Chapter XXXVII…

Chapter XXXVII

THE CALM-BELTS, AND THE TRADE-WINDS--THE ARRIVAL OF THE ALABAMA AT THE ISLAND OF MARTINIQUE--THE CURIOSITY OF THE ISLANDERS TO SEE THE SHIP--A QUASI MUTINY AMONG THE CREW, AND HOW IT WAS QUELLED.

We captured the Wales, as described in the last chapter, on the 8th of November. On the 10th of the same month, we observed in latitude 25 deg. We were approaching the calm-belt of Cancer. There are three of these calm-belts on the surface of the earth, and the phenomena which they present to the eye of the seaman are very beautiful. A ship coming out of New York, for instance, and bound south, will first encounter the calm-belt which the Alabama is now approaching--that of Cancer. She will lose the wind which has brought her to the "belt," and meet with light airs, and calms, accompanied, frequently, by showers of rain. She will probably be several days in passing through this region of the "doldrums," as the sailors expressively call it, continually bracing her yards, to catch the "cats-paws" that come, now from one, and now from another point of the compass; and making no more than twenty, or thirty miles per day. As she draws near the southern edge of the belt, she will receive the first light breathings of the north-east trade-wind. These will increase, as she proceeds farther and farther south, and she will, ere long, find herself with bellying canvas, in a settled "trade." She will now run with this wind, blowing with wonderful steadiness and regularity, until she begins to near the equator. The wind will now die away again, and the ship will enter the second of these belts--that of equatorial calms. Wending her way slowly and toilsomely through these, as she did through those of Cancer, she will emerge next into the south-east trade-wind, which she will probably find somewhat stronger than the north-east trade. This wind will hurry her forward to the tropic of Capricorn, in the vicinity of which she will find her third and last calm-belt.

These three calm-belts enclose, the reader will have observed, two systems of trade-winds. To understand something of these winds, and the calms which enclose them, a brief reference to the atmospheric machine in which we "live, and breathe, and have our being" will be necessary. A philosopher of the East has thus glowingly described some of the beauties of this machine: "It is," says he, "a spherical shell, which surrounds our planet, to a depth which is unknown to us, by reason of its growing tenuity, as it is released from the pressure of its own superincumbent mass. Its surface cannot be nearer to us than fifty, and can scarcely be more remote than five hundred miles. It surrounds us on all sides, yet we see it not; it presses on us with a load of fifteen pounds on every square inch of surface of our bodies, or from seventy to one hundred tons on us, in all, and yet we do not so much as feel its weight. Softer than the softest down--more impalpable than the finest gossamer--it leaves the cobweb undisturbed, and scarcely stirs the lightest flower that feeds on the dew it supplies; yet it bears the fleets of nations on its wings around the world, and crushes the most refractory substances with its weight. When in motion, its force is sufficient to level the most stately forests, and stable buildings with the earth--to raise the waters of the ocean into ridges like mountains, and dash the strongest ship to pieces like toys.

"It warms and cools, by turns, the earth, and the living creatures that inhabit it. It draws up vapors from the sea and land, retains them dissolved in itself, or suspended in cisterns of clouds, and throws them down again, as rain or dew when they are required. It bends the rays of the sun from their path, to give us the twilight of evening, and of dawn; it disperses, and refracts their various tints, to beautify the approach and the retreat of the orb of day. But for the atmosphere, sunshine would burst on us, and fail us at once, and at once remove us from midnight darkness to the blaze of noon. We should have no twilight to soften, and beautify the landscape; no clouds to shade us from the scorching heat, but the bald earth, as it revolved on its axis, would turn its tanned and weakened front to the full and unmitigated rays of the lord of day.

"It affords the gas which vivifies, and warms our frames, and receives into itself that which has been polluted by use, and thrown off as noxious. It feeds the flame of life, exactly as it does that of the fire. It is in both cases consumed, and affords the food of consumption,--in both cases it becomes combined with charcoal, which requires it for combustion, and is removed by it, when this is over."

The first law of nature may be said to be vis inertiae, and the atmosphere thus beautifully described, following this law, would be motionless, if there were not causes, outside of itself, to put it in motion. The atmosphere in motion is wind, with which the sailor has so much to do, and it behooves him to understand, not only the causes which produce it, but the laws which control it. "Whence cometh the wind, and whither goeth it?" It comes from heat, and as the sun is the father of heat, he is the father of the winds. Let us suppose the earth, and atmosphere both to be created, but not yet the sun. The atmosphere, being of equal temperature throughout the earth, would be in equilibrium. It could not move in any direction, and there would not be the slightest breeze to fan the brow. Now let us suppose the sun to be called into existence, and to begin to dart forth his rays. If he heated the earth, and the atmosphere in all parts alike, whilst there would be a swelling of the atmosphere into greater bulk, there would still be no motion which we could call wind. But the earth being placed in an elliptical orbit, and made to revolve around the sun, with its axis inclined to the plane in which it revolves, now approaching, and now receding from the sun, and now having the sun in one hemisphere, and now in another, the atmosphere is not only heated differently, in different parts of the earth, but at different seasons of the year; and thus the winds are engendered.

Let us imagine this heating process to be going on for the first time. How we should be astonished? The atmosphere having hitherto had no motion, in our experience, we should have conceived it as immovable as the hills, and would be quite as much astonished to see it putting itself in motion, as to see the hills running away from us. But in what direction is the atmosphere now moving? Evidently from the north, and south poles toward the equator, because we know that the intertropical portions of the earth are more heated, than the extratropical portions.

Thus far, we have not given the earth any diurnal motion around its axis. Let us give it this motion. It is revolving now from west to east, at the rate of fifteen miles in a minute. If the atmosphere had been perfectly still when this motion was given to the earth, as we have supposed it to have been before the creation of the sun, the consequence would be a breeze directly from the east, blowing with different degrees of strength, as it was nearer to, or further from the equator. For it is obviously the same thing whether the atmosphere stands still, and the earth revolves, or whether the earth stands still, and the atmosphere moves. In either case we have a wind.

But the atmosphere was not still, when we gave the diurnal motion to the earth. There was already a breeze blowing, as we have seen, from the north, and south poles toward the equator. We have thus generated two winds--a north wind and an east wind. But these two winds cannot blow in the same place at the same time; and the result will be a wind compounded of the two. Thus in the northern hemisphere we shall have a north-east wind, and in the southern hemisphere we shall have a south east-wind.

These are the two trade-winds, enclosed by the three calm-belts which have been described to the reader. The three arrows on the preceding page will illustrate the manner in which the north-east trade-wind is formed by the north wind and the east wind, which our theory puts in motion.

Why it is that the trade-winds do not extend all the way from the poles to the equator, but take their rise in about the thirtieth parallel of latitude, north and south, we do not know. The theory would seem to demand that they should spring up at the poles, and blow continuously to the equator; in which case we should have but two systems of winds covering the entire surface of the earth. This non-conformity of the winds of the extra-tropical regions to our theory, does not destroy it, however, but brings into the meteorological problem other and beautiful features. Having put the winds in motion, our next business is to follow them, and see what "circuits" they travel. The quantity of atmosphere carried to the equator by the north-east and south-east trade-winds, must find its way back whence it came, in some mode or other; otherwise, we should soon have all the atmosphere drawn away from the poles, and piled up at the equator. We can easily conceive this, if we liken the atmosphere to fleeces of wool, and suppose an invisible hand to be constantly drawing away the fleeces from the poles, and piling them up at the equator. But how to get it back is the difficulty. It cannot go back on the surface of the earth, within the tropics, for there is a constant surface current here toward the equator. There is but one other way, of course, in which it can go back, and that is, as an upper current, running counter to the surface current. We may assume, indeed, we must assume, that there are two upper currents of air, setting out from the equator, and travelling, one of them to the 30th degree of north latitude, and the other to the 30th degree of south latitude.

What becomes of these two upper currents, when they reach these parallels of latitude, is not quite so certain; but there is good reason for believing that they now descend, become surface currents, and continue their journey on to the poles. It is further supposed that, when they reach the poles, they "whirl about" them, ascend, become upper currents again, and start back to the 30th parallel; and that, when they have returned to this parallel, they descend, become a surface current again--in other words, the trade-wind--and proceed to the equator as before.

But there is another, and more beautiful problem still, connected with these winds. It is their crossing each other at the equator, of which the proofs are so abundant, that there can be but little doubt concerning it. And yet the proposition, looked at apart from the proofs, is a very startling one. One would think that when the two winds met at the equator, there would be a general intermingling, and confounding of particles, and that when they ascended to form the upper currents, of which I have spoken, the northern particle would be as likely to turn back to the north, as to cross the equator and go south. The preceding figure will illustrate the crossing. Let A represent the equator, the arrows near the surface of the circle the two trade-winds, and the two cross arrows, two particles of wind in the act of crossing. The difficulty is to conceive how these particles should cross, without mixing with each other, and losing their identity; or why they should not turn back, as well as continue their course. What law of nature is it, that makes the particles of atmosphere which have come from the north pole, so separate and distinct from those which have come from the south pole, as to prevent the two from fusing, and becoming one? Is it because the two particles, as they have gyrated around their respective poles, have received a repulsive polarity? Whatever may be the reason, there can be no doubt, as remarked, that they do actually cross. One strong proof of their crossing is, that we cannot conceive, otherwise, how the great atmospheric machine could perform its office of distributing rain over the earth in due proportions. The reader will recollect that there is from a fourth, to a third, more land than water, in the northern hemisphere, and that there is from a fourth to a third more water than land in the southern hemisphere. The consequence of this unequal distribution of land and water in the two hemispheres is, that the northern hemisphere requires more rain than the southern, in the proportion in which it has more land to be rained upon. Now it is these mysterious trade-winds, of which we have been speaking, that are the water-carriers of the two hemispheres. These winds, on their way to the equator, generally reach the 30th parallel as dry winds. These dry winds, sweeping over the tropical seas, take up, in the shape of vapor, the water with which, in due time, they are to fertilize the fields of the farmer, and make the rose blossom. The quantity which they take up is in proportion to the sea-surface, or evaporating surface, they have respectively passed over. Now, if we will examine the jars of these water-carriers, when they reach the equator, we shall find that the northern jars are not nearly so full as the southern jars; the reason being, that the northern winds have passed over less evaporating surface.

Now, if the two systems of winds, with their jars thus filled, were to turn back to their respective hemispheres, and pour down upon them their water, in the shape of rain, the consequence would be, as the reader sees, that we should have less rain in the northern hemisphere, than they would have in the southern hemisphere; whereas, we require more, having more land to be watered. The atmospheric machine would thus be at fault. But the all-wise and beneficent ruler of the universe, makes nothing faulty. We know from the evidence of that silent witness, the rain-gauge, that more water falls in the northern hemisphere, than in the southern; in other words, that the more heavily laden of those jars which we examined, a moment ago, at the equator, have come to us, instead of returning to the south; the less heavily laden jars going south. The crossing of the winds thus satisfies our theory, and nothing else can; which is, of course, the most conclusive of all proofs.

But we have other proofs. For a number of years past, as the East India ships would be returning home from their voyages, they would report a curious phenomenon to have befallen them, as they passed the parallel of the Cape de Verde. This was the falling, or rather silting down upon their decks and rigging, of a brick-dust or cinnamon-colored powder. This dust, which when rubbed between the thumb and forefinger would be impalpable, would sometimes nearly cover the entire deck and rigging. The ships would be hundreds of miles away from the land, and where could this dust come from? The fact puzzled the philosophers, but having been reported so often, it ceased to attract attention. Still it was a fact, and was laid away carefully in the archives of philosophy for future use. Years passed away, and the great traveller and philosopher, Humboldt, arose to instruct and delight mankind. He travelled extensively in South America; and, among other places, visited the lower valley of the Orinoco. He happened there in the dry season, and gives a graphic account of the wild and weird spectacle of desolation which met his eye in that season of universal drought.

All annual vegetation lay dead and desiccated on the immense pampas or plains. The earth was cracked open, gaping, as it were, for rain. The wild cattle were roaming about in herds, bellowing for their accustomed food and water; many of them perishing. Even the insect world, so numerous and vivacious in all southern climates, had perished. Their tiny little organisms lay in heaps, fast disintegrating, and being reduced to powder, by the scorching and baking rays of a perpendicular sun, between which and the parched earth, not so much as a speck of cloud appeared. The philosopher examined a number of these little organisms with his microscope. They were peculiar to the region in which he found them, and he was struck with the fact. There was another phenomenon which he observed. A number of little whirlwinds were playing their pranks about the arid waste, sporting, as it were, with dead nature. These little whirlwinds, as they travelled hither and thither, would draw up into their vortices, and toss high into the upper air, the impalpable dust that lay everywhere, and which was composed, in great measure, of the decomposed and decomposing organisms of which I have spoken. The atmosphere, at times, when filled with this dust, would assume a yellowish, or pale straw-colored hue.

The reader probably, by this time, sees my design of connecting the dusty remains, described by Humboldt, with the rain dust reported by the mariners to have fallen on the decks and rigging of their ships, in the neighborhood of the Cape de Verde islands. But the "rain-dust" was of brick-dust, or cinnamon color, when collected by the masters of the ships, as specimens, and the heavens, when filled with the dust thrown up by the whirlwinds, as described by Humboldt, appeared to him to be of a straw color. Here is a discrepancy to be reconciled, and we must call in the aid of another philosopher, Captain M. F. Maury, late Superintendent of the National Observatory, at Washington, before alluded to in these pages, and to whom I am indebted for many of the facts here quoted. Captain Maury was struck with this discrepancy, and in reconciling it with the theory here discussed, makes the following statement: "In the search for spider lines, for the diaphragms of my telescopes, I procured the finest, and best threads from a cocoon of a mud-red color; but the threads of this cocoon, as seen singly in the diaphragm, were of a golden color; there would seem, therefore, no difficulty in reconciling the difference between the colors of the rain-dust, when viewed in little piles by the microscopist, and when seen attenuated and floating in the wind by the regular traveller."

