, 'tis true." These gentlemen may wrap themselves in as many folds of the "old flag" as they please, and talk as glibly as any Yankee, of the great Federal "nation" which has swallowed up the States, but future generations, if their ignoble names should descend so far down the stream of time, will unwind these folds from about them, as we have unwound from the mummy, its folds of fine linen, and expose the corruption and deformity beneath.

I found several Confederate naval officers at Nassau--among others Commander J. N. Maffitt, who had been assigned to the command of the Oreto, afterward to become famous as the Florida; and Commander G. T. Sinclair, who had been kind enough, as the reader may recollect, to send me my guns for the Sumter, from the Norfolk Navy Yard. Captain Sinclair was recently from the Confederate States, and had brought me a letter from Mr. Mallory, the Secretary of the Navy, which put a material change upon the face of affairs, so far as I was personally concerned. I was directed by this letter, to return to Europe, and assume command of the new ship which was being built on the Mersey, to be called the Alabama. My reply to this letter, dated at Nassau, on the 15th of June, will put the reader in possession of this new programme. It is as follows:--

NASSAU, NEW PROVIDENCE, June 15, 1862.

SIR:--I have the honor to inform you of my arrival here, on the 8th inst., in twenty days from London. I found here Lieutenants Maffitt and Sinclair, and have received your letter of May 29th, enclosing a copy of your despatch to me, of May 2d. As you may conclude, from the fact of my being here, the original of the latter communication [assigning me to the command of the Alabama] has not reached me; nor indeed has any other communication from the Department, since I left the mouths of the Mississippi, in June, 1861. As you anticipated, it became necessary for me to lay the Sumter up, in consequence of my being hemmed in, by the enemy, in a place where it was impossible to put the necessary repairs upon my boilers, to enable me to take the sea again; and where, moreover, it was impossible, without long delay and expense, to obtain a supply of coal. * * * [Here follows a description of the laying up of the ship, which the reader has already seen.]

Upon my arrival in London, I found that the Oreto had been dispatched, some weeks before, to this place; and Commander Bullock having informed me that he had your order assigning him to the command of the second ship he was building [the Alabama], I had no alternative but to return to the Confederate States for orders. It is due to Commander Bullock to say, however, that he offered to place himself entirely under my instructions, and even to relinquish to me the command of the new ship; but I did not feel at liberty to interfere with your orders.

While in London, I ascertained that a number of steamers were being prepared to run the blockade, with arms and other supplies for the Confederate States, and, instead of dispatching my officers at once for these States, I left them to take charge of the ships mentioned, as they should be gotten ready for sea, and run them in to their several destinations--deeming this the best service they could render the Government, under the circumstances. I came hither, myself, accompanied by my first lieutenant and surgeon--Kell and Galt--a passenger in the British steamer Melita, whose cargo of arms and supplies is also destined for the Confederate States. It is fortunate that I made this arrangement, as many of my officers still remain in London, and I shall return thither in time to take most of them with me to the Alabama.

In obedience to your order, assigning me to the command of this ship, I will return by the first conveyance to England, where the joint energies of Commander Bullock and myself will be directed to the preparation of the ship for sea. I will take with me Lieutenant Kell, Surgeon Galt, and First Lieutenant of Marines Howell--Mr. Howell and Lieutenant Stribling having reached Nassau a few days before me, in the British steamer Bahama, laden with arms, clothing, and stores for the Confederacy. At the earnest entreaty of Lieutenant-Commanding Maffitt, I have consented to permit Lieutenant Stribling to remain with him, as his first lieutenant on board the Oreto (Florida)--the officers detailed for that vessel not yet having arrived. Mr. Stribling's place on board the Alabama will be supplied by Midshipman Armstrong, promoted, whom I will recall from Gibraltar, where I left him in charge of the Sumter. It will, doubtless, be a matter of some delicacy, and tact, to get the Alabama safely out of British waters, without suspicion, as Mr. Adams, the Northern Envoy, and his numerous satellites in the shape of consuls and paid agents, are exceedingly vigilant in their espionage.

We cannot, of course, think of arming her in a British port; this must be done at some concerted rendezvous, to which her battery, and a large portion of her crew must be sent, in a neutral merchant-vessel. The Alabama will be a fine ship, quite equal to encounter any of the enemy's steam-sloops, of the class of the Iroquois, Tuscarora, and Dacotah, and I shall feel much more independent in her, upon the high seas, than I did in the little Sumter.

I think well of your suggestion of the East Indies, as a cruising ground, and I hope to be in the track of the enemy's commerce, in those seas, as early as October or November next; when I shall, doubtless, be able to lay other rich "burnt offerings" upon the altar of our country's liberties.

Lieutenant Sinclair having informed me that you said, in a conversation with him, that I might dispose of the Sumter, either by laying her up, or selling her, as my judgment might approve, I will, unless I receive contrary orders from you, dispose of her by sale, upon my arrival in Europe. As the war is likely to continue for two or three years yet, it would be a useless expense to keep a vessel so comparatively worthless, so long at her anchors. I will cause to be sent to the Alabama, the Sumter's chronometers, and other nautical instruments and charts, and the remainder of her officers and crew.

In conclusion, permit me to thank you for this new proof of your confidence, and for your kind intention to nominate me as one of the "Captains," under the new navy bill. I trust I shall prove myself worthy of these marks of your approbation.

I was delayed several very anxious weeks in Nassau, waiting for an opportunity to return to Europe. The Alabama, I knew, was nearly ready for sea, and it was all-important that she should be gotten out of British waters, as speedily as possible, because of the espionage to which I have referred. But there was no European-bound vessel in Nassau, and I was forced to wait. Lieutenant Sinclair having had a passage offered him, in an English steamer of war, as far as Halifax, availed himself of the invitation, intending to take the mail-steamer from Halifax for England. As he would probably arrive a week or two in advance of myself, I wrote to Captain Bullock by him, informing him of my having been appointed to the command of the Alabama, and requesting him to hurry that ship off to her rendezvous, without waiting for me. I could join her at her rendezvous. As the reader will hereafter see, this was done.

I passed the time of my enforced delay at Nassau, as comfortably as possible. The hotel was spacious and airy, and the sea-breeze being pretty constant, we did not suffer much from the heat. I amused myself, watching from my windows, with the aid of an excellent glass, the movements of the blockade-runners. One of these vessels went out, and another returned, every two or three days; the returning vessel always bringing us late newspapers from the Confederacy. The fare of the hotel was excellent, particularly the fish and fruits, and the landlord was accommodating and obliging. With Maffitt, Kell, Galt, Stribling, and other Confederate officers, and some very pretty and musical Confederate ladies, whose husbands and brothers were engaged in the business of running the blockade, the time would have passed pleasantly enough, but for the anxiety which I felt about my future movements.

Maffitt, in particular, was the life of our household. He knew everybody, and everybody knew him, and he passed in and out of all the rooms, sans ceremonie, at all hours. Being a jaunty, handsome fellow, young enough, in appearance, to pass for the elder brother of his son, a midshipman who was to go with me to the Alabama, he was a great favorite with the ladies. He was equally at home, with men or women, it being all the same to him, whether he was wanted to play a game of billiards, take a hand at whist, or join in a duet with a young lady--except that he had the good taste always to prefer the lady. Social, gay, and convivial, he was much courted and flattered, and there was scarcely ever a dining or an evening party, at which he was not present. But this was the mere outside glitter of the metal. Beneath all this bagatelle and dolce far niente, Maffitt was a remarkable man. At the first blast of war, like a true Southerner--he was a North Carolinian by birth--he relinquished a fine property in the city of Washington, which was afterward confiscated by the enemy, resigned his commission in the Federal Navy, and came South, to tender his services to his native State. Unlike many other naval men, he had the capacity to understand the nature of the Government under which he lived, and the honesty to give his allegiance, in a cross-fire of allegiances, where his judgment told him it was due.

He was a perfect master of his profession, not only in its practical, but in its more scientific branches, and could handle his ship like a toy. Brave, cool, and full of resource, he was equal to any and every emergency that could present itself in a sailor's life. He made a brilliant cruise in the Florida, and became more famous as a skilful blockade-runner than any other man in the war. This man, whose character I have not at all overdrawn, was pursued by the Yankee, after his resignation, with a vindictiveness and malignity peculiarly Puritan--to his honor be it said. With Maury, Buchanan, and other men of that stamp, who have been denounced with equal bitterness, his fame will survive the filth thrown upon it by a people who seem to be incapable of understanding or appreciating noble qualities in an enemy, and devoid of any other standard by which to try men's characters, than their own sectional prejudices. We should rather pity than contemn men who have shown, both during and since the war, so little magnanimity as our late enemies have done. The savage is full of prejudices, because he is full of ignorance. His intellectual horizon is necessarily limited; he sees but little, and judges only by what he sees. His own little world is the world, and he tries all the rest of mankind by that standard. Cruel in war, he is revengeful and implacable in peace. Better things are ordinarily expected of civilized men. Education and civilization generally dispel these savage traits. They refine and soften men, and implant in their bosoms the noble virtues of generosity and magnanimity. The New England Puritan seems to have been, so far as we may judge him by the traits which have been developed in him during and since the war, an exception to this rule. With all his pretensions to learning, and amid all the appliances of civilization by which he has surrounded himself, he is still the same old Plymouth Rock man, that his ancestor was, three centuries ago. He is the same gloomy, saturnine fanatic; he has the same impatience of other men's opinions, and is the same vindictive tyrant that he was when he expelled Roger Williams from his dominions. The cockatrice's egg has hatched a savage, in short, that refuses to be civilized.

The Oreto was in court whilst I was in Nassau; the Attorney-General of the colony having libelled her for a breach of the British Foreign Enlistment Act. After a long and tedious trial, during which it was proved that she had left England unarmed, and unprovided with a warlike crew, she was released, very much to the gratification of my friend, Maffitt, who had been anxiously awaiting the result of the trial. This energetic officer throwing himself and Stribling on board of her, with such other officers and men as he could gather on short notice, ran the blockade of the enemy's cruisers, the following night, and the next morning found himself on the high seas, with just five firemen, and fourteen deck hands! His hope was to get his armament on board, and after otherwise preparing his ship for sea, to recruit his crew from the neutral sailors always to be found on board the enemy's merchant-ships.

Arriving at Green Key, the rendezvous, which had been concerted between himself, and our agent at Nassau, Mr. J. B. Lafitte, he was joined by a schooner, on board which his battery and stores had been shipped, and forthwith set himself at work to arm and equip his ship. So short-handed was he, that he was obliged to strip off his own coat, and in company with his officers and men, assist at the stay-tackles, in hoisting in his heavy guns. The work was especially laborious, under the ardent rays of an August sun, but they toiled on, and at the end of five days of incessant labor, which well-nigh exhausted all their energies, they were enabled to dismiss their tender, and steam out upon the ocean, and put their ship in commission. The English flag, which the Oreto had worn, was hauled down, and amid the cheers of the crews of the two vessels, the Confederate States flag was hoisted to the peak of the Florida.