There remains but another link in the chain of evidence, to render it complete. It remains to be shown how the whirlwind dust, of the valley of the lower Orinoco, can be identified with the rain-dust of the Cape de Verde. Ehrenberg, a German philosopher, has done this, in our day. Some specimens of the rain-dust having been sent him by ship-captains, he brought them under his microscope, as Humboldt had done the whirlwind-dust, and to his great astonishment, and delight, he found it to be the same. These facts correspond entirely with our theory of the crossing of the trade-winds at the equator. The reader has been with us near the mouth of the Orinoco. This great river disembogues near the island of Trinidad, which we visited in the Sumter, in about the latitude of 9 deg. N. The vernal equinox is the dry season here, and at this season, the north-east trade-wind is quite fresh. Running counter to this wind, in the upper atmosphere, there is, according to our theory, a strong south-west wind blowing. Now, if the reader will inspect a map, he will find that a south-west wind, starting from the mouth of the Orinoco, will blow over the Cape de Verde islands. The rest is plain. The whirlwind-dust is tossed high enough into the upper atmosphere, to be taken in charge by the counter south-west wind, is carried to the Cape de Verde, and there silted down upon the decks and rigging of the passing ships, as gently as so many snow-flakes, becoming the rain-dust which so long puzzled the philosophers!

We have reasoned, hitherto, on the supposition, that the three calm-belts, one of which the Alabama is now passing, and the two systems of trade-winds which they enclose, are stationary within certain limits. But this is not so; the whole system of belts and winds is moved north and south, as the sun passes now into one hemisphere, and now into another. The calm-belt of Cancer is not always in the latitude of 30 deg. N.; nor is the calm-belt of the equator always at the equator. The reader will recollect that we observed, on board the Alabama, on the 10th of November, in latitude 25 deg. N., and that we were only just then entering the calm-belt of Cancer. The reason is, that the sun, on that day, was in the southern hemisphere, well advanced toward his extreme limit in that hemisphere, and that he had dragged, as it were, the whole system of belts and winds after him. The figures below will make this idea plain. Let the broad, dark lines in the circles represent the system of belts and winds, all in one; and in circle A let the sun be in the northern hemisphere, and in circle B let him be in the southern.

The reader will see, how the sun, having hitched this system of belts and winds to his chariot wheels, as it were, has drawn it after him. The distances north and south, to which they have been drawn, are exaggerated in the figures, but this is only for the purpose of better illustration. The reader will see, from this diagram, how much farther South the Alabama will have to run, in November, to catch the north-east trade-wind, than she would have had to run in May. We may now return to our ship, and our cruise, and when I shall mention the trade-winds and the calm-belts, hereafter, the reader will not, I hope, regret the time I have consumed in refreshing his memory on so interesting a subject. We spoke several English vessels after burning the Wales, and a couple of them, bound to Demerara, kept company with us through the calm-belt. We sent a boat on board one of them, from New York, but she had neither news nor newspapers. At length, when we had reached the parallel of about 20 deg., we began to receive the first gentle breathings of the trade-wind. Our light sails aloft began first to "belly out," and then a topsail would fill for a moment, until the ship rising on the gentle undulations of the sea, and falling again, would flap the wind out of it. The zephyr--for, as yet, it was nothing more--visibly gained strength, however, from hour to hour, and on the 16th of November, I find the following record in my journal: "Beautiful, clear weather, with a moderate trade-wind, from about east by south, and the well-known fleecy trade-clouds sailing leisurely over our heads."

It is Sunday, and muster-day, and the Alabama has once more been put in perfect order. She has had a coat of paint, inside and out, her masts have been freshly scraped, and her rigging re-rattled, and tarred down. Her guns are glistening in the new coat of "composition" which the gunner and his mates have put upon them; her engine-room is all aglow with burnished brass and steel; her decks are white and sweet, and her awnings are spread. The muster is over, the men are lying listlessly about the decks, and our lady passengers are comfortably seated on the quarter-deck, with several of the young officers around them, and with the children playing at their feet. Such was the contrast which the Alabama presented, on that quiet Sabbath day, with her former self only a few weeks back, when we had been rolling and tumbling in the Gulf Stream, with crippled yards, torn sails, and her now bright sides seamed and defaced with iron-rust from her corroding chains.

We were soon ready to go into port--our first port since leaving Terceira. Men and officers were all desirous of a little relaxation, and were pretty soon on the look-out for land. On the next day, at two P. M., we made the island of Dominica--the same Dominica that lay so fast asleep in the gentle moonlight, on the night that the little Sumter ran so close along it, like a startled deer, after her escape from the Iroquois. We were returning to our old cruising-ground, after an interval of just one year, in a finer and faster ship, and we cared very little now about the Iroquois, and vessels of her class. Having doubled the north-east end of Dominica, during the night, at four o'clock, the next morning, we lowered the propeller, put the ship under steam, and ran down for the island of Martinique. We passed close enough to the harbor of St. Pierre, where we had been so long blockaded, to look into it, and see that there were no men-of-war of the enemy anchored there, and, continuing our course, ran into the anchorage of Fort de France, and dropped our anchor at about ten A. M.

Rear-Admiral Conde was still Governor, and I sent a lieutenant, immediately, to call on him, and report our arrival. He received me kindly, notwithstanding the little sharp-shooting that had passed between us, in the way of official correspondence--and franked the ports of the island to me as before. I had long since forgiven him, for the want of independence and energy he had displayed, in not preventing the Yankee skipper from making signals to the Iroquois on the night of my escape, as the said signals, as the reader has seen, had redounded to my benefit, instead of Palmer's. In an hour or two, we had landed our prisoners; the ladies and their husbands taking a very civil leave of us. In the course of the afternoon, our decks were crowded with curious Frenchmen, come off to look at the "pirate" ship, of which they had heard so much, through Mr. Seward's interesting volumes of "English Composition," called "State Papers," and the villification and abuse of the Northern press. They were evidently a little puzzled at finding in the Alabama a rather stylish-looking ship of war, with polite young officers to receive them, at the gangway, and show them round the ship, instead of the disorderly privateer, or pirate, they had expected to find. I could see some of these gentlemen eying me with curiosity, and with evident disappointment depicted in their countenances, as my young officers would point me out to them. They had come on board to see a Captain Kidd, or Blue Beard, at the least, and had found only a common mortal, in no wise distinguished from the officers by whom he was surrounded, except, perhaps, that his gray coat was a little more faded, and his moustache a little more the color of his coat.

The ship was surrounded with bum-boats, laden with fruits, and other supplies for the sailors, and a brisk traffic was going on, alongside, and in the port gangway, in pipes, and tobacco, orchata, and orange-water; and, as we found as night began to set in, in something a little stronger. We had no marine guard on board the Alabama, and there was, consequently, no sentinel at the gangway in the daytime. We were necessarily obliged to rely upon the master-at-arms, and the quartermasters, for examining all boats that came alongside, to see that no liquor was smuggled into the ship. These petty officers were old sailors like the rest, and I have rarely seen a sailor who could be relied upon, for any purpose of police, where his brother sailor was concerned.

Whilst I was below, a little after sunset, taking a cup of tea, and enjoying some of the delicious fruit which Bartelli had provided for me, I heard some confusion of voices, and a tramping of feet on the deck over my head, and soon afterward, the first lieutenant came into my cabin to tell me, that there was considerable disorder in the ship. I repaired on deck immediately, and saw at a glance that the crew was almost in a state of mutiny. It was evidently a drunken mutiny, however, and not very alarming. An officer had gone forward to quell some disturbance on the forecastle, when one of the sailors had thrown a belaying-pin at him, and others had abused him, and threatened him with personal violence. Some of the men, when directed to assist in seizing and confining their more disorderly comrades, had refused; and as I reached the deck, there was a surly, and sulky crowd of half-drunken sailors gathered near the foremast, using mutinous language, and defying the authorities of the ship. I immediately ordered the first lieutenant to "beat to quarters." The drum and fife were gotten up, and such was the effect of previous discipline upon the crew, that the moment they heard the well-known beat, and the shrill tones of the fife, they "fell in," mechanically, at their guns--some of them so drunk, that their efforts to appear sober were quite ludicrous.

This was what I had reckoned upon. At quarters, the officers always appeared armed, as if they were going into battle. There were very few arms about the deck, upon which the sailors could lay their hands--the cutlasses and pistols being kept locked up, in the arms-chests. Of course, I now had it all my own way--thirty armed officers being more than a match for 110 men armed with nothing but sheath-knifes and belaying-pins. I began now to quell the mutiny; or rather it was already quelled, and I began to bring Jack back to his senses. In company with my first lieutenant and aide-de-camp, I passed along the platoons of men as they stood at their guns, and stopping wherever I observed a drunken man, I ordered his comrades to arrest him. This was immediately done, without demur in any instance, and the culprit was ironed. In this way I got as many as twenty disorderly fellows. These drunken men, the moment the attempt was made to arrest them, began to show fight, and to be abusive in their language. They were, however, soon overpowered, and rendered harmless. In this way I passed forward and aft, two or three times, eying the men as I passed, to be certain that I had gotten hold of all the rioters.

When I had done this, I directed the mutineers to be taken to the gangway, and calling two or three of the most active of the quartermasters, I made them provide themselves with draw-buckets, and commencing with the most noisy and drunken of the culprits, I ordered them to dash buckets of water over them in quick succession. The punishment was so evidently novel to the recipients, that they were at first disposed to deride it. With drunken gravity they would laugh and swear by turns, and tell the "bloody quartermasters" to "come on with their water, they were not afraid of it." But I was quite sure of my remedy, for I had tried it before; and as the drunken fellows would call for more water, in contempt and derision, I gratified them, and caused bucketsful to be dashed on them with such rapidity, that pretty soon they found it difficult to catch their breath, in the intervals between the showers. The more they would struggle and gasp for breath, the more rapidly the buckets would be emptied upon them.

The effect was almost electric. The maudlin fellows, somewhat sobered by the repeated shocks of the cold water, began now to swear less vociferously. In fact, they had no voice to swear with, for it was as much as they could do, to breathe. They no longer "bloodied" the quartermasters, or called for more water. Being reduced thus to silence, and still the water descending upon them as rapidly as ever, with half-sobered brain, and frames shivering with the cold, they would now become seriously alarmed. Did the captain mean to drown them? Was this the way he designed to punish them for mutiny, instead of hanging them at the yard-arm? They now turned to me, and begged me, for God's sake, to spare them. If I would only let them go this time, I should never have cause to complain of them again. I held off a little while, as if inexorable to their prayers and entreaties, the better to impress upon them the lesson I was teaching them, and then ordered them to be released. When their irons were taken off, they were sober enough to go below to their hammocks, without another word, and "turn in" like good boys! It took me some time to get through with this operation, for I had the delinquents--about a dozen of the most noisy--soused one at a time. The officers and crew were all this while--some two hours--standing at their guns, at quarters, and I could, now and then, overhear quite an audible titter from some of the sober men, as the drunken ones who were undergoing the shower-bath would now defy my authority, and now beg for mercy. When, at last, I had finished, I turned to my first lieutenant, and told him to "beat the retreat."

And this was the way, reader, in which I quelled my first, and only mutiny on board the Alabama. It became a saying afterward, among the sailors, that "Old Beeswax was h--ll upon watering a fellow's grog."

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Chapter XXXVIII

THE ALABAMA AT MARTINIQUE--IS BLOCKADED BY THE ENEMY'S STEAMER, SAN JACINTO--HOW SHE ESCAPED THE "OLD WAGON"--THE ISLAND OF BLANQUILLA, THE NEW RENDEZVOUS--COALING SHIP--A YANKEE SKIPPER--HOW THE OFFICERS AND MEN AMUSED THEMSELVES--THE CAPTURE OF THE PARKER COOKE, UNION, AND STEAMER ARIEL.

I found here at her anchors, as I had expected, my coal-ship, the Agrippina. She had been lying here eight days. Her master, an old Scotchman, who, like most old sailors, was fond of his grog, had been quite indiscreet, as I soon learned, in talking about his ship, and her movements. Instead of pretending to have come in for water or repairs, or to hunt a market, or for something of the kind, he had frequently, when "half seas-over," in the coffee-houses on shore, boasted of his connection with the Alabama, and told his brother tars that that ship might be daily looked for. Eight days were a sufficient space of time for these conversations to be repeated, in the neighboring islands; and as I knew that the enemy had several cruisers in the West Indies, I was only surprised that some one of them had not looked in upon the Agrippina before. It would not do for me to think of coaling in Martinique under the circumstances, and so I ordered my coal-ship to get under way forthwith, and proceed to a new rendezvous--a small island on the Spanish Main, where, in due time, we will rejoin her. I had the satisfaction of seeing her get a good offing before nightfall, and knew that she was safe.

It was well that I took this precaution, for on the very next morning, before I had turned out, an officer came below to inform me that an enemy's ship-of-war had appeared off the harbor! Dressing myself, and going on deck, sure enough, there was one of the enemy's large steamships, lying close within the mouth of the harbor, with one of the brightest and largest of "old flags" flying from her peak. She did not anchor, lest she should come under the twenty-four hours' rule; but pretty soon lowered a boat, and communicated with the authorities on shore. It soon transpired that she was the famous San Jacinto, a name which has become inseparably connected in the American memory, with one of the greatest humiliations ever put upon the Great Republic. Wilkes, and Seward, and the San Jacinto have achieved fame. They began by attempting to make a little war-capital out of John Bull, and ended by singing, as we have seen, the "seven penitential psalms;" or, at least, as many of these psalms as could be sung in "seven days," short metre being used. I could not help thinking, as I looked at the old ship, of Mr. Seward's elaborate despatch to Lord Russell, set to the tune of "Old Hundred," and of the screams of Miss Slidell, as she had been gallantly charged by the American marines, commanded, for the occasion, by an officer bearing the proud old name of Fairfax, and born in the State of Virginia!