A number of the men by this time, were unwell. Their sickness was attributed to the severity of the labor they had undergone, in the excessive heats that were prevailing. The Captain's steward died, and was buried on the afternoon on which the ship was commissioned. At sunset of that day, Captain Maffitt called Lieutenant Stribling into his cabin, and imparted to him the startling intelligence that the yellow fever was on board! The sick, now constantly increasing in number, were separated from the well, and the quarter-deck became a hospital. There being no surgeon on board, Maffitt was compelled to assume the duties of this officer, in addition to his own, already onerous. He devoted himself with untiring zeal to the welfare of his stricken crew, without intermission, by night or by day. On the fifth day after leaving Green Key, the Florida found herself off the little island of Anguila. By this time the epidemic had reduced her working crew to one fireman, and four deck hands.

It was now no longer possible to keep the sea, and Maffitt evading the blockade of the enemy--a happy chance having drawn them off in chase--ran his ship into the port of Cardenas, in the island of Cuba. Here he was received kindly by the authorities and citizens, but as the yellow fever was epidemic on shore, no medical aid could be obtained. Stribling was now dispatched to Havana for a surgeon, and to ship a few men, if possible. Helpless and sad, the suffering little crew awaited his return. One by one, the officers were attacked by the disease, until Maffitt was left almost alone, to nurse, and administer remedies to the patients. But things were not yet at their worst. On the 13th of August, Maffitt was himself attacked. On the afternoon of that day he sent for his clerk, and when the young gentleman had entered his cabin, said to him: "I've written directions in regard to the sick, and certain orders in relation to the vessel; also some private letters, which you will please take charge of." Upon the clerk's asking him why this was done, he informed him that "he had all the symptoms of yellow fever, and as he was already much broken down, he might not survive the attack." He had made all the necessary preparations for his own treatment, giving minute written directions to those around him how to proceed, and immediately betook himself to his bed--the fever already flushing his cheeks, and parching his veins. There was now, indeed, nothing but wailing and woe on board the little Florida.

In two or three days Stribling returned from Havana, bringing with him twelve men; and on the day after his return, Dr. Barrett, of Georgia, hearing of their helpless condition, volunteered his services, and became surgeon of the ship. On the 22d, young Laurens, the captain's son--whilst his father was unconscious--breathed his last; black vomit having assailed him, in twenty-four hours after he had been taken down with the fever; so virulent had the disease now become. He was a fine, brave, promising lad, greatly beloved, and deeply regretted by all. On the 23d, the Third Assistant Engineer died. The sick were now sent to the hospital on shore, and nearly all of them died. Dr. Gilliard, surgeon of a Spanish gun-boat in the harbor, now visited the Captain, and was exceedingly kind to him. On the 24th, a consultation of physicians was held, and it was decided that Maffitt's case was hopeless. But it so happened that the disease just then had reached its crisis, and a favorable change had taken place. The patient had not spoken for three days, and greatly to the surprise of all present, after one of the physicians had given his opinion, he opened his eyes, now beaming with intelligence, and said in a languid voice: "You are all mistaken--I have got too much to do, and have no time to die."

He convalesced from that moment. On the 28th, Major Helm, our agent in Havana, telegraphed that, for certain reasons, the Captain-General desired that the Florida would come round to Havana, and remain until the health of her crew should be restored. The Captain-General probably feared that in an undefended port like Cardenas, some violence might be committed upon the Florida by the Federal cruisers, in violation of Spanish neutrality. Accordingly, on the 30th the Florida got under way, and proceeded for Havana, where she arrived the next day. The reader naturally wonders, no doubt, where the Federal cruisers were, all this time. Maffitt remained here only a day, finding it impossible, owing to the stringent orders of neutrality that were being enforced, to do anything in the way of increasing his crew, or refitting his ship. Getting his ship under way, again on the 1st of September, he now resolved to run into Mobile. At two P. M. on the 4th of that month Fort Morgan was made, when it was found that three of the enemy's cruisers lay between the Florida and the bar. Maffitt was assisted on deck, being too weak yet to move without assistance. Having determined that his ship should not fall into the hands of the enemy, he had made suitable preparations for blowing her up, if it should become necessary. He now hoisted the English ensign and pennant, and stood boldly on. His very boldness staggered the enemy. He must certainly be, they thought, an English gunboat. The Oneida, the flag-ship of Commander Preble, the commanding officer of the blockading squadron, attempted to throw herself in the Florida's path, first having hailed her and commanded her to stop. But the latter held on her course so determinedly, that the former, to prevent being run down, was obliged to stop, herself, and reverse her engine.

Preble, now undeceived as to the possibility of the Florida's being an Englishman, opened fire upon her, as did the other two ships. The Oneida's broadside, delivered from a distance of a few yards only, cut away the Florida's hammocks, smashed her boats, and shattered some of her spars. The three enemy's vessels now grouped themselves around the daring little craft, and fired broadside after broadside at her, during the chase which ensued. One eleven-inch shell entering the Florida's side, only a few inches above the water-line, passed entirely through her, before the fuse had time to explode it. If the enemy had been a little farther off, the Florida must have been torn in pieces by the explosion. Another shell entered the cabin. The fore-topmast and fore-gaff were shot away. In short, when it is recollected that she was nearly two hours under this tremendous fire, the wonder is that she escaped with a whole spar, or a whole timber.

Maffitt, meantime, had not cast loose a gun. He had no crew with which to man his battery. What few sailors he had, he had sent below, except only the man at the wheel, that they might be less exposed. But they were not safe, even here, for the shell which we have described as passing through the ship, took off one man's head, and seven others were wounded by splinters. My ex-lieutenant of the Sumter, Stribling, merited, on this occasion, the praise I have bestowed on him, in drawing his portrait. He is described by an eye-witness to have been as cool and self-possessed, as if there had been no enemy within a hundred miles of him. To make a long story short, the gallant little Florida finally escaped her pursuers, and, in a shattered condition, ran in and anchored near Fort Morgan. As the reader may suppose, her English flag was exchanged for her own stars and bars, as soon as the enemy opened upon her. This was the most daring and gallant running of a blockade that occurred during a war so fruitful of daring and gallant acts. After repairing and refitting his vessel, my gallant friend dashed again through the enemy's fleet, now much increased in numbers, and commenced that career on the high seas, which has rendered his name one of the notable ones of the war. He lighted the seas with a track of fire, wherever he passed, and sent consternation and alarm among the enemy's shipping. A correspondent of a Northern paper, writing from Havana, thus speaks of Maffitt and his craft:--

"The rebel man-of-war, privateer or pirate Florida, otherwise known as the Oreto, has safely arrived in this port, although she was chased up to the very walls of the Moro Castle by the Mobile blockading squadron, nine in number. The chase was a most exciting one, but, unfortunately, without the result so much to be desired.

"It appears that the pirate Maffitt came out of the port of Mobile with as much impudence as he entered it. The steamer seems to have been well punished with shot and shell from the Federal ships, and it is reported that she lost her first lieutenant, and sixteen men killed by a shell from one of the men-of-war.

* * * * *

"From reliable information, I am enabled to state, or, rather, I am convinced, that this vessel will sail for the East Indies in a few days. Our Government had better look out for her advent in those waters. Captain Maffitt is no ordinary character. He is vigorous, energetic, bold, quick, and dashing, and the sooner he is caught and hung, the better will it be for the interests of our commercial community. He is decidedly popular here, and you can scarcely imagine the anxiety evinced to get a glance at him."

We may return now to the movements of the writer. After long waiting at Nassau, the Bahama, the steamer in which Stribling and Howell had come over from Hamburg, was ready to return, and I embarked on board of her, with my staff, and after a passage of some three weeks, landed in Liverpool, just in time to find that the bird had flown. The Alabama had steamed a few days before, for her rendezvous, where, in due time, we will follow her.

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Chapter XXVIII

A BRIEF RESUME OF THE HISTORY OF THE WAR, BETWEEN THE COMMISSIONING OF THE SUMTER AND THE COMMISSIONING OF THE ALABAMA--SECRETARY MALLORY, AND THE DIFFICULTIES BY WHICH HE WAS SURROUNDED--THE REORGANIZATION OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES NAVY.

Although, as before remarked, I design only to write a history of my own proceedings, during the late war, yet it will be necessary, to enable the reader to understand these proceedings correctly, to run a mere thread of the general history of the war along parallel with them. I have done this up to the date of commissioning the Sumter. It will now be necessary to take up the thread again, and bring it down to the commissioning of the Alabama. I shall do this very briefly, barely enumerating the principal military events, without attempting to describe them, and glancing very cursorily at the naval events.

We ran the blockade of the Mississippi, in the Sumter, as has been seen, on the 30th of June, 1861. In July of that year, the first great battle of Manassas was fought, to which allusion has already been made. This battle gave us great prestige in Europe, and contributed very much to the respect with which the little Sumter had been received by foreign powers. A long military pause now ensued. The enemy had been so astonished and staggered by this blow, that it took him some time to recover from its effects. He, however, turned it to useful account, and set himself at work with great patience, and diligence, at the same time, to collect and thoroughly drill new troops. The victory, on the other hand, had an unfavorable effect upon our own people, in giving them an undue impression of their superiority over their enemy, and lulling them into supineness.

During the summer of 1861, two naval expeditions were fitted out, by the enemy, and sent to operate against our coast. The first of these expeditions, under command of Commodore Stringham, captured two hastily constructed, and imperfect earth-works at Hatteras Inlet on the coast of North Carolina, and made a lodgement on Pamlico Sound. The capture of these works, is no otherwise remarkable, in a naval point of view, than for the circumstance that a Confederate States naval officer fell into the hands of the enemy, for the first time during the war. Commodore Samuel Barron, of the Confederate States Navy, commanded the forts, and surrendered, after a gallant resistance, to the overwhelming force which assaulted him, on condition that he should be treated as a prisoner of war. The battle of Manassas had occurred to humble the pride, and appeal to the fears of the enemy, and the condition named by Barron was readily assented to. The other naval expedition, under command of Commodore Dupont, captured Port Royal, in South Carolina as mentioned in a former page. The "Trent Affair," already described, came off in November, 1861, and Commodore Hollins' attack upon the enemy's fleet at the mouths of the Mississippi, in which he gave him such a scare, occurred, as already related, in October of the same year. This brings us to the close of the first year of the war.