We paid no sort of attention to the arrival of this old wagon of a ship. She was too heavy for me to think of engaging, as she threw more than two pounds of metal to my one--her battery consisting of fourteen eleven-inch guns--and her crew was more than twice as numerous as my own; but we had the speed of her, and could, of course, go to sea whenever we pleased. I was glad, however, that I had gotten the Agrippina safely out of her way, as she might otherwise have been indefinitely blockaded. We remained quietly at our anchors during the day; such of the officers visiting the shore as desired, and the stewards of the messes being all busy in laying in a supply of fruits and other refreshments. We were, in the meantime, quite amused at the warlike preparations that were going on on board the San Jacinto. The captain of that ship, whose name, I believe, was Ronckendorff, made the most elaborate preparations for battle. We could see his men aloft, busily engaged in slinging yards, stoppering topsail sheets, getting up preventer braces, and making such other preparations, as the Victory or Royal Sovereign might have made on the eve of Trafalgar.

Poor Ronckendorff, what a disappointment awaited him! the Alabama was going to sea that very night. There was a Yankee merchant-ship in the harbor, and just at nightfall, a boat pulled out from her to the San Jacinto, to post her, probably, as to the channels and outlets, and to put her in possession of the rumors afloat. The fates were much more propitious as to weather, than they had been to the little Sumter, when she eluded the Iroquois. The night set in dark and rainy. We ran up our boats, lighted our fires, and when the steam was ready, got under way, as we would have done on any ordinary occasion, except only that there were no lights permitted to be seen about the ship, and that the guns were loaded and cast loose, and the crew at quarters. In the afternoon, a French naval officer had come on board, kindly bringing me a chart of the harbor, from which it appeared that I could run out in almost any direction I might choose. I chose the most southern route, and giving my ship a full head of steam, we passed out, without so much as getting a glimpse of the San Jacinto! The next news that we received from the "States," informed us that the San Jacinto was perfectly innocent of our escape until the next morning revealed to her our vacant place in the harbor. Her commander was even then incredulous, and remained cruising off the harbor for a day or two longer, until he could satisfy himself that I had not hauled my ship up into some cunning nook, or inlet, and hid her away out of sight!

The next afternoon I had joined my coal-ship, and we ran in to our anchorage, together, in the little, barren island of Blanquilla, off the coast of Venezuela, where we came to about nightfall. This was one of those little coral islands that skirt the South American coast, not yet fully adapted to the habitation of man. It was occasionally visited by a passing fisherman, or turtler, and a few goat-herds, from the main-land, had come over to pasture some goats on the coarse grass. As we ran in to this anchorage, which I remembered well from having visited it once in a ship of war of the old service, I was surprised to see a Yankee whaling schooner at anchor. She was lying very close in with the beach, on which she had a tent pitched, and some boilers in operation, trying out the oil from a whale which she had recently struck. The master of this little vessel, seeing us running down the island, under the United States colors, came off, in one of his boats, to pilot us in, and was apparently quite pleased to find himself on board one of his own gun-boats. He told us all he had heard about the Alabama, and went into ecstasies over our fine battery, and the marvellous accounts of our speed, which some of the young men gave him, and declared that we were the very ship to "give the pirate Semmes fits."

A terrible collapse awaited him. When I had let go my anchor, I sent for him, and told him who we were. That we were no less than the terrible Alabama herself. He stood aghast for a moment. An awful vision seemed to confront him. His little schooner, and his oil, and the various little 'ventures which he had on board, with which to trade with the natives along the coast, and turn that "honest penny," which has so many charms in the eyes of his countrymen, were all gone up the spout! And then he stood in the presence of the man whose ship he had characterized as a "pirate," and whom he had told to his face, he was no better than a freebooter. But I played the magnanimous. I told the skipper not to be alarmed; that he was perfectly safe on board the Alabama, and that out of respect for Venezuela, within whose maritime jurisdiction we were, I should not even burn his ship. I should detain him, however, as a prisoner, for a few days, I added, to prevent his carrying news of me to the enemy, until I was ready myself to depart. He gladly assented to these terms, and was frequently afterward on board the ship during our stay.

We lay five days at the little island of Blanquilla, coaling ship, and getting ready for another cruise. We broke out our hold for the first time, and cleansed and whitewashed it. We hoisted out our boats, and rigged them for sailing; and in the afternoons, after the excessive heats had moderated a little, sailing and fishing parties were formed, and the officers had some very pleasant little picnics on shore. Fish were abundant, and on occasion of these picnics, a fine red-fish, weighing twenty pounds and more, would sometimes be found cut up, and in the frying-pan, almost before it had ceased floundering. The crew were sent on shore, "on liberty," in quarter watches, taking their rifles and ammunition, and fish-spears, and fishing-lines along with them. The water was as clear as crystal, and there being some beautiful bathing-places along the beach, bathing became a favorite amusement. Although this coast abounds in sharks of large size, they are not found to be dangerous, when there is a number of bathers enjoying the sport together. The shark is a great coward, and rarely attacks a man, unless it can surprise him.

My gig was a fine boat, fitted with a lug sail, and I used frequently to stretch off long distances from the land in her, enjoying her fine sailing qualities, in the fresh sea-breeze that would be blowing, the greater part of the day. At other times I would coast the island along for miles, now putting into one little cove, and now into another, sometimes fishing, and at others hunting sea-shells, and exploring the wonders of the coral banks. Pelican, gulls, plover, and sand-snipe were abundant, and my boat's crew, when we would land, and haul our boat up for a stroll, would sometimes make capital shots. Indeed, we generally returned on board laden with fish, game, and marine curiosities, of various kinds,--prominent among which would be specimens of the little coral insect, and its curious manufactures. Miniature limestone-trees, with their pointed branches, shrubs, fans, and a hundred other imitations of the flora of the upper world would be fished up from beneath the sparkling waters, live their day of wonder, and when they had faded and lost their beauty, be thrown overboard again.

We found here flocks of the flamingo--a large bird of the crane species, with long legs and bill, for wading and feeding in the shallow lagoons which surround the island. Its plumage is of the most delicate pink, inclining to scarlet, and when the tall birds are drawn up in line, upon a sand beach, where there is some mirage, or refraction, they look not unlike a regiment of red-coated soldiers. They are quite shy, but we carried some of them on board, out of the rich plumage of which Bartelli made me some fans. Officers and men, both of whom had been long confined on board ship--it being now three months since the Alabama was commissioned--visibly improved in health whilst we lay at Blanquilla. The reader may recollect that we captured in the brig Dunkirk, a deserter from the Sumter. We had tried him by court-martial before reaching Martinique, and sentenced him to serve out his term, under certain penalties. At Martinique, we found him a chief spirit among the mutineers, whose grog I had "watered" as described in the last chapter. Another court now sat upon his case, and in obedience to its sentence, the fellow was turned upon the beach at Blanquilla, with "bag and hammock." This worthy citizen of the Great Republic joined the Yankee whaling schooner, and went into more congenial company and pursuits.

Having finished our coaling, and made the other preparations necessary for sea, I dispatched my coal-ship, which had still another supply of coal left, to another rendezvous--the Arcas islands, in the Gulf of Mexico, and gave the Yankee schooner leave to depart, telling the master to make a free sheet of it, and not let me catch him on the high seas, as it might not be so well for him a second time. He took me at my word, had all the sail on his little craft in the twinkling of an eye, and I question whether he stopped this side of Nantucket.

My object, in running into the Gulf of Mexico, was to strike a blow at Banks' expedition, which was then fitting out for the invasion of Texas. This gentleman, who had been a prominent Massachusetts politician, but who had no sort of military talent, had risen to the surface with other scum, amid the bubbling and boiling of the Yankee caldron, and was appointed by "Honest Abe" to subjugate Texas. Banks had mounted a stud-horse, on Boston Common, on militia-review days, before the war, and had had himself lithographed, stud-horse, cocked-hat, feathers, and all, and these were credentials not to be despised. I had learned from captured Northern papers, that he was fitting out at Boston and New York, a large expedition, to consist of not less than 30,000 men. A large proportion of this army was to consist of cavalry and light artillery. To transport such an army, a large number of transport-ships would be required. The expedition was to rendezvous at Galveston, which the enemy had captured from us, not a great while before.

As there were but twelve feet of water on the Galveston bar, very few of these transport-ships would be able to enter the harbor; the great mass of them, numbering, perhaps, a hundred and more, would be obliged to anchor, pell-mell, in the open sea. Much disorder, and confusion would necessarily attend the landing of so many troops, encumbered by horses, artillery, baggage-wagons, and stores. My design was to surprise this fleet by a night-attack, and if possible destroy it, or at least greatly cripple it. The Northern press, in accordance with its usual habit, of blabbing everything, had informed me of the probable time of the sailing of the expedition, and I designed so to time my own movements, as to arrive simultaneously with the stud-horse and the major-general, or at least a day or two afterward.

It was to be presumed, of course, that some of the enemy's gun-boats would accompany the expedition, but I hoped to be able to fall so unexpectedly upon their convoy, as to find them off their guard. There was no Confederate cruiser in the Gulf, and I learned from the enemy's own papers, that the Alabama was well on her way to the coast of Brazil and the East Indies. The surprise would probably be complete, in the dead of night, and when the said gun-boats of the enemy would be sleeping in comparative security, with but little, if any steam in their boilers. Half an hour would suffice for my purpose of setting fire to the fleet, and it would take the gun-boats half an hour to get up steam, and their anchors, and pursue me.

It was with this object in view, that we were now getting under way from the island of Blanquilla. But the Banks' expedition would not arrive off Galveston, probably, before about the 10th of January, and as we were now only in the latter days of November, I had several weeks on my hands, before it would become necessary for me to proceed to my new rendezvous. I resolved to devote this interval to the waylaying of a California treasure-steamer, as a million or so of dollars in gold, deposited in Europe, would materially aid me, in my operations upon the sea. I could purchase several more Alabamas, to develop the "nautical enterprise" of our people, and assist me to scourge the enemy's commerce.

There were two routes by which the California steamers returned from Aspinwall--one by the east end of Cuba, and the other by the west end. I chose the former for my ambuscade, as being probably the most used. To reach my new cruising-ground, I put my ship under sail, and made a detour by the way of the islands of Porto Rico and St. Domingo, passing through the Mona Passage, through which much of the West India commerce of the enemy passed, with the hope of picking up something by the way. We left our anchorage at Blanquilla on the 26th of November, and made the island of Porto Rico on the morning of the 29th. We coasted along the south side of this island, with a gentle breeze and smooth sea, sufficiently near to enjoy its fine, bold scenery, passing only a couple of sail during the day--one a large French steamer, bound to the eastward, and the other an English bark. We showed them the United States colors. The bark saluted the "old flag," by striking her colors to it, but the "old flag" did not return the salute, as it was hoisted at the wrong peak. The Englishman must have thought his Yankee friend rather discourteous.

We entered the Mona Passage, lying between St. Domingo and Porto Rico, after nightfall, but the moon was shining sufficiently bright to enable us to get hold of the small islands of Mona and Desecho, and thus grope our way in safety. The currents in this strait being somewhat uncertain, the navigation is treacherous when the weather is dark. Early on the next morning, we were off the Bay of Samana, and were running with a flowing sheet along the coast of St. Domingo. I had approached the Mona Passage with much caution, fully expecting to find so important a thoroughfare guarded by the enemy, but there was nothing in the shape of a ship of war to be seen. The enemy was too busy blockading the Southern coasts to pay much attention to his commerce. In the course of the morning, we boarded a Spanish schooner, from Boston, bound for the old city of St. Domingo, from which we received a batch of late newspapers, giving us still further accounts, among other things, of the preparation of the Banks' expedition, about which all New England seemed, just then, to be agog.

The great Massachusetts leader had been given carte blanche, and he was making the best possible use of it. He was fitting himself out very splendidly, but his great expedition resembled rather one of Cyrus' or Xerxes', than one of Xenophon's. The Boston papers dilated upon the splendid bands of music, the superb tents, the school-marms, and the relays of stud-horses that were to accompany the hero of Boston Common. But the best feature of the expedition was the activity and thrift which had suddenly sprung up in all the markets of New England, in consequence. The looms, the spindles and the shoemakers' awls were in awful activity. In short, every man or boy who could whittle a stick, whittled it, and sold it to the Government. The whalemen in New Bedford, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard were in especial glee. They were selling all their whaling ships, which were too old, or too rotten for further service, to the Government, for transports, at enormous prices. Many a bluff old whaler that had rode out a gale under the lee of an iceberg at the Navigators' Islands, or "scraped her keel on Coromandel's coast," forty years before, was patched and caulked and covered over with pitch and paint, and sold to an ignorant, if not corrupt, army quartermaster, for as good as "bran new." No wonder that the war was popular in New England. There was not only negro in it, but there was money in it also.

Filling away from the Spanish schooner, which we requested to report us, in St. Domingo, as the United States steamer Iroquois, we continued our course down the island. It was Sunday, and the day was fine. The crew was dressed, as usual, for muster, and what with the ship in her gala-dress of awnings, and glitter of "bright-work," the island, the sea, and the weather, a more beautiful picture could not well have been presented to the beholder. In the distance were the blue, and hazy hills, so fraught with the memories of Columbus, and the earlier Spanish explorers. Nearer to, was the old town of Isabella, the first ever built in the New World by civilized men, and nearer still was the bluff, steep, rock-bound coast, against which the most indigo of seas was breaking in the purest and whitest of foam. The sailors had thrown themselves upon the deck in groups, each group having its reader, who was reading aloud to attentive listeners the latest war-news, as gleaned from the papers we had received from the Spanish schooner; and the officers, through whose hands the said newspapers had already passed, were smoking and chatting, now of Columbus, and now of the war. Presently the shrill cry of "sail ho!" came ringing from aloft; and the scene on board the Alabama shifted almost as magically as it does in a theatre. Every man sprang to his feet, without waiting for an order; the newspapers were stuck away in cracks and crannies; the helm was shifted, to bring the ship's head around to the proper point for chasing, and studding-sails, and kites were given simultaneously to the wind.

When we began to raise the spars and sails of the chase above the sea, from the deck, there was a general exclamation of "Yankee!" The tapering royal and sky-sail masts, with the snowiest of canvas, told the tale, as they had told it so often before. A run of a few hours more brought us up with the American bark Parker Cooke, of, and from Boston, bound to Aux Cayes, on the south side of the island of St. Domingo. If the Cooke had been chartered, and sent out for our especial benefit, the capture could not have been more opportune. The Alabama's commissariat was beginning to run a little low, and here was the Cooke provision-laden. We had found, by experience in the Sumter, that our Boston friends put up the very best of crackers, and ship-bread, and sent excellent butter, and cheese, salted beef and pork, and dried fruits to the West India markets; nor were we disappointed on the present occasion. Both ships were now hove to, under short sail, within convenient boating distance, and the rest of the day was consumed in transporting provisions from the prize. It was sunset before we concluded our labors, and at the twilight hour, when the sea-breeze was dying away, and all nature was sinking to repose, we applied the torch to the Cooke.

As we filled away, and made sail, I could not but moralize on the spectacle. Sixty years before, the negro had cut the throat of the white man, ravished his wife and daughters, and burned his dwelling in the island of St. Domingo, now in sight. The white man, in another country, was now inciting the negro to the perpetration of the same crimes against another white man, whom he had called brother. The white man who was thus inciting the negro, was the Puritan of New England, whose burning ship was lighting up the shores of St Domingo! That Puritan, only a generation before, had entered into a solemn league and covenant, to restore to the Southern man his fugitive slave, if he should escape into his territory. This was the way in which he was keeping his plighted faith! Does any one wonder that the Alabama burned New England ships?

We began now to receive some "returns" of the effect of our late captures upon Northern commerce. The papers captured on board the Cooke were full of lamentations. Our pious brethren did not confine themselves to the forms set down by Jeremiah, however, but hissed their execrations through teeth grinding with rage. I will not treat my readers to any of these specimens of the art Philippic, but will confine myself to a few business excerpts instead, taken indiscriminately from the New York and Boston papers.

Boston crieth aloud.

"ADVANCES ON MARINE INSURANCE.--In consequence of the destruction caused at sea by the privateer steamer Alabama, the officers of the insurance companies of Boston have fixed the present war rates on different voyages as follows:--To the north of Europe, 4@5 per cent.; Mediterranean, 5@6; India, 4-1/2; Gulf ports, 4; California gold steamers, 4; West India risks, 5; coastwise, 1/2@1-1/2. These rates are liable to be altered according to the necessary requirements of the times, consequent upon the unusual hazards to which commerce is now exposed."

New York responds to the cry of Boston.

"The damaging effect of the Alabama's raid on our shipping upon the maritime interests of this port were as conspicuous to-day as yesterday. It was next to impossible for the owner of an American ship to procure freight unless he consented to make a bogus sale of his ship."

"Freights to Great Britain are rather more active, under favorable foreign advices for breadstuffs, but rates by American vessels depressed; foreign bottoms most in favor, but even these now find it difficult to employ themselves profitably. To Liverpool, flour is 9d@2s."

I heard again from the New York Chamber of Commerce, by the Cooke. My friend, Low, was still lamenting over his lost ships. Like Rachael weeping for her children, he refused to be comforted because they were not. Another grand pow-wow had been called, and another set of resolutions passed. SCENE: A luxuriously furnished suite of apartments, with well-padded arm-chairs, and big ink stands; a table; on the walls, several pictures of burning ships, with the "pirate ship" in the distance; of John Bull running off with the "carrying-trade," and Jonathan screaming after him; and of Mr. Low tearing his hair. Enter the dramatis personae. Low loquitur:--

"Mr. A. Low read a very long preamble and resolution expressive of the feelings of the American public in regard to the shelter afforded to the Alabama by British authorities. He also read a letter from our Consul at Liverpool, Mr. Dudley, in which that functionary sets forth the efforts he made to direct the attention of the British authorities to the Alabama, and concludes by asserting that there are now four large vessels fitting out at Liverpool to follow the piratical example of the Alabama--three of iron and one of wood. Nine vessels are preparing to run the blockade.

"Mr. Low explained at some length the object and scope of his proposed resolution. He declared that American ships could no longer get cargoes, in consequence of the depredations of the Alabama.

"Hon. F. A. Conkling spoke in behalf of granting letters-of-marque. He saw no other alternative between this and a complete paralyzation of our commerce. He read extracts from Cogswell's 'Maritime History,' showing the effectiveness of privateers in our previous wars.

"C. H. Marshall spoke in favor of the adoption of Mr. Low's preamble and resolution.

"Mr. Maury stated that he had received a letter from Liverpool, saying that the new pirate ships building for the Confederates are vastly more formidable than the Alabama.

"The preamble and resolutions set forth at length the evil consequences likely to ensue from a repetition of such piratical acts as the fitting out of more vessels like the Alabama, in the ports of Great Britain; that information has been received of other vessels having sailed to prey upon the commerce of the United States; that the English Government does not interfere to put a stop to the aggressions of the pirate, though British goods have been destroyed; that the Alabama is continually supplied from Great Britain with coal and ammunition, by which she is enabled to pursue her piratical courses against American commerce, the consequence being to raise the premium upon American vessels and their cargoes, and to depress the rates of freight upon American ships, and to transfer our carrying-trade to the ships of other nations. Therefore the Chamber is led to the following conclusions:

"1st. That through the active instrumentality of the subjects of Great Britain, the so-called Confederate States are furnished with ships, men, arms, and ammunition, with which to war upon the commerce of the United States;

"2d. That without such foreign aid the States in revolt against the Government of the United States would be powerless to effect any injury to our commerce on the high seas.

"3d. That this war upon American commerce carried on by ships built and manned in Great Britain, is not rebuked by the British press generally; is not discouraged by the public sentiment of a once friendly nation claiming to be governed by high and honorable principles, and is not effectively and thoroughly arrested by the stronger arm of the British Government.

"4th. That as a result of the foregoing acts and conclusions, the merchants of the United States are subject in a certain degree to the evils that would attend a state of war with Great Britain, and are compelled to witness the carrying-trade of their country transferred from their own vessels to British bottoms, under all the sanctions and advantages of peace and neutrality to the latter--while the source of this great peril, threatening to drive American commerce from the ocean, is of British origin.

"Now, therefore, resolved, that a Committee of ten be appointed to take into consideration the foregoing, and to report, at a special meeting to be called for the purpose, what action it becomes this Chamber to take in the premises."

How astonishing it is, that these gentlemen when they were denouncing Great Britain for supplying the Confederates with men and munitions of war, did not think of the supplies they were themselves drawing from the same source. I have before referred to a speech of Mr. Laird, the builder of the Alabama, in the British House of Commons. I now refer to another passage of the same speech, as a sufficient answer to Mr. Low's complaints:--

"If a ship without guns and without arms, [he is alluding to the Alabama when she left the Mersey,] is a dangerous article, surely rifled guns and ammunition of all sorts are equally--(cheers)--and even more dangerous. (Cheers.) I have referred to the bills of entry in the Custom-houses of London and Liverpool, and I find there have been vast shipments of implements of war to the Northern States, through the celebrated houses of Baring & Co.--(loud cheers and laughter),--Brown, Shipley & Co., of Liverpool, and a variety of other names, which I need not more particularly mention, but whose Northern tendencies are well known to this House. (Hear! hear!) If the member for Rochdale, or the honorable member for Branchford wishes to ascertain the extent to which the Northern States of America have had supplies of arms from this country, they have only to go to a gentleman who, I am sure, will be ready to afford them every information, and much more readily than he would to me, or to any one else calling upon him--the American Consul in Liverpool. Before that gentleman, the manifest of every ship is laid, he has to give an American pass to each vessel; he is, consequently, able to tell the exact number of rifles which have been shipped from this country for the United States--information, I doubt not, which would be very generally desired by this House. (Loud cries of 'hear!') I have obtained from the official custom-house returns, some details of the sundries exported from the United Kingdom to the Northern States of America, from the 1st of May, 1861, to the 31st of December, 1862. There were--Muskets, 41,500--(hear! hear!)--rifles, 341,000--(cheers)--gun-flints, 26,500--percussion-caps, 49,982,000--(cheers and laughter)--and swords, 2250. The best information I could obtain, leads me to believe that from one third to a half may be added to these numbers for items which have been shipped to the Northern States as hardware. (Hear! hear!) I have very good reason for saying that a vessel of 2000 tons was chartered six weeks ago, for the express purpose of taking out a cargo of "hardware" to the United States. (Cheers.) The exportation has not ceased yet. From the 1st of January to the 17th of March, 1863, the customs bills of entry show that 23,870 gun-barrels, 30,802 rifles, and 3,105,800 percussion-caps were shipped to the United States. (Hear! hear!) So that if the Southern States have got two ships unarmed, unfit for any purpose of warfare--for they procured their armaments somewhere else--the Northern States have been well supplied from this country, through the agency of some most influential persons. (Hear! hear!)"

"The American Consul in Liverpool," alluded to in the above extract, is the same gentleman--Dudley--who was assisting Mr. Low to denounce Great Britain for supplying the Confederate States!

The Parker Cooke made a beautiful bonfire, lighting up the sea and land for leagues; and as the wind continued light, it was near midnight before we had run it below the horizon. Before morning we gave chase to another sail, but at daylight, by which time we were within a couple of miles of her, she showed us the Spanish colors. We chased, and overhauled soon afterward a Dutch galliot, and later in the day, a Spanish bark. The land was still in sight on our port beam, and toward nightfall, we passed Cape Francois.

Between midnight and dawn, on this same night, we had quite an alarm. A large ship-of-war came suddenly upon us, in the darkness! Like ourselves, she was running down the coast, but she was under both steam and sail, having her studding-sails set on both sides, whereas the Alabama was entirely without steam, with her propeller triced up. If the stranger had been an enemy, we should have been almost entirely at her mercy. The reader may imagine, therefore, how anxious I was for the next few minutes. She soon dispelled my fears, however, for she passed rapidly on, at no greater distance from us, than a hundred yards, her lights lighting up the countenances of my men, as they stood at their guns--for by this time I had gotten them to their quarters--quite distinctly. She did not take the least notice of us, or swerve a hair's-breadth from her course. I knew, from this, she could not be an enemy, and told my first lieutenant, even before she had well passed us, that he might let his men leave their guns. She was, probably, a Spanish steam-frigate, on her way to the island of Cuba.

On the evening of the 2d of December, we passed the little island of Tortuga, so famous in the history of the buccaneers and pirates who once infested these waters, and on the next day, found ourselves in the passage between St. Domingo and Cuba. There were many sails passing in different directions, all of which we overhauled, but they proved to be neutral. Here was another important thoroughfare of the enemy's commerce entirely unguarded. There was not only no ship-of-war of the enemy to be seen, but none of the neutrals that I had spoken, had fallen in with any. We had, therefore, a clear sea before us, for carrying out our design of waylaying a California steamer. In the afternoon, we stretched over to the east end of Cuba, and took our station in "watch and wait."

On the same night, we chased and overhauled a French bark. The sea was smooth, and a bright moon shining. The chase paid no attention to our blank cartridge, though we were close on board of her, and stood a shot before she would come to the wind. As we threw this purposely between her masts, and pretty close over the heads of her people, she came to the conclusion that it would not be safe to trifle longer, and rounded to and backed her main yard. When asked by the boarding-officer, why he did not heave to, at the first signal, the master replied naively that he was a Frenchman, and at war with nobody! Philosophical Frenchman!

We had accurate time-tables of the arrivals and departures of the California steamers, in the files of the New York papers, that we had captured, and by these tables, the homeward-bound steamer would not be due for a few days yet. We spent this interval in lying off and on the east end of Cuba, under easy sail, chasing more or less during the day, but without success, all the vessels overhauled being neutrals, and closing in with Cape Maize during the night, and holding on to its very brilliant light until morning. The weather was clear, and the moon near her full, so that I had almost as good a view of the passage by night as by day.

On the 5th of December, a prize ran into our arms, without the necessity of a chase. It was a Baltimore schooner called the Union, old, and of little value. She had, besides, a neutral cargo, properly documented, for a small town called Port Maria, on the north side of Jamaica. I transferred the prisoners of the Cooke to her, and released her on ransom-bond. My original orders were not to capture Maryland vessels, but that good old State had long since ceased to occupy the category in which our Congress, and the Executive had placed her. She was now ranged under the enemy's flag, and I could make no discrimination in her favor.