The year 1862 was big with events, which we will, for the most part, merely string on our thread. The Confederates, in the beginning of the year, occupied a position at Bowling Green, in Kentucky, which was seemingly a strong position, with railroad communication, in their rear, with all parts of the South, but they could not hold it, for the simple reason, that the enemy, having command of the western rivers by means of his superior naval force, penetrated into their rear, and thus compelled a retreat. When the enemy, by means of his gun-boats, could send armies up the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, to the heart of Tennessee and Alabama, it was folly to think of holding Bowling Green, with our limited forces. Our army fell back to Nashville, and even abandoned that city, after the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, which were captured by the Federal forces, in February, 1862.

The evacuation of all these points, one after another, and afterward the loss of Island No. 10, on the Mississippi, and New Madrid, were serious blows for us. But our disasters did not end here. The battle of Shiloh followed, in which we were defeated, and compelled to retreat, after we had, to all appearance, gained a victory almost complete on the first day of the fight. Naval disasters accompanied, or followed our disasters upon the land. Early in 1862, a naval expedition of the enemy, under the command of Commodore Goldsborough, entered Pamlico Sound, and captured Roanoke Island. Commodore Lynch, of the Confederate States Navy, with six or seven small, ill-armed gunboats, which had been improvised from light and frail river steamers, assisted in the defence of the island, but was obliged to withdraw before the superior forces of the enemy. The enemy, pursuing his advantages, followed Lynch's retreating fleet to Elizabeth City, in North Carolina, where he captured or destroyed it.

The enemy was now not only in possession of the western waters--Vicksburg and Port Hudson alone obstructing his free navigation of the Mississippi as far down as New Orleans--but Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, in North Carolina, and the bay of Port Royal in South Carolina and Georgia, were open to him. To complete the circle of our disasters, New Orleans was captured by Farragut and Porter, in April--the small Confederate fleet under Commodore John K. Mitchell, making a gallant but disastrous defence, in which it was totally destroyed, with great loss of life of both officers and men.

Let us turn now to a more pleasing picture; for all was not disaster for the Confederates, during the year 1862. In March of that year, the memorable naval engagement occurred in Hampton Roads, between the Confederate States iron-clad steamer Virginia, and the enemy's fleet, resulting in the destruction, by the Virginia, of two of the enemy's wooden frigates. Great consternation and alarm were produced in the enemy's fleet, and at Fortress Monroe, by Admiral Buchanan and his armored ship, as well there might be, for the ship was perfectly invulnerable, and but for her great draught of water, might have destroyed or driven off the whole Federal fleet. Our people were greatly elated by this victory, coming as it did, in the midst of so many disasters. It attracted great attention in Europe, also, as being decisive of the fate of all the old-time wooden ships, which had, up to that period, composed the navies of the world. It so happened, that the Federals had completed the first of their Monitors, at this very time, and this little iron ship, arriving opportunely, engaged the Virginia on the second day of the fight. Like her great antagonist, she, too, was invulnerable, and the result was a drawn battle. From this time onward, the enemy multiplied his armored ships very rapidly, and it is scarcely too much to say, that he is almost wholly indebted to them, for his success in the war.

Another very creditable affair for the Confederates came off on the 15th of May. In the interval between the fight of the Virginia, with the enemy's fleet in Hampton Roads, and the day last named, Norfolk had been evacuated, and the Virginia, which had passed under the command of Commodore Tatnall, was blown up. The consequence was that the James River was open to the navigation of the enemy. Taking advantage of this state of things, five of the enemy's gunboats, two of which were iron-clad, ascended the river, with intent to reach, and shell Richmond, if practicable. They met with no serious obstruction, or any opposition, until they reached Drury's Bluff. Here the river had been obstructed, and a Confederate earth-work erected. The earth-work was commanded by Captain Eben Farrand, of the Confederate States Navy, who had some sailors and marines under him. The Federal fleet having approached within 600 yards, opened fire upon the fort, which it kept up for the space of three hours. It was so roughly handled, however, by Farrand and his sailors, that at the end of that time, it was obliged to retire, with several of its vessels seriously damaged. No further attempt was made during the war, to reach Richmond by means of iron-clads; the dose which Farrand had given them was quite sufficient.

But the greatest of all the triumphs which crowned the Confederate arms during this year of 1862, were the celebrated campaigns of Stonewall Jackson, in the Shenandoah Valley, and the seven days' fighting before Richmond. I will barely string these events, as I pass along. Banks, Fremont, and Shields, of the enemy, were all operating in this valley, with forces greatly outnumbering those of Jackson. The latter, by a series of rapid and masterly movements, fell upon his enemies, one after the other, and defeated them all; Banks, in particular, who having been bred to civil life, was devoid of all military training, and apparently wanting, even, in that first and most common requisite of a soldier, courage, flying in disorder, and abandoning to his pursuer all the supplies and materiel of a large and well-appointed army. Such frantic efforts did he make to escape from Jackson, that he marched thirty-five miles in a single day; passing through the good old town of Winchester, which he had formerly occupied, with so many signs of trepidation and alarm, that the citizens received him and his troops, with shouts of derisive laughter!

The enemy, after his defeat at Manassas, put General McClellan in command of the Army of the Potomac, and the balance of the year 1861 was devoted, by this officer, to the collecting and drilling of troops. In the spring of 1862, he landed at Fortress Monroe, with a splendidly appointed army of 90,000 men, provided with 55 batteries of artillery, consisting of 350 field pieces. Magruder held him in check, for some time, with 11,000 men, which enabled the Confederate commanders to gather together their forces, for the defence of Richmond. He moved at length, was checked a while at Williamsburg, by Longstreet, but finally deployed his immense forces on the banks of the Chickahominy.

A series of battles now took place, commencing on the 30th of May, and extending through the month of June, which resulted in the raising of the siege, and the total rout and precipitate retreat of the Federal commander. I will barely enumerate these battles, as follows: Seven Pines; Mechanicsville and Beaver Dam; Gaines' Mills; Savage Station; Frazer's Farm; and Malvern Hill;--names sufficient alone to cover the Confederate cause with immortal glory, in the minds of all true men, as the highest qualities of courage, endurance, patriotism, and self-sacrifice, that any men could be capable of, were exhibited on those fields, destined to become classic in American annals.

Following up the defeat of McClellan, by Johnston and Lee, Stonewall Jackson gained his splendid victory of the Second Manassas over Pope; defeating him with great loss, and driving him before him to the gates of Washington. Thus, notwithstanding our disasters in the West and South, an entirely new face had been put upon the war in Virginia. The enemy's capital, instead of Richmond, was in danger, and McClellan was hastily withdrawn from Fortress Monroe, for its defence.

We must now pause, for we have brought the thread of the war down to the commissioning of the Alabama, and the reader will see with what forebodings, as well as hopes, we took the sea, in that ship. The war may be said now to have been at its height. Both the belligerents were thoroughly aroused, and a few blows, well struck, on the water, might be of great assistance. I resolved to attempt to strike these blows.

A few words, now, as to the status of the Confederate States Navy. As remarked in the opening of these memoirs, the Confederate States had no navy at the beginning of the war, and the South being almost entirely agricultural, with few or no ships, and but little external commerce, except such as was conducted in Northern bottoms, had but very indifferent means of creating one. Whilst the North was one busy hive of manufacturing industry, with its ship-yards and work-shops, resounding, by night and by day, with the busy strokes of the hammer, the adze, and the caulking-iron; whilst its steam-mills and foundries were vomiting forth their thick smoke from their furnaces, and deafening the ears of their workmen by the din of the trip-hammer and the whirr of the lathe; and whilst foreign material of every description was flowing into open ports, the South had neither ship-yards nor work-shops, steam-mills nor foundries, except on the most limited scale, and all her ports were as good as hermetically sealed, so far as the introduction of the heavy materials of which she stood in need was concerned.

It will be seen what a difficult task the Secretary of the Navy had before him, and how unjust are many of the censures that were cast upon him, by persons unconversant with naval affairs. Indeed, it is rather a matter of surprise, that so much was accomplished with our limited means. Work-shops and foundries were improvised, wherever it was possible to establish them; but the great difficulty was the want of the requisite heavy machinery. We had not the means, in the entire Confederacy, of turning out a complete steam-engine, of any size, and many of our naval disasters are attributable to this deficiency. Well-constructed steamers, that did credit to the Navy Department and its agents, were forced to put to sea, and to move about upon our sounds and harbors, with engines disproportioned to their size, and incapable of driving them at a speed greater than five miles the hour.

The casting of cannon, and the manufacture of small arms, were also undertaken by the Secretary, under the direction of skilful officers, and prosecuted to considerable efficiency. But it took time to accomplish all these things. Before a ship could be constructed, it was necessary to hunt up the requisite timber, and transport it considerable distances. Her armor, if she was to be armored, was to be rolled also at a distance, and transported over long lines of railroad, piecemeal; her cordage was to be picked up at one place, and her sails and hammocks at another. I speak knowingly on this subject, as I had had experience of many of the difficulties I mention, in fitting out the Sumter in New Orleans. I was two months in preparing this small ship for sea, practising, all the while, every possible diligence and contrivance. The Secretary had other difficulties to contend with. By the time he had gotten many of his ship-yards well established, and ships well on their way to completion, the enemy would threaten the locus in quo, by land, and either compel him to attempt to remove everything movable, in great haste, and at great loss, or destroy it, to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy. Many fine ships were, in this way, burned on the very eve of completion.

It must be recollected, too, that in the early days of the war, we had no finances. These were to be improvised along with other things. I travelled to the North, on the mission which has been described in these pages, on money borrowed from a private banker. If we had had plenty of funds in the beginning of the war, it is possible that we might have accomplished more than we did, in Europe, in the matter of getting out ships to prey upon the enemy's commerce--that is, in the way of purchase, for it soon became evident, from the experience we had had, in building the Alabama, and other ships contracted for by the Navy Department, that we could not rely upon constructing them. The neutral powers became too watchful, and were too much afraid of the Federal power. When the Government did put the Secretary in funds, several months had elapsed, the war had begun, the coast was blockaded, and all the nations of Europe were on the alert.

With reference to the personnel of the Navy, a few words will describe the changes which had taken place in its organization, since I last referred to the subject. It will be recollected that it then consisted of but four captains, four commanders, and about thirty lieutenants, and that the writer was the junior, but one, of the four commanders. A considerable accession was made to the navy-list, as Virginia, North Carolina, and other States seceded, and joined their fortunes with those of their more impulsive sisters, the Cotton States. A number of old officers, past service, disdaining to eat the bread of ignoble pensioners upon the bounty of the Northern States, which were seeking to subjugate the States of their birth or adoption, came South, bringing with them nothing but their patriotism and their gray hairs. These all took rank, as has been remarked, according to the positions they had held in the old service. These old gentlemen, whilst they would have commanded, with great credit, fleets and squadrons of well-appointed and well-officered ships, were entirely unsuited for such service as the Confederacy could offer them. It became necessary, in consequence, to re-organize the Navy; and although this was not done until May, 1863, some months after the Alabama was commissioned, I will anticipate the subject here, to avoid the necessity of again referring to it. I had been promoted to the rank of captain in the Regular Navy, in the summer of 1862. The Act of May, 1863, established what was called the Provisional Navy; the object being, without interfering with the rank of the officers in the Regular Navy, to cull out from that navy-list, younger and more active men, and put them in the Provisional Navy, with increased rank. The Regular Navy became, thus, a kind of retired list, and the Secretary of the Navy was enabled to accomplish his object of bringing forward younger officers for active service, without wounding the feelings of the older officers, by promoting their juniors over their heads, on the same list. As late as December, 1861, we had had no admirals in our Navy. On the 24th of that month, the Act organizing the Navy was so amended, as to authorize the appointment of four officers of this grade. There was but one of these admirals appointed, up to the time of which I am writing--Buchanan, who was promoted for his gallant fight in the Virginia, with the enemy's fleet in Hampton Roads. Buchanan, being already an admiral in the Regular Navy, was now transferred to the Provisional Navy, with the same rank; and the captains' list of this latter Navy was so arranged that Barron stood first on it, and myself second. I was thus, the third in rank in the Provisional Navy, soon after I hoisted my pennant on board the Alabama. In reviewing these matters, my only regret now is, that the older officers of whom I have spoken, and who made so many sacrifices for principle--sacrifices that have hastened several of them to the tomb, were not made admirals on the regular or retired list. The honors would have been barren, it is true, as no commands, commensurate with the rank, could have been given them, but the bestowal of the simple title would have been a compliment, no more than due to veterans, who had commanded squadrons in the old service, and who had abandoned all for the sake of their States. The reader is now in a condition to accompany me, whilst I describe to him the commissioning of the Alabama.

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Chapter XXIX

THE LEGALITY OF THE EQUIPMENT OF THE ALABAMA, AND A FEW PRECEDENTS FOR HER CAREER, DRAWN FROM THE HISTORY OF THE WAR OF 1776.

Before I read my commission on the quarter-deck of the Alabama, I desire to say a word or two as to the legality of her equipment, and to recall to the recollection of the reader a few of the incidents of the war of the Revolution of 1776, to show how inconsistent our Northern brethren have been, in the denunciations they have hurled against that ship. Mr. Seward, the Federal Secretary of State, and Mr. Charles Francis Adams, who was the United States Minister at the Court of St. James, during the late war between the States, have frequently lost their temper, when they have spoken of the Alabama, and denounced her as a "pirate." In cooler moments, when they come to read over the intemperate despatches they have been betrayed into writing, they will probably be ashamed of them themselves; since these despatches not only contradict the truth of history, and set at defiance the laws of nations, but stultify themselves in important particulars.

Great stress has been laid, by both of these gentlemen, on the foreign origin of the Alabama, forgetting entirely, not only what was done by their ancestors in the war of 1776, but what was attempted to be done by Mr. Gideon Welles, their own Secretary of the Navy, in the year of grace 1861. I will refresh their memories on both these points, and first, as to the latter. Mr. Welles attempted to do, nothing more nor less than the Confederate States Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Mallory, did in the matter of building the Alabama--that is to say, he endeavored to build some Alabamas in England himself, but failed! This little episode in the history of the Federal Navy Department is curious, and worthy of being preserved as a practical commentary on so much of the despatches of Messrs. Seward and Adams, as relates to the foreign origin of my ship. The facts were published soon after their occurrence, and have not been, and cannot be denied. They were given to the public by Mr. Laird, the gentleman who built the Alabama, and who was the party with whom the Federal Navy Department endeavored to treat.

Mr. Laird was a member of the British Parliament, and having been abused, without stint, as an aider and abettor of "pirates," by the Northern newspapers, as soon as it became known that he was the builder of the Alabama, he made a speech in the House of Commons, in defence of himself, in the course of which he stated the fact I have charged, to wit: that Mr. Welles endeavored to make a contract with him, for building some Federal Alabamas. Here is so much of his speech as is necessary to establish the charge:--"In 1861," said he, "just after the war broke out, a friend of mine, whom I have known for many years, was over here, and came to me with a view of getting vessels built in this country, for the American Government--the Northern Government. Its agent in this country made inquiries; plans and estimates were given to my friend, and transmitted to the Secretary of the American Navy. I will read an abstract from this gentleman's letter, dated the 30th of July, 1861. It is written from Washington, and states:--'Since my arrival here, I have had frequent interviews with our Department of Naval Affairs, and am happy to say that the Minister of the Navy is inclined to have an iron-plated ship built out of the country. This ship is designed for a specific purpose, to accomplish a definite object. I send you, herewith, a memorandum handed me last evening from the Department, with the request that I would send it to you, by steamer's mail of to-morrow, and ask your immediate reply, stating if you will agree to build such a ship as desired, how soon, and for how much, with such plans and specifications as you may deem it best to send me.' The extract from the memorandum states, that the ship is to be finished complete, with guns and everything appertaining. On the 14th of August, I received another letter from the same gentleman, from which the following is an extract:--'I have this morning a note from the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, in which he says, "I hope your friends will tender for the two iron-plated steamers."' After this, the firm with which I was lately connected, having made contracts to a large extent with other persons, stated that they were not in a condition to undertake any orders to be done in so short a time. This was the reply:--'I sent your last letter, received yesterday, to the Secretary of the Navy, who was very desirous to have you build the iron-plated or bomb-proof batteries, and I trust that he will yet decide to have you build one or more of the gun-boats.'

"I think, perhaps, in the present state of the law in America, I shall not be asked to give the name of my correspondent, but he is a gentleman of the highest respectability. If any honorable member wishes, I shall have no objection in handing the whole correspondence, with the original letters, into the hands of you, sir, [the Speaker of the House,] or of the First Minister of the Crown, in strict confidence, because there are communications in these letters, respecting the views of the American Government, which I certainly should not divulge, and which I have not mentioned or alluded to before. But, seeing the American Government are making so much work about other parties, whom they charge with violating or evading the law, when, in reality, they have not done so, I think it only fair to state these facts."

It thus appears that the Government of the United States preceded us in the English market, having endeavored, a whole year before the Alabama was built, to contract with Mr. Laird for the building of iron-plated, and other ships, and that the only reason why the contract was not made, was, that Mr. Laird had taken already so much work in hand, that he could not take "any new orders, to be done in so short a time"--as that prescribed by Mr. Welles, for it seems that he was in a hurry. The explanation probably is, that we had offered Mr. Laird better terms than Mr. Welles, and this is the only reason why the Alabama was a Confederate, instead of a Federal ship! This speech of Mr. Laird caused no little merriment in the House of Commons, for, as before remarked, the Federal press, knowing nothing of these secret transactions between Mr. Welles and Mr. Laird, had been denouncing the latter for building the Alabama, in the coarse and offensive language to which, by this time, it had become accustomed. The disclosures could not but be ludicrous.

To dispose, now, of Mr. Seward's objection, that the Alabama was foreign-built. The reader will see, in a moment, that there is nothing in this objection, when he reflects that a ship of war, in the light in which we are considering her, is a personification, and not a mere material thing. If her personification be true, and unobjectionable, it matters not of what materials she may be composed, whence those materials may have been drawn, or where they may have been fashioned. It is the commission which a sovereign puts on board a ship, that causes her to personify the sovereign power, and it is obviously of no importance how the sovereign becomes possessed of the ship. It can make no difference to other nations, so far as her character of ship of war is concerned, whether she is fashioned out of the pines of Norway, or of Florida, or whether the copper on her bottom comes from Lake Superior or Peru; or, finally, whether Englishmen, or Frenchmen, or Americans shall have put her frame together, in either of their respective countries. Even if she be built, armed, and equipped in neutral territory, in plain violation of the neutral duty of that territory, she is purged of this offence, so far as her character of ship of war is concerned, the moment she reaches the high seas, and is commissioned.

To apply this reasoning to the Alabama. If it be true, as stated by Mr. Seward, that she was built in England, in violation of the neutrality of that country, this might have subjected her to detention by England, or it might have raised a question between the United States and England; but the ship, having once escaped, and been commissioned, her origin is necessarily lost sight of, and neither England nor any other country can afterward inquire into it. Indeed, there can be no principle of the laws of nations plainer than this, that when a ship is once commissioned by a sovereign power, no other power can look into the antecedents of the ship. From the moment that her commission is read on her quarter-deck, she becomes the personification of the sovereign power, and the sovereign avows himself responsible for all her acts. No one of these acts can be impeached on the ground, that antecedently to her becoming a ship of war, she committed some offence against the laws of nations, or against the municipal law of some particular nation.

This point was settled years before our war, by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of the Santissima Trinidad. It was alleged that that ship had been fitted out in the United States, in violation of the neutrality laws--during a war between Spain and her colonies--and the question arose whether this invalidated her commission, as a ship of war. Mr. Justice Story delivered the opinion of the court, in the course of which he said:--

"In general, the commission of a public ship, signed by the proper authorities of the nation to which she belongs [the nation to which the Santissima Trinidad belonged, was the de facto nation of Buenos Ayres] is complete proof of her national character. A bill of sale is not necessary to be produced, nor will the courts of a foreign country inquire into the means by which the title to the property has been acquired. It would be to exert the right of examining into the validity of the acts of the foreign sovereign, and to sit in judgment upon them in cases where he has not conceded the jurisdiction, and where it would be inconsistent with his own supremacy. The commission, therefore, of a public ship, when duly authenticated, so far at least as foreign courts are concerned, imports absolute verity, and the title is not examinable. The property must be taken to be duly acquired, and cannot be controverted. This has been the settled practice between nations, and it is a rule founded in public convenience and policy, and cannot be broken in upon, without endangering the peace and repose, as well of neutral as of belligerent sovereigns.

"The commission in the present case is not expressed in the most unequivocal terms, but its fair import and interpretation must be deemed to apply to a public ship of the government. If we add to this, the corroborative testimony of our own, and the British Consul at Buenos Ayres, as well as that of private citizens, to the notoriety of her claim of a public character, and her admission into our own ports as a public ship, with the immunities and privileges belonging to such a ship, with the express approbation of our own Government, it does not seem too much to assert, whatever may be the private suspicion of a lurking American interest, that she must be judicially held to be a public ship of the country, whose commission she bears."

This was a very strong case. The ship had not only been fitted out in violation of the neutrality laws of the United States, but the court intimates that she might also be American owned; but whether she was or not, was a fact into which the court could not inquire, the commission, in the language of the court, importing "absolute verity."