On the next day the California steamer was due, and a very bright lookout was kept; a number of the young officers volunteering their services for the occasion. In the transparent atmosphere of this delightful climate, we could see to great distances. The west end of St. Domingo, about Cape Tiburon, was visible, though distant ninety miles. But not so much as a smoke was seen during the entire day, and the sun went down upon disappointed hopes. The next day was Sunday, and the holy-stones had been busy over my head during all the morning watch, putting the decks in order for muster. I had turned out, and dressed, and swept the entire horizon with my telescope, without seeing anything to encourage me. The crew had breakfasted, and the word, "All hands clean yourselves, in white frocks and trousers, for muster!" had been growled out by the boatswain, and echoed by his mates. The decks were encumbered with clothes-bags, and Jack was arraying himself as directed. I had gone down to my own breakfast, and was enjoying one of Bartelli's cups of good coffee, hopeless for that day of my California steamer, and my million of dollars in gold. Suddenly the prolonged cry of "S-a-i-l h-o!" came ringing, in a clear musical voice, from aloft; the look-out having at length descried a steamer, and being anxious to impart the intelligence in as emphatic a manner as possible, to the startled listeners on the deck below. The "Where-away?" of the officer of the deck, shouted through his trumpet, followed, and in a moment more came the rejoinder, "Broad on the port bow, sir!" "What does she look like?" again inquired the officer of the deck. "She is a large steamer, brig-rigged, sir!" was the reply. An officer now came below to announce to me what I had already heard.

Here was a steamer at last, but unfortunately she was not in the right direction, being in the north-west instead of the south-east--the latter being the direction in which the California steamer should appear. All was excitement now on deck. The engineers and firemen were set at work, in great haste, to get up their steam. The sailors were hurried with their "cleaning," and the bags stowed away. "All hands work ship!" being called, the first lieutenant took the trumpet, and furled the sails, making a "snug roll-up of it," so that they might hold as little wind as possible, and lowered the propeller. In twenty minutes we were ready for the chase, with every thing snug "alow and aloft," and with the steam hissing from the gauge-cocks. The strange steamer came up very rapidly, and we scrutinized her anxiously to see whether she was a ship of war, or a packet-ship. She showed too much hull out of the water to be a ship of war, and yet we could not be sure, as the enemy had commissioned a great many packet-steamers, and put heavy armaments on board of them. When she was within three or four miles of us, we showed her the United States colors, and she responded in a few minutes, by hoisting the same. Like ourselves, she had her sails furled, and was carrying a very large "bone in her mouth" under steam alone.

We could now see that she was fast, and from the absence of guns at her sides, a packet-ship. I now put my ship in motion, with a view to lay her across the stranger's path, as though I would speak her. But I missed doing this by about a couple of ship's lengths, the stranger passing just ahead of me. A beautiful spectacle presented itself as I passed under the stern of that monster steamship. The weather was charming, there being a bright, clear sky, with only a few fleecy trade-clouds passing. There was just enough of the balmiest and gentlest of winds, to ruffle, without roughening the surface of the sea. The islands of Cuba, St. Domingo, and Jamaica--the two latter, in the blue and hazy distance, and the former robed in the gorgeous green known only to the tropics--were in sight. The great packet-steamer had all her awnings set, and under these awnings, on the upper deck, was a crowd of passengers, male and female. Mixed with the male passengers were several officers in uniform, and on the forward deck, there were groups of soldiers to be seen. This crowd presented a charming picture, especially the ladies, most of whom were gayly dressed, with the streamers from their bonnets, their veils, and their waste ribbons flirting with the morning breeze. We were sufficiently close to see the expression of their countenances. Many of them were viewing us with opera glasses, evidently admiring the beautiful proportions, fine trim, and general comeliness of one of their own gun-boats--for the reader will recollect, we were wearing still the United States flag.

As I passed the wake of the steamer, I wheeled in pursuit, fired a blank cartridge, and hauling down the Federal, threw the Confederate flag to the breeze. It was amusing to witness the panic which ensued. If that old buccaneer, Blue Beard, himself, had appeared, the consternation could not have been greater. The ladies screamed--one of those delightful, dramatic screams, half fear, half acting, which can only ascend from female voices--and scampered off the deck in a trice; the men running after them, and making quite as good, if not better time. The effect of my gun, and change of flags on the steamer herself, seemed to be scarcely less electric. She had no intention, whatever, of obeying my command to halt. On the contrary, I could see from the increased impetus with which she sprang forward, and the dense volumes of black smoke that now came rushing, and whirling from her smoke-stack, that she was making every possible effort to escape. She had gotten a little the start of me, as I was wheeling to pursue her, and might be now, some three or four hundred yards distant.

The reader has been on the race-course, and seen two fleet horses, with necks and tails straightened, and running about "neck and neck." This will give him a pretty good idea of the race which is now going on. We had not stretched a mile, when it became quite evident that the stranger had the heels of me, and that, if I would capture her, I must resort to force. I ordered my "persuader," as the sailors called my rifled bow-gun, to be cleared away, and sent orders to the officer, to take aim at the fugitive's foremast, being careful to throw his shot high enough above the deck not to take life. When the gun was ready to be fired, I yawed the ship a little, though the effect of this was to lose ground, to enable the officer the better, to take his aim. A flash, a curl of white smoke, and a flying off of large pieces of timber from the steamer's mast, were simultaneous occurrences. It was sufficient. The mast had not been cut quite away, but enough had been done to satisfy the master of the steamer that he was entirely within our power, and that prudence would be the better part of valor. In a moment after, we could see a perceptible diminution in the motion of the "walking-beam," and pretty soon the great wheels of the steamer ceased to revolve, and she lay motionless on the water.

We "slowed down" our own engine, and began to blow off steam at once, and ranging up alongside of the prize, sent a boat on board of her. It was thus we captured the steamer Ariel, instead of going to muster, on Sunday, the 7th of December, 1862. But Fortune, after all, had played us a scurvy trick. The Ariel was indeed a California steamer, but instead of being a homeward-bound steamer, with a million of dollars in gold, in her safe, I had captured an outward-bound steamer, with five hundred women and children on board! This was an elephant I had not bargained for, and I was seriously embarrassed to know what to do with it. I could not take her into any neutral port, even for landing the passengers, as this was forbidden, by those unfriendly orders in council I have more than once spoken of, and I had no room for the passengers on board the Alabama. The most that I could hope to do, was to capture some less valuable prize, within the next few days, turn the passengers of the Ariel on board of her, and destroy the steamer. Our capture, however, was not without useful results. The officers and soldiers mentioned as being on board of her, were a battalion of marines, going out to the Pacific, to supply the enemy's ships of war on that station. There were also some naval officers on board, for the same purpose. These were all paroled, and deprived of their arms. The rank and file numbered 140.

When my boarding-officer returned, he reported to me that there was a great state of alarm among the passengers on board. They had been reading the accounts which a malicious, and mendacious Northern press had been giving of us, and took us to be no better than the "plunderers," and "robbers" we had been represented to be. The women, in particular, he said, were, many of them, in hysterics, and apprehensive of the worst consequences. I had very little sympathy for the terrors of the males, but the tear of a woman has always unmanned me. And as I knew something of the weakness of the sex, as well as its fears, I resorted to the following stratagem to calm the dear creatures. I sent for my handsomest young lieutenant--and I had some very handsome young fellows on board the Alabama--and when he had come to me, I told him to go below, and array himself in his newest and handsomest uniform, buckle on the best sword there was in the ward-room, ask of Bartelli the loan of my brightest sword-knot, and come up to me for his orders. Sailors are rapid dressers, and in a few minutes my lieutenant was again by my side, looking as bewitching as I could possibly desire. I gave him my own boat, a beautiful gig, that had been newly painted, and which my coxswain, who was a bit of a sea-dandy, had furnished with scarlet cushions, and fancy yoke and steering ropes, and directed him to go on board the Ariel, and coax the ladies out of their hysterics. "Oh! I'll be sure to do that, sir," said he, with a charming air of coxcombry, "I never knew a fair creature who could resist me more than fifteen minutes." As he shoved off from the side, in my beautiful little cockle-shell of a boat, with its fine-looking, lithe and active oarsmen, bending with the strength of athletes to their ashen blades, I could but pause a moment, myself, in admiration of the picture.

A few strokes of his oars put him alongside of the steamer, and asking to be shown to the ladies' cabin, he entered the scene of dismay and confusion. So many were the signs of distress, and so numerous the wailers, that he was abashed, for a moment, as he afterward told me, with all his assurance. But summoning courage, he spoke to them about as follows:--"Ladies! The Captain of the Alabama has heard of your distress, and sent me on board to calm your fears, by assuring you, that you have fallen into the hands of Southern gentlemen, under whose protection you are entirely safe. We are by no means the ruffians and outlaws, that we have been represented by your people, and you have nothing whatever to fear." The sobs ceased as he proceeded, but they eyed him askance for the first few minutes. As he advanced in their midst, however, they took a second, and more favorable glance at him. A second glance begat a third, more favorable still, and when he entered into conversation with some of the ladies nearest him--picking out the youngest and prettiest, as the rogue admitted--he found no reluctance on their part to answer him. In short, he was fast becoming a favorite. The ice being once broken, a perfect avalanche of loveliness soon surrounded him, the eyes of the fair creatures looking all the brighter for the tears that had recently dimmed them.

Presently a young lady, stepping up to him, took hold of one of the bright buttons that were glittering on the breast of his coat, and asked him if he would not permit her to cut it off, as a memento of her adventure with the Alabama. He assented. A pair of scissors was produced, and away went the button! This emboldened another lady to make the same request, and away went another button; and so the process went on, until when I got my handsome lieutenant back, he was like a plucked peacock--he had scarcely a button to his coat! There were no more Hebes drowned in tears, on board the Ariel.

But what struck my young officer as very singular was the deportment of the male passengers. Some of these seemed to be overhauling their trunks in a great hurry, as though there were valuables in them, which they were anxious to secrete. Their watches, too, had disappeared from some of their vest-pockets. "I verily believe," said he, as he was giving me an account of the manner in which he performed his mission, "that these fellows think we are no better than the Northern thieves, who are burning dwelling-houses, and robbing our women and children in the South!"

I take pleasure in contrasting, in these memoirs, the conduct of my officers and crew, during the late war, in the uniform respect which they paid to the laws of war, and the dictates of humanity, with that of some of the generals and colonels of the Federal Army, who debased our common nature, and disgraced the uniforms they wore by the brutality and pilferings I have described. There were 500 passengers on board the Ariel. It is fair to presume, that each passenger had with him a purse, of from three to five hundred dollars. Under the laws of war, all this money would have been good prize. But not one dollar of it was touched, or indeed so much as a passenger's baggage examined.

I carried out my intention, already expressed, of keeping the Ariel in company with me, for two or three days, hoping that I might capture some less valuable ship, into which to turn her passengers, that I might destroy her. I was very anxious to destroy this ship, as she belonged to a Mr. Vanderbilt, of New York, an old steamboat captain, who had amassed a large fortune, in trade, and was a bitter enemy of the South. Lucrative contracts during the war had greatly enhanced his gains, and he had ambitiously made a present of one of his steamers to the Federal Government, to be called after him, to pursue "rebel pirates."

Failing to overhaul another ship of the enemy in the few days that I had at my disposal, I released the Ariel, on ransom-bond, and sent her, and her large number of passengers, on their way rejoicing. I found Captain Jones of the Ariel a clever and well-informed gentleman, and I believe he gave a very fair account of the capture of his ship when he reached New York. He pledged me that Vanderbilt's ransom-bond, which he signed as his agent, would be regarded as a debt of honor. The bond is for sale, cheap, to any one desiring to redeem Mr. Vanderbilt's honor.

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Chapter XXXIX

THE ALABAMA IS DISABLED, AND STOPS TO REPAIR HER MACHINERY--PROCEEDS TO HER NEW RENDEZVOUS, THE ARCAS ISLANDS, AND THENCE TO GALVESTON--COMBAT WITH THE UNITED STATES STEAMER HATTERAS.

The Alabama was disabled for two or three days, soon after the events recorded in the last chapter, by an accident which occurred to her engine--the giving way of one of the valve castings. I was, in consequence, obliged to withdraw from the tracks of commerce, and lie as perdue as possible, until the damage could be repaired. For this purpose, I ran close in with the land, on the north side of the island of Jamaica, where, with the exception of an occasional fishing-boat, and a passing coasting sloop, nothing was to be seen. Mr. Freeman, my chief engineer, was a capital machinist, and a man of great fertility of resource, and he went to work at once to remedy the mishap. Nothing but the puffing of the bellows, the clinking of the hammer on the anvil, and the rasping of files was heard now for forty-eight hours. At the end of this time, the engine was again in order for service. But we should have no occasion to use it for some days yet.

It was now the 12th of December, and it was time for us to begin to think of running into the Gulf of Mexico, in pursuit of General Banks. Accordingly we put the ship under sail, and ran along down the island of Jamaica to the west end. Hence we stretched over into that other track of the California steamers, returning to the United States by the west end of Cuba; intending to follow this track as far as Cape San Antonio, hoping that we might stumble upon something by the way. The California steamer was not now my principal object, however, but only an incident to my Mexican Gulf scheme. I did not design to waste time upon her. Whilst pursuing our way leisurely along this track, we experienced a most singular series of bad weather. We took an old-fashioned norther, which lasted us three days, and blew us well down into the Gulf of Honduras. Here we became the sport of a variety of currents--setting generally to the westward, but sometimes in a contrary direction. We sighted some of the islands lying parallel with the coast, but being anxious to get forward, did not touch at any of them. As we drew out of the Gulf of Honduras, we again crossed the track of the California steamers, but fortune continued adverse, and none came along. A delay of a week or two here might enable me to pick up one of these treasure steamers, but this would interfere with my designs against Banks, as before remarked, and I forbore.

On the 20th of December we made the Mexican province of Yucatan, and, just before nightfall, got hold of Cape Catoche. My land-fall was a very happy one, though, owing to the bad weather, I had had no "observation" for thirty-six hours. I sounded soon after dark, in twenty-eight fathoms of water, and being quite sure of my position, ran into the Yucatan passage, by the lead, the night being too dark to permit us to discern anything. The coast is clean, and the soundings regular, and I felt my way around the Cape without the least difficulty, finding myself, the next morning, in the Gulf of Mexico, running off to the westward with a free wind. The water was of a chalky whiteness, a little tinged with green, resembling the water on the Bahama Banks, and we ran along in a depth of twenty fathoms, the entire day, scarcely varying a foot. I had accomplished my object, thus far, with perfect success. I had not sighted a sail since leaving the west end of Jamaica, which could report me, and had entered the Gulf of Mexico, by night, unseen of any human eye, on the land or the sea. On the day after entering the Gulf, we did pass a solitary sail--a large steamer--steering in the direction of Havana, but she was hull down, and could make nothing of us. She may have been an enemy, but was probably a French ship of war, or transport, from Vera Cruz; the French expedition that culminated in the death of the unfortunate Maximilian having landed in Mexico about a year before, and there being much passing of steamships between France and Vera Cruz.

On the 22d of December, night overtaking us, within about twenty miles of the Arcas, we anchored in twenty fathoms of water, in the open sea. The Yucatan coast is like that of West Florida, and the Guianas, before described. It is a continuous harbor, a ship being able to hold on to her anchors in the heaviest gale. Getting under way the next morning, we continued on our course, and pretty soon made a bark standing in the same direction with ourselves. It was our old friend, the Agrippina, with her bluff bows, and stump top-gallant masts. She had been all this time making her way hither from Blanquilla--a period of nearly four weeks; the incorrigible old Scotch captain having stopped, on his way, to refresh his crew, and do a little private trading. However, he was in good time, and so, letting him off with a gentle reprimand, we ran in to the Arcas together, and anchored at about five o'clock in the afternoon.

We remained at these little islands a week, coaling ship, and refitting and repainting. We could not have been more thoroughly out of the world if we had been in the midst of the great African desert. A Robinson Crusoe here might have had it all to himself; and to give color to the illusion, we found on one of the islands a deserted hut, built of old boards and pieces of wreck, with an iron pot or two, and some pieces of sail-cloth lying about. An old dug-out, warped and cracked by the sun, lay hauled up near the hut, and a turtle-net, in pretty good repair, was found, stowed away in one corner of Crusoe's abode. But what had become of the hermit who once inhabited these desolate little coral islands, over which the wild sea-bird now flew, and screamed, in undivided dominion? An humble grave, on the head-board of which had been rudely carved with a knife, a name, and a date, told the brief and mournful story. A companion had probably laid the hermit away and departed. A more fitting burial-place for a sailor could not well be conceived; for here the elements with which he was wont to battle had full sweep, and his requiem was sung, without ceasing, by the booming wave, that shook and rocked him in his winding-sheet of sand, when the storm raged.

The islands are three in number, lying in a triangle. They are surrounded by deep water, and it is probably not a great many years since the little stone-mason of the sea, the coralline insect, first brought them to the surface, for the only vegetation as yet on any of them is a carpet of sea-kale, on the largest of them, and a stunted bush or two. In the basin, in the centre of the triangle, the Alabama is anchored, and so pellucid is the water, that not only her anchor, which lies in seven fathoms, is visible, from stock to fluke, but all the wonders of the coral world, before described, lie open to inspection; with the turtle groping about amid the sea-fern, the little fishes feeding, or sporting, and madrepore and sponges lying about in profusion. Bartelli drew up from this submarine forest, one of the largest of the latter, and having cured it in the sun, and rendered it sweet by frequent ablution, transferred it to my bath-room. The naturalist would have revelled at the Arcas, in viewing the debris of sea-shells, and coral, and the remains of stranded fish, that lay strewn along the beach; and in watching the habits of the gannet, man-of-war bird, and a great variety of the sea-gull, all of which were laying, and incubating. As the keel of one of our boats would grate upon the sand, clouds of these birds would fly up, and circle around our heads, screaming in their various and discordant notes at our intrusion. Beneath our feet, the whole surface of the islands was covered with eggs, or with young birds, in various stages of growth. Here, as at Blanquilla, all our boats were hoisted out, and rigged for sailing; and fishing, and turtling parties were sent out to supply the crew, and in the evening sailing and swimming matches, and target-shooting took place. This was only the by-play, however, whilst the main work of the drama was going forward, viz., the coaling, and preparation of the Alabama for her dash at the enemy.

Our upper deck had again become open, and required recaulking; and some patching and refitting was necessary to be done to the sails. As we wanted our heels to be as clean as possible, we careened the ship, and gave her copper a good scrubbing below the water-line, where it had become a little foul. Having taken all the coal out of the Agrippina, we ballasted her with the coral rock, which we found lying abundantly at our hands, watered her from the Alabama, and gave her her sailing orders for Liverpool. She was to report to Captain Bullock, for another cargo of coal, to be delivered at another rendezvous, of the locality of which the reader will be informed in due time. During the week that we lay at the Arcas, there had evidently been several gales of wind at work around us, though none of them had touched us. On two or three occasions, when the wind was quite light, and the sky clear overhead, a heavy sea was observed to be breaking on the northern shores of the islands. There is no doubt that on these occasions there were "northers" prevailing along the Mexican coast. I was led hence to infer, that these terrible gales do not extend, as a general rule, a great distance seaward from that coast. We were very little more than a hundred miles from Vera Cruz, which is in the track of these terrible storms, and yet we had only felt the pulsations of them, as it were; the huge breakers on the Arcas beating time, in a still atmosphere, to the storm which was raging at Vera Cruz. It was seventeen days from the time we doubled Cape Catoche, until we left the Arcas. During all this time, we were off the coast of Yucatan, the season was near mid-winter, and yet we had not had a norther. Along the Mexican coast from Tampico to Vera Cruz, at this season of the year, the usual interval between these gales, is from three to five days.

As has been mentioned to the reader, the Banks' expedition was expected to rendezvous at Galveston, on the 10th of January. On the 5th of that month we got under way from the Arcas, giving ourselves five days in which to make the distance, under sail. Our secret was still perfectly safe, as only a single sail had passed us, whilst we lay at anchor, and she at too great a distance to be able to report us. We had an abundant supply of coal on board, the ship was in excellent trim, and as the sailors used to say of her, at this period, could be made to do everything but "talk." My crew were well drilled, my powder was in good condition, and as to the rest, I trusted to luck, and to the "creek's not being too high." The weather continued fine throughout our run, and on the 11th at noon--having been delayed a day by a calm--we observed in latitude 28 deg. 51' 45", and longitude 94 deg. 55', being just thirty miles from Galveston. I now laid my ship's head for the Galveston light-house, and stood in, intending to get a distant sight of the Banks' fleet before nightfall, and then haul off, and await the approach of night, before I ran in, and made the assault.

I instructed the man at the mast-head, to keep a very bright look-out, and told him what to look out for, viz., an immense fleet anchored off a light-house. The wind was light, and the afternoon was pretty well spent before there was any sign from the mast-head. The look-out at length cried, "Land ho! sail ho!" in quick succession, and I already began to make sure of my game. But the look-out, upon being questioned, said he did not see any fleet of transports, but only five steamers which looked like ships of war. Here was a damper! What could have become of Banks, and his great expedition, and what was this squadron of steam ships-of-war doing here? Presently a shell, thrown by one of the steamers, was seen to burst over the city. "Ah, ha!" exclaimed I, to the officer of the deck who was standing by me, "there has been a change of programme here. The enemy would not be firing into his own people, and we must have recaptured Galveston, since our last advices." "So it would seem," replied the officer. And so it turned out. In the interval between our leaving the West Indies, and arriving off Galveston, this city had been retaken by General Magruder, assisted by a gallant seaman of the merchant service, Captain Leon Smith. Smith, with a couple of small river steamers, protected by cotton bags, and having a number of sharp-shooters on board, assaulted and captured, or drove to sea the enemy's entire fleet, consisting of several heavily armed steamships.

The recapture of this place from the enemy changed the destination of the Banks' expedition. It rendezvoused at New Orleans, whence General Banks, afterward, attempted the invasion of Texas by the valley of the Red River. He was here met by General Dick Taylor, who, with a much inferior force, demolished him, giving him such a scare, that it was with difficulty Porter could stop him at Alexandria, to assist him in the defence of his fleet, until he could extricate it from the shallows of the river where it was aground. The hero of Boston Common had not had such a scare since Stonewall Jackson had chased him through Winchester, Virginia.

What was best to be done in this changed condition of affairs? I certainly had not come all the way into the Gulf of Mexico, to fight five ships of war, the least of which was probably my equal. And yet, how could I very well run away, in the face of the promises I had given my crew? for I had told them at the Arcas islands, that they were, if the fates proved propitious, to have some sport off Galveston. Whilst I was pondering the difficulty, the enemy himself, happily, came to my relief; for pretty soon the look-out again called from aloft, and said, "One of the steamers, sir, is coming out in chase of us." The Alabama had given chase pretty often, but this was the first time she had been chased. It was just the thing I wanted, however, for I at once conceived the design of drawing this single ship of the enemy far enough away from the remainder of her fleet, to enable me to decide a battle with her before her consorts could come to her relief.

The Alabama was still under sail, though, of course, being so near the enemy, the water was warm in her boilers, and in a condition to give us steam in ten minutes. To carry out my design of decoying the enemy, I now wore ship, as though I were fleeing from his pursuit. This, no doubt, encouraged him, though, as it would seem, the captain of the pursuing ship pretty soon began to smell a rat, as the reader will see presently by his report of the engagement. I now lowered my propeller, still holding on to my sails, however, and gave the ship a small head of steam, to prevent the stranger from overhauling me too rapidly. We were still too close to the fleet, to think of engaging him. I thus decoyed him on, little by little, now turning my propeller over slowly, and now stopping it altogether. In the meantime night set in, before we could get a distinct view of our pursuer. She was evidently a large steamer, but we knew from her build and rig, that she belonged neither to the class of old steam frigates, or that of the new sloops, and we were quite willing to try our strength with any of the other classes.

At length, when I judged that I had drawn the stranger out about twenty miles from his fleet, I furled my sails, beat to quarters, prepared my ship for action, and wheeled to meet him. The two ships now approached each other, very rapidly. As we came within speaking distance, we simultaneously stopped our engines, the ships being about one hundred yards apart. The enemy was the first to hail. "What ship is that?" cried he. "This is her Britannic Majesty's steamer Petrel," we replied. We now hailed in turn, and demanded to know who he was. The reply not coming to us very distinctly, we repeated our question, when we heard the words, "This is the United States ship ----" the name of the ship being lost to us. But we had heard enough. All we wanted to know was, that the stranger was a United States ship, and therefore our enemy. A pause now ensued--a rather awkward pause, as the reader may suppose. Presently, the stranger hailed again, and said, "If you please, I will send a boat on board of you." His object was, of course, to verify or discredit the answer we had given him, that we were one of her Britannic Majesty's cruisers. We replied, "Certainly, we shall be happy to receive your boat;" and we heard a boatswain's mate call away a boat, and could hear the creaking of the tackles, as she was lowered into the water.

Things were now come to a crisis, and it being useless to delay our engagement with the enemy any longer, I turned to my first lieutenant, and said, "I suppose you are all ready for action?" "We are," he replied; "the men are eager to begin, and are only waiting for the word." I then said to him, "Tell the enemy who we are, for we must not strike him in disguise, and when you have done so, give him the broadside." Kell now sang out, in his powerful, clarion voice, through his trumpet, "This is the Confederate States steamer Alabama!" and turning to the crew, who were all standing at their guns--the gunners with their sights on the enemy, and lock-strings in hand--gave the order, fire! Away went the broadside in an instant, our little ship feeling, perceptibly, the recoil of her guns. The night was clear. There was no moon, but sufficient star-light to enable the two ships to see each other quite distinctly, at the distance of half a mile, or more, and a state of the atmosphere highly favorable to the conduct of sound. The wind, besides, was blowing in the direction of the enemy's fleet. As a matter of course, our guns awakened the echoes of the coast, far and near, announcing very distinctly to the Federal Admiral--Bell, a Southern man, who had gone over to the enemy--that the ship which he had sent out to chase the strange sail, had a fight on her hands. He immediately, as we afterward learned, got under way, with the Brooklyn, his flag-ship, and two others of his steamers, and came out to the rescue.

Our broadside was returned instantly; the enemy, like ourselves, having been on his guard, with his men standing at their guns. The two ships, when the action commenced, had swerved in such a way, that they were now heading in the same direction--the Alabama fighting her starboard-broadside, and her antagonist her port-broadside. Each ship, as she delivered her broadside, put herself under steam, and the action became a running fight, in parallel lines, or nearly so, the ships now nearing, and now separating a little from each other. My men handled their pieces with great spirit and commendable coolness, and the action was sharp and exciting while it lasted; which, however, was not very long, for in just thirteen minutes after firing the first gun, the enemy hoisted a light, and fired an off-gun, as a signal that he had been beaten. We at once withheld our fire, and such a cheer went up from the brazen throats of my fellows, as must have astonished even a Texan, if he had heard it. We now steamed up quite close to the beaten steamer, and asked her captain, formally, if he had surrendered. He replied that he had. I then inquired if he was in want of assistance, to which he responded promptly that he was, that his ship was sinking rapidly, and that he needed all our boats. There appeared to be much confusion on board the enemy's ship; officers and crew seemed to be apprehensive that we would permit them to drown, and several voices cried aloud to us for assistance, at the same time. When the captain of the beaten ship came on board to surrender his sword to me, I learned that I had been engaged with the United States steamer Hatteras, Captain Blake. I will now let Captain Blake tell his own story. The following is his official report to the Secretary of the Federal Navy:--

UNITED STATES' CONSULATE, KINGSTON, JAMAICA, JAN. 21, 1863.