But it is not true, as we shall see hereafter, that the Alabama violated either the laws of nations, or the municipal law of England. The next question which presents itself for our consideration is, Was the Alabama properly commissioned by a sovereign power? No question has ever been raised as to the bona fides, or form of her commission. Mr. Seward even has not attacked these. Our question, then, will be reduced to this, Was she commissioned by a sovereign power? The answer to this question is, that a de facto government is sovereign, for all the purposes of war, and that the Confederate States were a de facto government; so acknowledged by the United States themselves, as well as by the other nations of the earth. The United States made this acknowledgment, the moment President Lincoln issued his proclamation declaring a blockade of the Southern ports; and they acted upon the doctrine that we were belligerents during the whole war, by treating with us for the exchange of prisoners of war.

This was no concession on their part. We had become strong enough to compel them to this course, in spite of themselves. In other words, we had become strong enough to make war, and when this is the case, let us see what Vattel says is the duty of the other party: "The sovereign indeed, never fails to bestow the appellation of 'rebels' on all such of his subjects as openly resist him; but when the latter have acquired sufficient strength to give him effectual opposition, and to oblige him to carry on the war against them, according to the established rules, he must necessarily submit to the use of the term 'civil war.' It is foreign to our purpose in this place, to weigh the reasons which may authorize and justify a civil war. We have elsewhere treated of cases in which subjects may resist their sovereign. Setting, therefore, the justice of the case wholly out of the question, it only remains for us to consider the maxims which ought to be observed in a civil war and to explain whether the sovereign is, on such occasions, bound to conform to the established laws of war. A civil war breaks the bands of society and government, or at least suspends their force and effect; it produces in the nation two independent parties, which consider each other as enemies, and acknowledge no common judge. These two parties, therefore, must necessarily be considered as constituting, at least for a time, two separate bodies, two distinct societies. Though one of the parties may have been to blame in breaking the unity of the State, and resisting the lawful authority, they are not the less divided in fact. Besides, who shall judge them? Who shall pronounce on which side the right or wrong lies? On earth they have no common superior. They stand, therefore, in precisely the same predicament as two nations, who engage in a contest, and being unable to come to an agreement, have recourse to arms." This was the law of nations as expounded by Vattel more than a century ago. He tells us that when even a revolt or rebellion has acquired sufficient magnitude and strength, to make "effectual opposition to the sovereign," it is the duty of that sovereign to talk of "civil war," and not of "rebellion," and to cease to call his former subjects "rebels." How much more was it the duty of the Northern States, in a war which was a war from the beginning, waged by States against States, with all the forms and solemnities of war, and with none of the characteristics of a secret revolt or rebellion, to treat us as belligerents, even if they denied the de jures of our movement? But even according to the law laid down by Vattel, the United States, and the Confederate States stood "precisely in the same predicament," with regard to all the rights, duties, and obligations growing out of the war. That is to say, they were, quoad the war, the equals, one of the other, and whatever one of them might do, the other might do.

Hence it follows, that if the United States could build Alabamas, and capture the ships of her enemy, so could the Confederate States. And if Mr. Welles, the Federal Secretary of the Navy, could go into the ship-yards on the Mersey, and endeavor to contract for the delivery to him of a ship or ships of war, "to be finished complete," in the words of Mr. Laird's correspondent, "with guns, and everything appertaining," it is difficult to perceive, why Mr. Mallory, the Secretary of the Confederate States Navy, might not go into the same ship-yards, and contract for the delivery to him, of an incomplete ship, without any guns at all!

But further, with reference to the right of the Confederate States to be regarded as a de facto government, invested with all the rights of war. The Supreme Court of the enemy himself affirmed this right, early in the war. When the Federal naval officers--the Southern renegades, who have been before alluded to, among the rest--began to grow rich by the capture of blockade runners, it became necessary, of course, to condemn the prizes before they could get hold of their prize-money. Some of these cases went up to the Supreme Court, on writ of error, and I shall quote from a case, known as the "Prize Case," reported in 2d Black, 635. This case was decided as early as the December Term, 1862, and Mr. Justice Greer delivered the opinion of the court. The question arose upon the capture of some English ships which had attempted to run the blockade. These ships could not be condemned, unless there was a lawful blockade, which they had attempted to break; and there could not be a lawful blockade, unless there was a war, and not a mere insurrection, as Mr. Seward, with puerile obstinacy, had so long maintained; and there could not be a war without, at least, two parties to it, both of whom must be belligerents; and it is of the essence of belligerency, as has been seen, that the parties belligerent should be equal, with reference to all the objects of the war. The vessels were claimed by the neutral owners, on Mr. Seward's own ground, to wit: that the war, not being a war, but an insurrection, there could be no such thing as a blockade predicated of it. Mr. Justice Greer, in delivering the opinion of the court, among other things said: "It [the war] is not the less a civil war, with belligerent parties in hostile array, because it may be called an 'insurrection' by one side, and the insurgents be considered as rebels and traitors. It is not necessary that the independence of the revolted Province or State be acknowledged, in order to constitute it a party belligerent in a war, according to the laws of nations. Foreign nations acknowledge it as a war, by a declaration of neutrality. The condition of neutrality cannot exist, unless there be two belligerent parties. In the case of the Santissima Trinidad (7 Wheaton, 337) this court says: 'The Government of the United States has recognized the existence of a civil war between Spain and her colonies, and has avowed her determination to remain neutral between the parties. Each party is, therefore, deemed by us a belligerent, having, so far as concerns us, the sovereign rights of war.'"

The belligerent character of the Confederate States was thus acknowledged by the highest judicial tribunal of the United States, and the prizes were condemned to the captors; and a precedent is cited by the court, in which the United States recognized the right of the revolted Spanish colonies, such as Columbia, Buenos Ayres, and Mexico, who were then in consimili casu with the Confederate States, to build and equip Alabamas to prey upon Spanish commerce, not as a mere matter of power simply, but in the exercise of the "sovereign rights of war," under the laws of nations.

With regard to the new American republics, thus acknowledged by the United States as belligerents, it will be recollected that one of the first acts of Mr. John Quincy Adams, when he became President of the United States, was to recommend the passage of a law authorizing him to send members to a Congress of all the American States, to be assembled at Panama. Under this law, members of that Congress were actually appointed--though they never proceeded to their destination--and Mr. Clay, then Secretary of State, and who had been among the foremost to advocate the recognition of the independence of the South American republics, prepared an elaborate and eloquent letter of instructions for their guidance, in which he dwelt upon the very principles I am now invoking. The republics, whose ambassadors it was thus proposed to meet, in an International Congress, were nothing more than de facto governments, like the Confederate States, the independence of neither one of them having been acknowledged, as yet, by Spain.

I may further mention, as a matter of historical notoriety, that it was a common practice for the cruisers of those young republics, to carry their prizes into the ports of the United States, and there have them condemned and sold. The Santissima Trinidad referred to in the case from the Supreme Court above quoted, was one of these cruisers, with nothing more behind her than a de facto government, and she was held to be a belligerent, and to be possessed, as such, of all the "sovereign rights of war," under the laws of nations. What renders these transactions the more remarkable, in the light of recent events, and in the face of the denunciations which have been hurled against the Alabama by the Federal Government, because of her foreign origin, is, that most of these cruisers were, in fact, American ships, not only built and equipped in the United States, but officered and manned by citizens of the Northern States, who had gone southward in quest of plunder! Many of these ships were fitted out on speculation, in the United States, and sailed from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, fully armed and equipped for war, with enlisted crews on board.

A case of this kind came under my own actual observation. I was serving as a midshipman on board the old sailing sloop-of-war Erie. We happened in at the Swedish Island of St. Bartholomew, in the West Indies, during the war between Buenos Ayres and Spain. We were on our way from New York to one of the South American ports, to land General William H. Harrison, afterward President of the United States, who had been appointed, by President John Quincy Adams, Minister to Colombia. In St. Bartholomew we found at anchor a Buenos Ayrean cruiser called the Federal. This was a Baltimore-built schooner--Baltimore in those days being famous above all the other American ports, for building fast vessels of this class. Her captain, and all her officers, and a large proportion of her crew, were Americans. This vessel, we ascertained, had boarded an American ship a few days before, and taken from on board of her a portion of her cargo, under the pretence that it was Spanish property. This being in our view a violation of the laws of nations (as whether the property was Spanish or not, we held that "free ships made free goods"), we resolved to commit one of those outrages against neutral rights which have become so common in our day, by seizing the cruiser. Admitting the act of the cruiser to have been wrongful, the argument, so far as her seizure by us was concerned, was all against us, and might have been contained in a "nutshell;" but our captain, if he had ever read any international law, which was exceedingly doubtful, had read it, like Wilkes, wrong end foremost, and "went it blind," being quite sure of popular applause from the b'hoys at home, and standing in no fear of consequences so far as Buenos Ayres was concerned, as she was so weak that the Great Republic might kick her with impunity.

We first demanded her of the Governor of the island, as a "pirate." The Governor replied, that she was a commissioned ship, with a de facto government behind her, and that she could not, so long as she retained this character, be guilty of piracy. Further, that if she were a pirate, she was hostis humani generis, and Sweden, within whose waters she was, was as competent to deal with her, as the United States. He ended by informing us, that in whatever category the vessel might be placed, being in neutral jurisdiction, she could not be dealt with forcibly by the captain of the Erie, and notified us, that if we attempted it, he would fire upon us. The Federal was moored under the guns of the fortification which protected the harbor, and the following night, we fitted out a boat expedition, pulled in under cover of the darkness--the night being black and squally--and boarded her, and brought her out; the Governor being as good as his word, and firing upon us, though without effect, as soon as he discovered the movement. This was my first indoctrination in the laws of the sea! and the first occasion on which I ever heard a shot fired in anger. Sweden remonstrated, and the United States apologized, and there the matter ended. I have mentioned the incident to show, that the very cruisers which the Supreme Court of the United States was protecting by its decisions, were nothing more than American vessels, under belligerent flags, holding commissions under de facto governments.

But I have another precedent or two, to which to call the attention of the reader. It is a very useful practice for nations to pause occasionally, and look back upon their own history. It teaches them many lessons, which they would not otherwise learn. It shows them how to avoid inconsistencies, and prevents them from becoming dishonest as circumstances change. But, above all, it teaches them that man is a poor, weak creature, selfish and corrupt, guided by the instincts and inspirations of the moment; and that his reason--that God-like attribute, which distinguishes him from the brute--is so fallible, that he rarely sees a truth, if that truth militate against his supposed interests. It makes all the difference in the world, whether a man's bull gores his neighbor's ox, or his neighbor's bull gores his ox. The Yankee ship-owners and ship-masters cried out, in pain, as the Sumter and Alabama were capturing and destroying their ships, and called both of these cruisers "pirates." I design now to show how the Yankee ship-owners and ship-masters, of a generation or two back, captured and burned English ships, and took great credit to themselves for their exploits, not dreaming that they were pirates.