SIR:--It is my painful duty to inform the Department of the destruction of the United States steamer Hatteras, recently under my command, by the rebel steamer Alabama, on the night of the 11th inst., off the coast of Texas. The circumstances of the disaster are as follows:--

Upon the afternoon of the 11th inst., at half-past two o'clock, while at anchor in company with the fleet under Commodore Bell, off Galveston, Texas, I was ordered by signal from the United States flag-ship Brooklyn, to chase a sail to the southward and eastward. I got under way immediately, and steamed with all speed in the direction indicated. After some time the strange sail could be seen from the Hatteras, and was ascertained to be a steamer, which fact I communicated to the flag-ship by signal. I continued the chase and rapidly gained upon the suspicious vessel. Knowing the slow rate of speed of the Hatteras, I at once suspected that deception was being practised, and hence ordered the ship to be cleared for action, with everything in readiness for a determined attack and a vigorous defence.

When within about four miles of the vessel, I observed that she had ceased to steam, and was lying broadside and awaiting us. It was nearly seven o'clock, and quite dark; but, notwithstanding the obscurity of the night, I felt assured, from the general character of the vessel and her manoeuvres, that I should soon encounter the rebel steamer Alabama. Being able to work but four guns on the side of the Hatteras--two short 32-pounders, one 30-pounder rifled Parrott gun, and one 20-pounder rifled gun--I concluded to close with her, that my guns might be effective, if necessary.

I came within easy speaking range--about seventy-five yards--and upon asking, "What steamer is that?" received the answer, "Her Britannic Majesty's ship Vixen." I replied that I would send a boat aboard, and immediately gave the order. In the meantime, the vessels were changing positions, the stranger endeavoring to gain a desirable position for a raking fire. Almost simultaneously with the piping away of the boat, the strange craft again replied, "We are the Confederate steamer Alabama," which was accompanied with a broadside. I, at the same moment, returned the fire. Being well aware of the many vulnerable points of the Hatteras, I hoped, by closing with the Alabama, to be able to board her, and thus rid the seas of the piratical craft. I steamed directly for the Alabama, but she was enabled by her great speed, and the foulness of the bottom of the Hatteras, and, consequently, her diminished speed, to thwart my attempt when I had gained a distance of but thirty yards from her. At this range, musket and pistol shots were exchanged. The firing continued with great vigor on both sides. At length a shell entered amidships in the hold, setting fire to it, and, at the same instant--as I can hardly divide the time--a shell passed through the sick bay, exploding in an adjoining compartment, also producing fire. Another entered the cylinder, filling the engine-room and deck with steam, and depriving me of my power to manoeuvre the vessel, or to work the pumps, upon which the reduction of the fire depended.

With the vessel on fire in two places, and beyond human power, a hopeless wreck upon the waters, with her walking-beam shot away, and her engine rendered useless, I still maintained an active fire, with the double hope of disabling the Alabama and attracting the attention of the fleet off Galveston, which was only twenty-eight miles distant.

It was soon reported to me that the shells had entered the Hatteras at the water-line, tearing off entire sheets of iron, and that the water was rushing in, utterly defying every attempt to remedy the evil, and that she was rapidly sinking. Learning the melancholy truth, and observing that the Alabama was on my port bow, entirely beyond the range of my guns, doubtless preparing for a raking fire of the deck, I felt I had no right to sacrifice uselessly, and without any desirable result, the lives of all under my command.

To prevent the blowing up of the Hatteras from the fire, which was making much progress, I ordered the magazine to be flooded, and afterward a lee gun was fired. The Alabama then asked if assistance was desired, to which an affirmative answer was given.

The Hatteras was then going down, and in order to save the lives of my officers and men, I caused the armament on the port side to be thrown overboard. Had I not done so, I am confident the vessel would have gone down with many brave hearts and valuable lives. After considerable delay, caused by the report that a steamer was seen coming from Galveston, the Alabama sent us assistance, and I have the pleasure of informing the Department that every living being was conveyed safely from the Hatteras to the Alabama.

Two minutes after leaving the Hatteras she went down, bow first, with her pennant at the mast-head, with all her muskets and stores of every description, the enemy not being able, owing to her rapid sinking, to obtain a single weapon.

The battery upon the Alabama brought into action against the Hatteras numbered seven guns, consisting of four long 32-pounders, one 100-pounder, one 68-pounder, and one 24-pounder rifled gun. The great superiority of the Alabama, with her powerful battery and her machinery under the water-line, must be at once recognized by the Department, who are familiar with the construction of the Hatteras, and her total unfitness for a conflict with a regular built vessel of war.

The distance between the Hatteras and the Alabama during the action varied from twenty-five to one hundred yards. Nearly fifty shots were fired from the Hatteras, and I presume a greater number from the Alabama.

I desire to refer to the efficient and active manner in which Acting Master Porter, executive officer, performed his duty. The conduct of Assistant Surgeon Edward S. Matthews, both during the action and afterward, in attending to the wounded, demands my unqualified commendation. I would also bring to the favorable notice of the Department Acting Master's Mate McGrath, temporarily performing duty as gunner. Owing to the darkness of the night, and the peculiar construction of the Hatteras, I am only able to refer to the conduct of those officers who came under my especial attention; but from the character of the contest, and the amount of damage done to the Alabama, I have personally no reason to believe that any officer failed in his duty.

To the men of the Hatteras I cannot give too much praise. Their enthusiasm and bravery was of the highest order.

I enclose the report of Assistant Surgeon E. S. Matthews, by which you will observe that five men were wounded and two killed. The missing, it is hoped, reached the fleet at Galveston.

I shall communicate to the Department, in a separate report, the movements of myself and my command, from the time of our transfer to the Alabama until the departure of the earliest mail from this place to the United States.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. C. BLAKE, Lieutenant Commanding.

Hon. GIDEON WELLES, Secretary of the Navy, Washington.

Setting aside all the discourteous stuff and nonsense about "a rebel steamer," and a "piratical craft," of which Captain Blake, who had been bred in the old service, should have been ashamed, especially after enjoying the hospitalities of my cabin for a couple of weeks, the above is a pretty fair report of the engagement. I am a little puzzled, however, by the Captain's statement, that he could use but four guns on a side. We certainly understood from all the officers and men of the Hatteras, at the time, that she carried eight guns; six in broadside, and two pivots, just like the Alabama,--the only difference between the two ships being, that the Alabama's pivot guns were the heaviest.

There is another remark in the report that is quite new to me. I am informed, for the first time, that Captain Blake desired to board me. I cannot, of course, know what his intentions were, but I saw no evidence of such an intention, in the handling of his ship; and Captain Blake must himself have known that, in the terribly demoralized condition of his crew, when they found that they had really fallen in with the Alabama, he could not have depended upon a single boarder. What Captain Blake means by saying that his ship went down, with her pennant flying, I am at a loss, as every seaman must be, to understand. Did he not surrender his ship to me? And if so, what business had his pennant, any more than his ensign, to be flying? But this, I suppose, was a little clap-trap, like his expressions, "rebel," and "pirate," thrown in to suit the Yankee taste of the day. Indeed, nothing was more lamentable to me, during the whole war, than to observe how readily the officers of the old Navy, many of whom belonged to the gentle families of the land, and all of whom had been bred in a school of honor, took to the slang expressions of the day, and fell, pell-mell, into the ranks of the vulgar and fanatical rabble that was hounding on the war.

The officers of the Confederate States Navy, to say the least, were as much entitled to be regarded as fighting for a principle as themselves, and one would have thought that there would have been a chivalrous rivalry between the two services, as to which should show the other the most courtesy. This was the case, a thousand years ago, between the Christian and the Saracen. Did it result from their forms of government, and must democrats necessarily be vulgarians? Must the howling Demos devour everything gentle in the land, and reduce us all to the common level of the pot-house politician, and compel us to use his slang? Radicalism seemed to be now, just what it had been in the great French Revolution, a sort of mad-dog virus; every one who was inoculated with it, becoming rabid. The bitten dog howled incessantly with rage, and underwent a total transformation of nature. But our figure does not fit the case exactly. There was more method in this madness, than in that of the canine animal, for the human dog howled as much to please his master, as from rage. The size of the sop which he was to receive depended, in a great measure, upon the vigor of his howling.

But to return to the Alabama and the Hatteras. As soon as the action was over, and I had seen the latter sink, I caused all lights to be extinguished on board my ship, and shaped my course again for the passage of Yucatan. In the meantime, the enemy's boat, which had been lowered for the purpose of boarding me, pulled in vigorously for the shore, as soon as it saw the action commence, and landed safely; and Admiral Bell, with his three steamers, passed on either side of the scene of action--the steamers having been scattered in the pursuit, to cover as much space as possible, and thus increase their chances of falling in with me. They did not find the Alabama, or indeed anything else during the night, but as one of the steamers was returning to her anchorage off Galveston, the next morning, in the dejected mood of a baffled scout, she fell in with the sunken Hatteras, the tops of whose royal masts were just above water, and from the main of which, the pennant--the night pennant, for the action was fought at night--spoken of by Captain Blake, was observed to be flying. It told the only tale of the sunken ship which her consort had to take back to the Admiral. The missing boat turned up soon afterward, however, and the mystery was then solved. There was now as hurried a saddling of steeds for the pursuit as there had been in the chase of the young Lochinvar, and with as little effect, for by the time the steeds were given the spur, the Alabama was distant a hundred miles or more.

There was very little said by the enemy, about this engagement, between the Alabama and the Hatteras, as was usual with him when he met with a disaster; and what was said was all false. My own ship was represented to be a monster of speed and strength, and the Hatteras, on the other hand, to be a tug, or river steamer, or some such craft, with two or three small guns at the most. The facts are as follows: The Hatteras was a larger ship than the Alabama, by one hundred tons. Her armament, as reported to us by her own people, was as follows: Four 32-pounders; two Parrot 30-pounder rifles; one 20-pounder rifle; and one 12-pounder howitzer--making a total of eight guns. The armament of the Alabama was as follows: Six 32-pounders; one 8-inch shell gun; one Blakeley rifle of 100 pounds--total, eight guns. There was, besides, a little toy-rifle--a 9-pounder--on the quarter-deck of the Alabama, which had been captured from a merchant-ship, and which, I believe, was fired once during the action. The crew of the Hatteras was 108 strong; that of the Alabama 110. There was thus, as the reader sees, a considerable disparity between the two ships, in the weight of their pivot-guns, and the Alabama ought to have won the fight; and she did win it, in thirteen minutes--taking care, too, though she sank her enemy at night, to see that none of his men were drowned--a fact which I shall have occasion to contrast, by-and-by, with another sinking. The only casualty we had on board the Alabama was one man wounded. The damages to our hull were so slight, that there was not a shot-hole which it was necessary to plug, to enable us to continue our cruise; nor was there a rope to be spliced. Blake behaved like a man of courage, and made the best fight he could, ill supported as he was by the "volunteer" officers by whom he was surrounded, but he fell into disgrace with the Demos, and had but little opportunity shown him during the remainder of the war, to retrieve his disaster.

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Chapter XL

THE ALABAMA PROCEEDS TO JAMAICA, AND LANDS HER PRISONERS--THE CAPTAIN VISITS THE COUNTRY--INTERCOURSE WITH THE ENGLISH NAVAL OFFICERS--EARL RUSSELL'S LETTER--PREPARATIONS FOR SEA--A BOAT-RACE BY MOONLIGHT--CAPTAIN BLAKE COMPLAINS OF "DIXIE"--HOW THE MATTER IS SETTLED.

The little by-play, in the Gulf of Mexico, related in the last chapter, being over, I determined to make the best of my way to the island of Jamaica, there land my prisoners, on parole, patch up the two or three shot-holes the enemy had made above the water-line, re-coal, and proceed on my eastern cruise, against the enemy's commerce, as originally contemplated. We had a long passage to Jamaica, as we took a succession of southerly gales, that greatly retarded our speed. My first intention was to make the whole run under steam, but after struggling against these gales for three or four days, I found my fuel diminishing so rapidly, that it became prudent to let the fires go down, and put the ship under sail. This delay was very vexatious, as our little ship was greatly inconvenienced by the number of prisoners we had on board.

Friday, the 16th of January, is noted on my journal as follows:--The gale continued all day, moderating toward night. The sky is overcast with a dull canopy of leaden clouds, the sun barely showing himself to us, for a moment at a time, through an occasional rift, during the entire day. Observing the water to be discolored, at one P. M. we sounded on the Yucatan Bank. The soundings on this bank being an excellent guide, I continued to run along the edge of it until eleven P. M., when we passed off it, into the deep waters of the Yucatan Passage. We now put the ship under steam again, and aiding the steam by reefed trysails, we battled with an adverse sea and current during the rest of the night. We found the current setting into the passage, to be as much as two and a half knots per hour, which was greater than I had ever known it before.

I may take this occasion to remind the reader, that the old theory of Dr. Franklin and others, was, that the Gulf Stream, which flows out of the Gulf of Mexico, between the north coast of Cuba, and the Florida Reefs and Keys, flows into the Gulf, through the channel between the west end of Cuba, and the coast of Yucatan, in which the Alabama now was. But the effectual disproof of this theory is, that we know positively, from the strength of the current, and its volume, or cross section, in the two passages, that more than twice the quantity of water flows out of the Gulf of Mexico, than flows into it through this passage. Upon Dr. Franklin's theory, the Gulf of Mexico in a very short time would become dry ground. Nor can the Mississippi River, which is the only stream worth noticing, in this connection, that flows into the Gulf of Mexico, come to his relief, as we have seen that that river only empties into the Gulf of Mexico, about one three thousandth part as much water, as the Gulf Stream takes out. We must resort, of necessity, to an under-current from the north, passing into the Gulf of Mexico, under the Gulf Stream, rising to the surface when heated, and thus swelling the volume of the outflowing water. I refer my readers, curious in this matter, to the work of Captain Maury, entitled the "Physical Geography of the Sea." It is full of profound philosophy, on the subjects of which it treats, and is written in so pleasing a style, and is so strewn with flowers, as to make the reader forget that he is travelling the thorny paths of science.