The precedents which I design to cite will be drawn from the history of the war of 1776; it will be necessary, therefore to run a brief parallel between that war and the war of 1861, to show that the precedents established in the former are applicable to the circumstances of the latter. To lay aside, entirely, the question of the right of the Southern States to secede, and to put the war between the States on no higher ground than that between the Colonies and Great Britain, which was a mere rebellion, the following parallel appears:--The original thirteen Colonies, when they formed a part of the British Government, declared their independence of that Government. The Confederate States did the same against the United States. Great Britain made war upon the Colonies in consequence of this declaration; so did the United States against the Confederate States. The Colonies claimed and exercised the rights of war. So did the Confederate States. The Colonies, in the exercise of these rights, destroyed much of the commerce of Great Britain. So did the Confederate States, with regard to the United States. Both the Colonies and the Confederate States were de facto governments, when this property was destroyed. Now, it can obviously make no difference that the Colonies achieved their independence, and that the Confederate States failed to achieve theirs. If what the Colonies did was right, when they did it--that is to say, when they were still a de facto government--what the Confederate States did must have been right for the same reason. The acknowledgment of the independence of the Colonies by the parent country, whilst it had the effect to make them so many nations of the earth, could add nothing to any rights they before possessed, as belligerents, for they did not derive these rights from their status de jure, but from their status de facto; nor did they derive them from Great Britain, but from the laws of nations. It follows, that if nothing could be added to these rights by the successful termination of the war, so nothing could be taken away from them, by its unsuccessful termination. The parallel thus appears perfect, in every particular, so far as belligerent rights are concerned, and, of course, it is only of these rights that we are now speaking.

With this introduction I proceed to produce the precedents. Mr. James Fenimore Cooper, the Naval Historian of the United States, is the author whom I shall quote, and his authority will certainly not be disputed north of the Potomac. One of the earliest cruises of the war of 1776, was made by Captain, afterward Commodore, John Paul Jones. This gentleman, in command of a vessel called the Providence, in the summer of 1776, made a foray among the British fishermen, on the Banks of Newfoundland, taking no less than twelve sail, and returning to Newport, in Rhode Island, at the end of his cruise, having made sixteen prizes in all. The Alabama never flew at such small game as this. Although she cruised, as the reader will see a little further on, for some time off these same Banks of Newfoundland, she never deprived a Yankee fisherman of his "catch of cod."

Jones commanded a regular ship of war, but it was the privateers that were the most numerous and destructive. With reference to this class of vessels, the historian tells us that "Most of the Colonies had their respective cruisers at sea or on their own coasts, and the ocean literally began to swarm with privateers from all parts of the country, though New England took the lead in that species of warfare. Robert Morris, in one of his official letters, of a date later than that precise time, remarks that the passion for privateering was so strong in this particular part of the country, that even agriculture was abandoned in order to pursue it."

In another place, the historian tells us, that "As soon as the struggle commenced in earnest, the habits of the people, their aptitude for sea-service, and the advantages of both a public and private nature, that were to be obtained from successful cruising, induced thousands to turn their longing eyes to an element that promised so many flattering results. Nothing but the caution of Congress, which body was indisposed at first to act as if general warfare, instead of a redress of grievances, was its object, prevented a rushing toward the private cruisers, that would probably have given the commerce of England a heavier and more sudden blow than it had ever yet received. But a different policy was pursued, and the orders to capture, first issued, were confined to vessels bringing stores and supplies to the British forces in America. It was as late as November, 1775, before Massachusetts, the colony which was the seat of war, and which may be said to have taken the lead in the revolt, established Courts of Admiralty, and enacted laws for the encouragement of nautical enterprise."

The reader observes, from the above passage, from the historian, how "circumstances alter cases." The "nautical enterprise" here spoken of, is the same kind of nautical enterprise which has been charged, by virtuous Massachusetts, whose people were in such haste to grow rich by privateering, against the Alabama, as "piracy." The rush was not, it seems, to the ships of war of the regular navy, to fight the battles of the country, but to the privateers, which promised so many "flattering results." It took a little time to warm the Congress and the people up to their work, but when they were once fairly warmed, they took their jackets off and went at it with a will, as is the wont of us Americans.

Let us dip a little further into Mr. Cooper, and see what more, these staid New Englanders, who now have such a horror of "piracy," did. "The proceedings in Congress," he continues, "in reference to assailing British commerce, as has been seen, were reserved and cautious. War not being regularly declared, and accommodation far from hopeless, the year 1775 was suffered to pass away, without granting letters of marque and reprisal, for it was the interest of the nation to preserve as many friends in England as possible. As the breach widened, this forbearing policy was abandoned, and the summer of 1776 let loose the nautical enterprise of the country upon British commerce. The effect was at first astounding. Never before had England found an enemy so destructive to her trade, and during the first two years of privateering that followed, something like eight hundred sail of merchantmen were captured. After this period, the efforts of the Americans necessarily lessened, while the precautions of the enemy increased. Still these enterprises proved destructive to the end of the war; and it is a proof of the efficiency of this class of cruisers to the last, that small privateers constantly sailed out of the English ports, with a view to make money by recapturing their own vessels; the trade of America at this time, offering but few inducements to such undertakings.

"Among the vessels employed [the historian tells us there were several hundred of them], the Halker, the Black Prince, the Pickering, the Wild Cat, the Vengeance, the Marlborough, in addition to those elsewhere named, were very conspicuous. The Marlborough is said to have made twenty-eight prizes in one cruise. Other vessels were scarcely less fortunate. Many sharp actions occurred, and quite as often to the advantage of the cruisers, as to that of the enemy. In repeated instances they escaped from British ships of war, under favorable circumstances, and there is no question that in a few cases they captured them. * * * The English West India trade, in particular, suffered largely by the private warfare of the day. Two and fifty sail, engaged in this branch of the commerce, are stated to have been captured as early as February, 1777. The whole number of captures made by the Americans in this contest, is not probably known, but six hundred and fifty prizes are said to have been gotten into port. Many others were ransomed, and some were destroyed at sea. There can be no minute accuracy in these statements, but the injury done to the commerce of Great Britain was enormous, and there can be no doubt, that the constant hazards it ran, had a direct influence in obtaining the acknowledgment of the independence of the United States of America, which great event took place on the 20th of January, 1783."

We thus see how history repeats itself, and how prone men are to forget history. The "rebel pirates" of the Colonies--for such they were, if we apply to them the polite nomenclature which became fashionable during our late war--less than a century ago, were capturing, burning, and otherwise destroying the commerce of Great Britain. The historian dwells upon the record with pleasure, as an evidence of the patriotism, and "nautical enterprise" of his countrymen; and this was but natural in the historian of a commercial people. But when the commerce of the same people becomes the object of capture, in a war far more justifiable, than the war of 1776, since it was waged by sovereign States, in defence of their very existence, and not a mere rebellion, the cry is changed. It is the wrong bull now which is goring the ox, and the Alabama and her consorts are committing unheard-of crimes and atrocities.

I call the reader's particular attention to the fact, that some of the prizes of the Colonial cruisers were "destroyed at sea." This same act when committed by the Sumter and Alabama was barbarous, atrocious! Now let me run a brief parallel between the times of Paul Jones, by whom some of this burning of British ships was done, and my own, to show how much less excuse Jones had for such conduct, than I. In Jones' day, all the commerce of the world was conducted in sailing ships, and all the navies of the world were also composed of sailing ships. The consequence was, that there was no such thing known, as a stringent blockade; for the simple reason, that every gale of wind which arose, blew off the blockading ships from before the blockaded ports, and it was, sometimes, days before they could regain their stations. Besides, it is well known to readers of American history, that Great Britain did not, at any time during the Colonial war, attempt to blockade all the ports of the Colonies. With a coast-line--from the St. Croix to St. Mary's in Georgia--of fifteen hundred miles, this would have been impossible, even with her great navy. The Colonial cruisers had, therefore, at all times during the entire war, some of their ports open into which to send their prizes. Still they "destroyed some of them at sea."

Some ninety years now pass away, and a second, and a greater war ensues for American principles--this time between the States themselves. In the meantime, the great and powerful steamship has made her appearance upon the scene, revolutionizing not only the commerce of the world, but the navies of the world. During the first months of the war, all the principal ports of the Confederacy were blockaded, and it was not long before every little nook and inlet was either in possession of the enemy, or had one or more ships watching it. These ships were not the old-time sailing ships, dependent upon the winds and the weather for efficiency--they were steamers, independent of both, having the ability "to hold on" to the blockaded port, both by day and by night, with a tenacity little less than that of fate. Though it was possible for fast steam blockade-runners, taking advantage of the darkness, sometimes to elude the vigilance of these patient watchers, it was utterly impossible for a sailing vessel to do so--and with a rare exception, here and there, all my prizes would be sailing ships. Not only were all the Confederate ports thus hermetically sealed to me, but the ports of neutrals had also been closed against me, as the reader has seen, by unfriendly proclamations and orders in council. In short, during my whole career upon the sea, I had not so much as a single port open to me, into which I could send a prize.

What was expected of me under these circumstances? I had shown every disposition, as the reader has seen, to avoid the necessity of burning my prizes. I had sent prizes, both into Cuba and Venezuela, with the hope that at least some of the nations of the earth would relent, and let me in; but the prizes were either handed over to the enemy, on some fraudulent pretext, or expelled. Unlike Jones, I had no alternative. There was nothing left for me but to destroy my prizes, and this course had been forced upon me, by the nations of the earth. How senseless and unjust, then, was the clamor raised against me on this subject; especially in the light of the precedents which the enemy himself had set me? Some senseless prints even went so far as to declare that it was in violation of the laws of war; but what is it that newspapers will not say, during such a contest as that through which we have passed, when reason is dethroned by the passions, and no longer sits in the judgment-seat? The right to destroy is as perfect, as the right to sell, or make any other disposition of the captured ship. But has a captor the right to destroy before adjudication? the reader may ask. Certainly. The enemy has no right to adjudication at all. Courts of Admiralty are not established for him. He has, and can have no standing in such court. He cannot even enter an appearance there, either in person, or by attorney; and if he could, he would have nothing to show, for his very status as an enemy would be sufficient ground for condemning all the property he might claim. It is only neutrals who can claim adjudication, and it is for the benefit of these alone that Courts of Admiralty have been established. And if any neutrals have suffered in the late war, for want of adjudication, the fault is with their own government, and not with the Confederate cruisers, as the reader has just seen. To instance the Cienfuegos cases: what detriment could have arisen to Spain, if she had permitted my prizes to remain within her jurisdiction, in the custody of my own prize agent, until a prize court in New Orleans, or Mobile could have adjudicated them?

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Chapter XXX

THE EQUIPMENT OF THE ALABAMA ILLUSTRATED BY THAT OF SUNDRY COLONIAL CRUISERS, DURING THE WAR OF 1776--BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND SILAS DEANE, AS CHIEFS OF A NAVAL BUREAU IN PARIS--THE SURPRISE, AND THE REVENGE--WICKES AND CONYNGHAM, AND PAUL JONES.

"_Mutato nomine De te fabula narratur._"

In the last chapter, I gave some account of the operations against British commerce, of certain ships of war and privateers, fitted out in the home ports of the enemy; but as stress has been laid, as we have already seen, upon the foreign origin of the Alabama, and it has been objected against her, that her captures were illegal, and piratical, on that account, it will be incumbent on me to show some cases on this point. The naval history of the enemy abounds in them, but I will content myself with adducing only a few, as specimens of the rest. I design to show that the United States have produced ships, the very counterparts of the Alabama, in every particular, foreign origin and all, and used them with destructive effect, against the commerce of their enemy. All readers of American history are familiar with the names of Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and John Adams, for these distinguished gentlemen played a very important part on the theatre of the American Revolution. As they had much to do with the naval affairs of the Colonies abroad, it is of them and their doings that I would now speak. They were all Northern men, were leaders, in their day, of Northern public opinion, and their memories are justly held in high estimation, both North and South. I shall vouch them for the legality of the origin of the Alabama, as a ship of war, and justify by their acts, and out of their mouths, all the doings of that ship upon the high seas. I again have recourse to Fenimore Cooper. "The Reprisal was the first American man-of-war, that ever showed herself in the other hemisphere. She sailed from home not long after the Declaration of Independence, and appeared in France, in the autumn of 1776, bringing in with her several prizes, and having Dr. Franklin on board as a passenger." It is well known that Silas Deane followed Dr. Franklin soon afterward, and it was not long before these two Commissioners, who were sent to Europe, to look after the interests of the Colonies, just as Messrs. Mason and Slidell were sent, in our day, to look after the welfare of the Confederate States, went to work.

Dr. Franklin, in particular, was a great favorite with the French people. He wore short breeches, with knee-buckles, and silk stockings, and had the portly air, and bearing of a philosopher. Having learned to fly kites when a boy, he had turned the thing to some account when he had gotten to be a man, and was also well known as the author of "Poor Richard's Almanac," a book full of axiomatic wisdom, and wise saws. He had a much better field before him, therefore, than Mr. John Slidell had. "Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis;" and Slidell found that the "philosophers" who had petted Franklin, and the fair women who had played with the tassels of his three-cornered hat, showered bouquets upon him, and talked prettily of the new doctrines of liberty that were just then coming in vogue, had all passed away. Neither philosophy, liberty, or knee-buckles were at all fashionable at the French Court when Slidell arrived there. In short, the people of France had found out that this thing of getting up a revolution for popular rights, however well it might suit other people, did not suit Frenchmen, and they were tired of the matter. They had, since Franklin's day, cut off the head of Louis XVI., played at republics a while, pretty much as children play at card-houses, now setting them up, and now knocking them down again, and having gotten tired of the game, like good children had gone back quietly to their old form of despotism, under Napoleon III., and were content! The sympathy which they had bestowed upon Franklin, and which was productive of so many good results, in our first revolution, had dried up in the second and greater revolution.

Having thus briefly introduced the Commissioners of the Colonies to the reader, let us again look into Cooper, to see what their business was in France, and how they performed it. "In order," says this writer, "to complete the account of the proceedings of the American Commissioners in Paris, so far as they were connected with naval movements during the years 1776 and 1777, it is necessary to come next to the affair of Captain Conyngham, which, owing to some marked circumstances, made more noise than the cruises of the Reprisal and Lexington, though the first exploits of the latter were anterior as to time, and not of less consequence in their effects. While the Commissioners were directing the movements of Captain Wickes [we will come to these presently] in the manner that has been mentioned, they were not idle in other quarters. A small frigate was building at Nantes, on their account, and there will be occasion to speak of her hereafter, under the name of the Queen of France.

"Some time in the spring of 1777, an agent was sent to Dover by the American Commissioners, where he purchased a fine, fast-sailing, English-built cutter, and had her carried across to Dunkirk. Here she was privately equipped as a cruiser, and named the Surprise. To the command of this vessel, Captain Gustavus Conyngham was appointed, by filling up a blank commission from John Hancock, the President of Congress. This commission bore date, March 1st, 1777, and, it would seem, as fully entitled Mr. Conyngham to the rank of captain in the Navy, as any other that was ever issued by the same authority. Having obtained his officers and crew at Dunkirk, Captain Conyngham sailed on a cruise about the 1st of May, and on the 4th he took a brig called the Joseph," &c.

Now, it is to be remarked, with reference to this passage, that the Alabama, though built in England, was not armed or equipped there, nor was her crew enlisted there; whilst the Surprise was not only "privately equipped as a cruiser," at Dunkirk, a port of France, then at peace with England--for France had not yet joined the Colonies in the war--but she got all her officers and crew there, many of whom were Frenchmen. And when she got up her anchor for a cruise, still lying in the waters of France, she was a perfectly armed and equipped ship of war. She could have engaged an enemy, immediately upon passing beyond the marine league, whereas the Alabama, when she left the Mersey, was entirely unarmed, and without an enlisted crew, and could have been taken possession of by an enemy's cruiser as easily as any other merchant-ship. Mr. Seward insisted, with much vehemence, with the English Government, that the Alabama was not entitled to be regarded as a ship of war, but rather a "British pirate," because she had never been in a Confederate port. His latest form of protest is found in a letter to Lord Stanley, the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, of the date of January 12th, 1867, as follows:--

"Lord Stanley excuses the reception of the vessels complained of in British ports, subsequently to their fraudulent escapes and armament, on the ground that when the vessels appeared in these ports, they did so in the character of properly commissioned cruisers of the Government of the so-styled Confederate States, and that they received no more shelter, provisions, or facilities, than was due to them in that character. This position is taken by his lordship in full view of the facts that--with the exception of the Sumter and the Florida--none of the vessels named were ever found in any place where a lawful belligerent commission could either be conferred or received. It would appear, therefore, that, in the opinion of her Majesty's Government, a British vessel, in order to acquire a belligerent character against the United States, had only to leave the British port where she was built, clandestinely, and to be fraudulently armed, equipped, and manned anywhere in Great Britain, or in any foreign country, or on the high seas; and in some foreign country, or upon the high seas, to set up and assume the title and privileges of a belligerent, without even entering the so-called Confederacy, or ever coming within any port of the United States. I must confess that, if a lawful belligerent character can be acquired in such a manner, then I am unable to determine by what different course of proceeding a vessel can become a pirate and an enemy to the peace of nations."

Had Mr. Seward forgotten, when he wrote the above, the case of Dr. Franklin's ship, the Surprise? It will be recollected, too, that Mr. Adams, the United States Minister at the Court of London, frequently protested, in his correspondence with the English Foreign Office, against the Confederates being permitted to have "stationed agents," at Liverpool, and elsewhere in the British dominions, conducting a "Naval Bureau." Had he forgotten the "Naval Bureau" which was conducted in France, by Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane, who were "stationed agents" of the Colonies? How they built, and purchased, and equipped, and commissioned ships, all in neutral territory; even filling up blank commissions sent out to them by the Congress for the purpose?

But to continue with our precedents. The career of the Surprise was not a very long one. Having carried some prizes into a French port, in violation of a treaty then existing between France and Great Britain, providing that neither should permit the enemies of the other to bring their prizes into her ports, she was seized by the French authorities, and we hear no more of her. But we do hear more, and that immediately, from the Naval Bureau in Paris, under the guidance of Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane. As soon as the seizure of the Surprise became known to the Commissioners, they dispatched one of their agents, a Mr. Hodge, to Dunkirk, where he purchased another cutter, which was fitted with all dispatch, as a cruiser, as the Surprise had been. This second vessel was called the Revenge, and "Captain Conyngham and his people," to use the words of the historian, were transferred to her. A new commission was given to Conyngham, dated on the 2d of May, 1777, filled up, as before, by the Commissioners, and he soon afterward proceeded to sea under it.

It will be seen with what indulgence, and even connivance the Commissioners were treated by the French authorities. The seizure of the Surprise was a mere blind, intended to satisfy England. The ship herself was suffered to pass out of view, but another ship was permitted to be equipped in her stead, and the officers and crew of the old ship were transferred to the new one, with little or no disguise, and the latter was suffered to depart on a cruise without molestation. Here was another ship, which had never been in any port of the Colonies, and which, according to Mr. Seward's vocabulary, was a "pirate." Let us see what she did. "The Revenge," continues the historian, "proved exceedingly successful, making prizes daily, and generally destroying them. Some of the more valuable, however, were ordered into Spain, where many arrived; their arrival proving of great moment to the agents of the American Government in Europe. It is even affirmed, that the money advanced to Mr. Adams [the Mr. Adams, here spoken of, was John Adams, afterward second President of the United States, the grandfather of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Federal Minister to England during the war; and the antagonism in which the grandfather, and grandson are placed, in reference to the principles I am discussing, is one of the curious revolutions of history] for travelling expenses, when he arrived in Spain, a year or two later, was derived from this source."

The Revenge now disappears from view, as the Surprise had done before her, and the historian takes up the Reprisal, the ship, as we have seen, which carried Dr. Franklin over to France. "The Reprisal, having refitted, soon sailed toward the Bay of Biscay, on another cruise. Here she captured several more vessels, and among the rest a King's packet, that plied between Falmouth and Lisbon. When the cruise was up, Captain Wickes went into Nantes, taking his prizes with him. The complaints of the English now became louder, and the American Ministers were secretly admonished of the necessity of using greater reserve. The prizes were directed to quit France, though the Reprisal, being leaky, was suffered to remain in port, in order to refit. The former were taken into the offing, and sold, the state of the times rendering these informal proceedings necessary. Enormous losses to the captors were the consequences, while it is not improbable, that the gains of the purchasers had their influence in blinding the local authorities to the character of the transaction."

Here we see not only a violation of neutrality, but a little bribery going on, these "rebel pirates" having an eye to the "flattering results," spoken of by Mr. Cooper, some pages back. The historian proceeds. "The business appears to have been managed with dexterity, and the proceeds of the sales, such as they were, proved of great service to the agents of the Government, by enabling them to purchase other vessels." We see how capitally those "stational agents," Franklin and Deane, were conducting that "Naval Bureau," against the like of which, in our case, Mr. Adams had so warmly protested. I again quote: "In April, the Lexington arrived in France, and the old difficulties were renewed. But the Commissioners at Paris, who had been authorized to equip vessels, appoint officers, and do other matters to annoy the enemy, now planned a cruise that surpassed anything of the sort that had yet been attempted in Europe, under the American flag. Captain Wickes was directed to proceed to sea, with his own vessel and the Lexington, and to go directly off Ireland, in order to intercept a convoy of linen ships, that was expected to sail about that time. A cutter of ten guns called the Dolphin, that had been detained by the Commissioners, to carry despatches to America, was diverted from her original destination, and placed under the orders of Captain Wickes. The Dolphin was commanded by Lieutenant Nicholson, a brother of the senior captain, and a gentleman who subsequently died at the head of the service. Captain Wickes, in command of this light squadron, sailed from Nantes, about the commencement of June, going first into the Bay of Biscay, and afterward entirely around Ireland, sweeping the sea before him, of everything that was not of a force to render an attack hopeless. The linen ships were missed, but many vessels were taken or destroyed.

"The sensation produced among the British merchants, by the different cruises in the European sea, that have been recorded in this chapter, is stated in the diplomatic correspondence of the day to have been greater than that produced in the previous war by the squadron of the celebrated Thurot. Insurance rose to an enormous height, and in speaking of the cruise of Captain Wickes, in particular, Mr. Deane observes in one of his letters to Robert Morris, that it 'effectually alarmed England, prevented the great fair at Chester, occasioned insurance to rise, and even deterred the English merchants from shipping in English bottoms, at any rate, so that, in a few weeks, forty sail of French ships were loading in the Thames, on freight, an instance never known before.' In the same letter the Commissioner adds: 'In a word, Conyngham, by his first and second bold expeditions, is become the terror of all the eastern coasts of England and Scotland, and is more dreaded than Thurot was in the late war.'"

This same Captain Conyngham, afterward, while cruising on the American coast, fell into the hands of the enemy. He had, of course, become odious to the English people, and they had denounced him as a "pirate," as our Northern people have denounced the writer of these pages. Conyngham was closely confined, and the English admiral, whose fleet was then stationed in the waters of New York, threatened to send him to England for trial. Let us see what steps the American Congress took in behalf of this "rebel pirate," as soon as it heard of these proceedings. The subject having been brought to its notice, it directed its Secretary, Charles Thompson, to address a letter of remonstrance to the British admiral, threatening retaliation, if he dared to execute his threats. I quote from the journals of Congress:--

"In Congress assembled, July 1799.--A letter of the 17th instant, from Ann Conyngham, and a petition from a number of inhabitants of Philadelphia were read, representing that Captain Gustavus Conyngham, now a prisoner with the enemy, is closely confined, and ordered to be sent to England, and praying that measures may be taken for the security of his person: Ordered, That the same be referred to a committee of three. The members chosen, Mr. Morris, Mr. Dickinson, and Mr. Whipple. The committee to whom were referred the petition, and letter respecting Gustavus Conyngham, brought in a report; whereupon, Resolved, That the following letter from the Secretary of Congress, be written to the admiral, or other commanding officer of the fleet, or ships of his Britannic Majesty, lying in the harbor of New York, viz.:

"'Sir, I am directed by the Congress of the United States of America to inform you, that they have received evidence that Gustavus Conyngham, a citizen of America, late commander of an armed vessel in the service of the said States, and taken on board of a private armed cutter, hath been treated in a manner contrary to the dictates of humanity, and the practice of Christian, civilized nations. I am ordered, in the name of Congress, to demand that good and sufficient reason be given for this conduct, or that the said Gustavus Conyngham be immediately released from his present rigorous, and ignominious confinement.

"'With all due respect, I have the honor to be, Sir,

"'Your most obedient and humble servant.'

"Resolved, That, unless a satisfactory answer be received to the foregoing letter, on or before the 1st day of August next, the Marine Committee do immediately order to be confined, in close and safe custody, so many persons as they may think proper, in order to abide the fate of the said Gustavus Conyngham. Ordered, That the above letter be immediately transmitted to New York, by the Board of War, and that copies of said letter and resolution be delivered to the wife of Conyngham, and the petitioners.

"Monday, Dec. 13th, 1779.--A memorial of Christopher Hale was read, praying to be exchanged, and to have leave to go to New York, upon his parole, for a few days, to procure a person in his room. Resolved, That Mr. Hale be informed, that the prayer of his memorial cannot be granted, until Captain Conyngham is released, as it has been determined that he must abide the fate of that officer."

Conyngham was afterward released. This is the way in which the ancestors of Mr. Seward, and Mr. Charles Francis Adams, took care of their "rebel pirates."

There is one other point in the legal history of the Alabama, which it is necessary to notice, and to which I propose to adduce another of those awkward precedents, which I have exhumed from those musty old records, which our Northern brethren seem so thoroughly to have forgotten. It has been charged against the Alabama, that her crew was composed mostly of foreigners, and that this was another reason why she was not entitled to be considered as a Confederate States ship of war. Let us look a little into this charge. A sovereign is not only not obliged to account to other nations, for the manner in which he becomes possessed of his ships of war, as we have seen, but he cannot be questioned as to the nativity or naturalization of the persons serving on board of them. It could have been of no sort of consequence to any foreign officer, demanding to see my commission, whether I was a native of England, Germany, or France, or of any other foreign power. All that he could demand of me, in order to satisfy himself that I was entitled to exercise belligerent rights, was a sight of my commission as a Confederate States naval officer. Nationality is presumed in all such commissions, and the presumption cannot be inquired into. Mr. Justice Story, in the decision quoted a few pages back, says, as the reader will recollect, that the commission of a ship of war imports such "absolute verity," that it cannot be inquired into, or contradicted. It is like proving a fact by a record. No other proof than the production of the record is required, or indeed permitted. The commission of the commander is the commission of his ship. Neither the Sumter nor the Alabama had any other commission than my own, and the orders assigning me to them. If this be the law with regard to the commander of a ship, a fortiori, must it be the law with reference to the subordinate officers and crew.

The writers on international law, without exception, lay down the rule, that a sovereign may enlist foreigners to assist him in his wars; and that the men thus enlisted are entitled to all the protection of belligerents, equally with native citizens. The Swiss foreign legions, so well known in history, are notable illustrations of this doctrine; and no one has ever heard of a Swiss being hung because he served under a foreign flag. Vattel, who has the rare merit of having so thoroughly exhausted all these subjects, that he has left scarcely anything for those who have followed him to say, lays down the doctrine as follows: "Much has been said on the question whether the profession of a mercenary soldier be lawful or not,--whether individuals may, for money, or any other reward, engage to serve a foreign prince in his wars? This question does not appear to me to be very difficult to be solved. Those who enter into such engagements, without the express or tacit consent of their sovereign, offend against their duty as citizens. But if their sovereign leaves them at liberty to follow their inclination for a military life, they are perfectly free in that respect. [Modern nations, and especially the United States, have left their citizens free to expatriate themselves at pleasure.] Now, every free man may join whatever society he pleases, according as he finds it most to his advantage. He may make its cause his own, and espouse its quarrels. He becomes, in some measure, at least for a time, a member of the State in whose service he engages." Again: "The sovereign has no right to compel foreigners; he must not even employ stratagem or artifice, in order to induce them to engage in a contract, which, like all others, should be founded on candor and good faith."

But it was scarcely necessary to quote other authority, on that point, than the authority of the enemy himself. Mr. Secretary Seward knew, at the very time he was denouncing the Alabama as a "pirate," because of her having, as he alleged, a British crew on board, that his own Government was filling up its armies, and its navy, too, with hundreds of thousands of raw recruits from Belgium, Germany, and Ireland, and other countries. Nay, more, that by an act of the Federal Congress, these debased and ignorant men, drawn, for the most part, from the idle and thieving classes of their respective countries, were invested, ipso facto, upon enlistment, with all the functions and attributes of American citizens--the function of robbery more especially included! With reference to the conduct of the enemy in this particular, I deem it not amiss to introduce a short extract or two, from a speech made by Sir Hugh Cairnes, her Britannic Majesty's Attorney-General, in the House of Commons, on the 12th of May, 1864. The discussion grew out of the case of the Confederate States steamer Georgia, which had recently returned to Liverpool, after a cruise. Among other questions discussed was whether the Georgia should be excluded from British ports, because of some alleged infraction on her part, of the British Foreign Enlistment Act. In speaking to this question, the Attorney-General, alluding to the insufficiency of the proof in the case, said:--

"The case of the Kearsarge was a case of this character. Beyond all question, a considerable amount of recruiting was carried on, at Cork, for the purposes of that ship, she being employed at the time, in our own waters, or very near them, in looking out for the enemy; and she was furnished with a large addition to her crew from Ireland. Upon that being represented to Mr. Adams, he said, as might have been expected, that it was entirely contrary to the wishes of his Government, and that there must be some mistake. The men were afterward relanded, and there can be no doubt that there had been a violation of our neutrality. Nevertheless, we admitted the Kearsarge afterward into English waters. We have not excluded her from our ports, and if we had, I think the Government of the United States would have considered that they had some cause of offence.

"But it does not rest here. I see from the paper, that the Honorable Member for Horsham, wants information respecting the enlistment of British subjects for the Federal Army. Now, from all quarters reports reach us, which we cannot doubt to be substantially true, that agents for recruiting for the Federal Army, with, or without the concurrence of the Government, are in Ireland, and engage men under the pretext of employing them on railways and public works, but really with the intention of enlisting them, and that many of these men are so enlisted. In Canada and New Brunswick the same practices prevail. Representations have been made to the United States Government respecting the cases of particular persons, who have been kidnapped into the service, and I feel bound to say that those representations have not met with that prompt and satisfactory attention we might have expected," &c.

The reader thus perceives, that if the Alabama enlisted some foreigners to complete her crew, she was only following the example set her, by Mr. Seward himself; but there was this difference between the honorable Secretary of State and the writer. The former resorted to deceit, trickery, and fraud, whilst no man can say of the latter, that he inveigled him on board the Alabama.

I will now produce the precedent I spoke of, from those musty old records. It is drawn from the career of that remarkable sea-captain, to whom I have before referred, and with whose history every American is acquainted--I mean, John Paul Jones. The naval engagement, which conferred most honor upon Jones, was that between the Bon homme Richard, (named after Dr. Franklin's "Poor Richard," in the almanac, of which this Chief of the Naval Bureau in Paris was the author,) and the British ships Serapis and Countess of Scarborough. Mr. Cooper thus describes the crew of Jones' ship, picked up at Dunkirk, or Nantes, or some of the other French ports:--

"To manage a vessel of this singular armament and doubtful construction, Commodore Jones was compelled to receive on board a crew of still more equivocal composition. A few Americans were found to fill the stations of sea officers, on the quarter deck, and forward, but the remainder of the people were a mixture of English, Irish, Scotch, Portuguese, Norwegians, Germans, Spaniards, Swedes, Italians, and Malays, with occasionally a man from one of the islands [meaning Sandwich Islands]. To keep this motley crew in order, 135 soldiers were put on board, under the command of some officers of inferior rank. These soldiers, or marines, were recruited at random, and were not much less singularly mixed as to countries, than the regular crew."

I had something of a mixture on board the Alabama, but I think Jones decidedly beat me, in the number of nationalities he had the honor to command.

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