The 18th of January was Sunday, and we were obliged to intermit the usual Sunday muster, on account of the bad weather, which continued without intermission--the wind still blowing a gale, and the passing clouds deluging us with rain. Two days afterward, viz., on the 20th, we made the west end of the island of Jamaica, a little after midnight, and as we crawled under the lee of the coast, we broke, for the first time, the force of the wind with which we had been so long struggling. We had been thus nine days making the passage from Galveston to the west end of Jamaica, and were the greater part of another day, in coasting the island up to Port Royal. We had shown first one, and then another neutral flag to several neutral ships that we had passed, but the enemy's flag was nowhere to be seen. Giving chase to a bark, whilst we were still in the Gulf of Mexico, we were quite amazed, as we came up with her, to find that she was our old consort, the Agrippina! This bluff-bowed old Scotch ship had been all the time since she left us at the Arcas Islands--eight days--battling with adverse winds, and was still only a couple of hundred miles or so advanced on her voyage.

We made the Plum Point lighthouse, at half-past four P. M., and were off the mouth of the harbor of Port Royal just as the evening began to deepen into twilight. We hoisted the French flag, and firing a gun, and making the usual signal for a pilot, one came promptly on board of us. Day was fading into night so fast, that we had scarcely light enough left to enable us to grope our way through the tortuous and narrow channel, and it was quite dark when our anchor was let go. Of course, we did not permit the pilot to anchor us as a Frenchman, and when we told him that it was the Alabama he was taking in, he did not appear at all surprised, but remarked very coolly, "I knew all the while that you were no Frenchman." I felt much relieved, when at length I heard the plunge of the anchor into the water, followed by the rattling of the chain-cable through the hawse-hole. On the high seas, with the enemy all the time in full chase of me, constant vigilance was required to guard against surprise; and my battle with the elements was almost as constant, as that with the enemy. When I reached the friendly shelter, therefore, of a neutral port, belonging to such of the powers of the earth as were strong enough to prevent themselves from being kicked by the enemy, my over-taxed nervous system relaxed in a moment, and I enjoyed the luxury of a little gentlemanly idleness. Kell was of wonderful assistance to me, in this respect. I always left the ship in his hands, with the utmost confidence, and my confidence was never misplaced. He was, as the reader has seen, an excellent disciplinarian, and being, besides, a thorough master of his profession, I had in him all that I could desire.

We were boarded by a lieutenant from the English flag-ship, immediately upon anchoring, and the news spread like wildfire through all Port Royal, that the Alabama had arrived, with the officers and crew of a Federal gunboat which she had sunk in battle, on board as prisoners. Night as it was, we were soon swarmed with visitors, come off to welcome us to the port, and tender their congratulations. The next morning I called on Commodore Dunlap, who commanded a squadron of Admiral Milne's fleet, and was the commanding naval officer present. This was the first English port I had entered, since the Alabama had been commissioned, and no question, whatever, as to the antecedents of my ship was raised. I had, in fact, brought in pretty substantial credentials, that I was a ship of war--130 of the officers and men of one of the enemy's sunken ships. Great Britain had had the good sense not to listen to the frantic appeals, either of Mr. Seward or Minister Adams, both of whom claimed, as the reader has seen, that it was her duty to stultify herself, and ignore the commission of my ship. Nor did Commodore Dunlap say anything to me of my destruction of British property, or of the three ships of war, which that adept in international law, the "Commercial Advertiser," of New York, had asserted Admiral Milne had sent after me. These questions, indeed, had all been authoritatively settled, I found, by Earl Russell, the British Foreign Secretary, by the following letter to the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, which had applied to him for information. It is copied from the New York "World":

"SIR: I am directed by Earl Russell to reply to your letters of the 6th inst., respecting the destruction by the Confederate steamer Alabama of British property embarked in American vessels and burned by that steamer. Earl Russell desires me to state to you that British property on board a vessel belonging to one of the belligerents must be subject to all the risks and contingencies of war, so far as the capture of the vessel is concerned. The owners of any British property, not being contraband of war, on board a Federal vessel captured and destroyed by a Confederate vessel of war, may claim in a Confederate Prize Court compensation for the destruction of such property."

The "World" said lachrymosely of the above, that "it was but one of a crowd of eloquent indications which constantly multiply upon us to prove that Earl Russell, like Mr. Gladstone, whatever his sympathies may be, really regards the 'nation of Jefferson Davis' as substantially created, and looks upon recognition as simply a question of time."

I forwarded, through Commodore Dunlap, an official report of my arrival to the Governor of the island, with a request to be permitted to land my prisoners, and put some slight repairs upon my ship; both of which requests were promptly granted. Governor Eyre was then in authority. He behaved with great spirit and firmness, afterward, in nipping in the bud a widespread negro insurrection, which had for its object, the massacre of the whites and the plunder of their property. A few negroes were killed by the troops, and I have been sorry to learn since, that his Excellency has been much harassed, in consequence, by both English and American fanatics. The English squadron at anchor consisted of the Jason, the Challenger, and Greyhound. The most cordial relations were at once established between the officers of all these ships, and those of the Alabama. Indeed, many of them were our old acquaintances.

An English friend having come on board, to invite me to pass a few days with him, in the mountains, while my ship was being prepared for sea, I accepted his invitation, and turning over all the unfinished business of the ship to Kell, we pulled up to Kingston in my gig. Here I found my friend's carriage in waiting, and entering it, we were soon whirled out of the limits of the dusty city, into the most charming of tropical scenery. Except landing, occasionally, for a few hours at a time, at the desert little islands I had visited in the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico, I had not had a holiday on shore, since leaving the Mersey, on my way to commission the Alabama, five months before. I needed a little rest, and recreation, to restore my wasted energies, and I found both with my excellent friend, Mr. Fyfe.

For the first ten miles, we rode over a beautiful macadamized road, or rather avenue, lined with the gigantic cactus, growing frequently to the height of twenty and thirty feet, and several specimens of the palm; chief among which was the cocoanut-tree, shooting its trunk with the straightness of an arrow to a great height, and waving gracefully in the breeze, its superb, feather-like foliage. The way was lined with many picturesque country houses, each surrounded by its extensive and well-kept grounds, on which were growing crops, chiefly of fruits and vegetables, but interspersed occasionally with a field of Indian corn, or sugar-cane. Hedgerows and shade-trees adorned the front yards, and protected the residences from the sun, giving them an air of seclusion, coolness, and quiet that was very inviting. We occasionally obtained glimpses of beautiful valleys, on the right hand, and on the left, in which fairy cottages were nestled. The scenery was continually changing, as the road wound along, now skirting the base of abrupt hills, now running over a stream, and now plunging into the recesses of a wood, with the trees arching overhead, like the groined work of a cathedral.

At the end of our ten miles of carriage-drive, we found ourselves at the foot of the mountains. Here we alighted at a large hostelry, which was a sort of combination of the inn, caravansary, and country store, and after some refreshment, mounted saddle-horses which we found in waiting. The roads soon became mere bridle-paths. As we ascended the slopes of the mountains, we changed rapidly the character of the vegetation; every hundred feet of elevation being equivalent to a change of a degree or more of latitude, and bringing us in the presence of new forest-trees and new plants, until we dismounted on the lawn of my friend, the immediate surroundings of which were all English; the cedar, and other well-known trees and shrubs of the temperate latitudes, supplanting the tropical vegetation we had left in the tierra caliente below us. The air, too, was so delightfully changed, from the sultry heats of the coast, that we found a fire lighted of the dry and fragrant branches of the cedar-tree, quite pleasant as the night set in.

The reader may imagine how magical the change was, from the cramped quarters, and other desagremens of a small ship, to the ample halls, and elegant leisure of an English home, perched on the mountain-side, and overlooking a perfect wilderness of tropical vegetation. The sea was in plain sight to the eastward of us, and Kingston and Port Royal lay, as it were, at our feet. With the aid of a fine telescope which my friend had mounted in his piazza, I could distinguish my own ship from the other vessels in the harbor, though they all appeared as diminutive as so many sea-gulls, nestling upon the water. I need not say how soundly I slept that night, far away from war's alarms, fanned by the gentlest of sea-breezes, in the sweetest of sheets, and lullabied by the distant breaker, as it stranded itself at regular intervals upon the beach.

I was awakened the next morning by the merry songs of a hundred birds, that came appropriately blended with the perfume of the flowers that clustered around my windows; and I have seldom looked upon a more beautiful picture, than when I threw back the blinds, and caught a view of the landscape, rejoicing in the morning's sun, with all its wealth of tropical fruits and flowers, and the sea--the glorious sea--glittering like a mirror in the distance. Nothing can be more charming than the interior of an English household, when the ice has been broken and you have fairly gained admission into the interior of the temple. The successful entertainment of a guest is one of those artless arts, of which the English gentleman, above all others, is master; and the art consists in putting the guest so entirely at ease, as to make him feel at home in the first half-hour. With a library, servants, and horses at your command, you are literally left to take care of yourself--meeting the family in the parlors and sitting-rooms, as much, or as little as you please.

From Flamstead, which was the name of the country-seat of my friend, we rode over to Bloxburg, the country-seat of his brother, where some ladies from the neighborhood did me the honor to make me a visit; and from Bloxburg we made several other agreeable visits to neighboring plantations. I was in an entirely new world--those mountains of Jamaica--and was charmed with everything I saw. All was nature; and nature presented herself in her most lovely aspect, whether we viewed the sky overhead, the sea at our feet, or the broken and picturesque country around us. Time flew rapidly, and what with delightful rides, and lunches, and evening parties, where music, and the bright eyes of fair women beguiled the senses, I should have been in danger of forgetting the war, and the Alabama, if Kell had not sent me a courier, on the third or fourth day, informing me that he was nearly ready for sea.

I descended at once from the empyrean in which I had been wandering, took a hasty leave of my friends, and in company with Mr. Fyfe, rode back to the coast. We took a new route back, and re-entered Kingston through a different suburb--stopping to lunch with one of Mr. Fyfe's friends, an English merchant, at his magnificent country-house. But, alas! much of the magnificence of the Kingston of former years is passing away. I had known it in its palmiest days, having visited it when a midshipman in the old service, before the happy slave had been converted into the wretched freedman. It was then a busy mart of commerce, and the placid waters of its unrivalled harbor were alive with shipping bearing the flags of all nations, come in quest of her great staples, sugar, coffee, cocoa, gensing, &c. Now, a general air of dilapidation and poverty hangs over the scene. A straggling ship or two only are seen in the harbor; the merchants have become shop-keepers, and the sleek, well-fed negro has become an idler and a vagrant, with scarce rags enough to hide his nakedness. My host, in the few days I remained with him, gave me much valuable information concerning the negro, since his emancipation, which I will not detain the reader to repeat. I may say in a few words, however, that the substance of this information was, that there has been no increase, either in numbers, intelligence, or morals among them; and that, too, under circumstances, all of which were favorable to the negro. He was the pet of the government for years after his emancipation, and English fanatics have devoted their lives to his regeneration, but all without success. He is, to-day, with a few exceptions about the towns, the same savage that he is in his native Dahomey. An English parliament had declared that he was the political equal of the white man--that is, of the colonial white man, for England takes the best of care, that the imperial legislature is never tainted by his presence--and I found him a generation afterward, far below his former level of slave.

I found my gig in waiting for me at the wharf in Kingston, and taking leave of my friend, with many thanks for his hospitality, I pulled on board of my ship about sunset. And here, what a scene of confusion met me, and what reports Kell had to make of how my fellows had been "cutting up!" The paymaster had been drunk ever since he landed, neglecting his duty, and behaving in a most disreputable manner. He was "hail fellow, well met" with all the common sailors, and seemed to have an especial fancy for the sailors of the enemy. Kell had suspended his functions; and had sent on shore, and had him brought off under arrest. He had become partially sobered, and I at once ordered him to pack up his clothing, and be off. He was landed, bag and baggage, in half an hour, and in due time, as the reader has already seen, he married a negro wife, went over to England with her, swindled her out of all her property, and turned Yankee, going over to Minister Adams, and becoming one of his right-hand men, when there was any hard swearing wanted in the British courts against the Confederates.

This little matter disposed of, we turned our attention to the crew. They had had a run on shore, and Kell was just gathering them together again. The ship's cutters, as well as the shore-boats, were constantly coming alongside with small squads, all of them drunk, some in one stage of drunkenness, and some in another. Liquor was acting upon them like the laughing gas; some were singing jolly, good-humored songs, whilst others were giving the war-whoop, and insisting on a fight. They were seized, ironed and passed below to the care of the master-at-arms, as fast as they came on board.

A couple of them, not liking the appearance of things on board, jumped into a dug-out alongside, and seizing the paddles from the negroes, shoved off in great haste, and put out for the shore. It was night, and there was a bright moon lighting up the bay. A cutter was manned as speedily as possible, and sent in pursuit of the fugitives. Jack had grog and Moll ahead of him, and irons and a court-martial behind him, and he paddled like a good fellow. He had gotten a good start before the cutter was well under way, but still, the cutter, with her long sweeping oars, was rather too much for the dug-out, especially as there were five oars to two paddles. She gained, and gained, coming nearer and nearer, when presently the officer of the cutter heard one of the sailors in the dug-out say to the other, "I'll tell you what it is, Bill, there's too much cargo in this here d----d craft, and I'm going to lighten ship a little," and at the same instant, he saw the two men lay in their paddles, seize one of the negroes, and pitch him head foremost overboard! They then seized their paddles again, and away darted the dug-out with renewed speed.

Port Royal Bay is a large sheet of water, and is, besides, as every reader of Marryatt's incomparable tales knows, full of ravenous sharks. It would not do, of course, for the cutter to permit the negro either to drown or to be eaten by the sharks, and so, as she came up with him, sputtering and floundering for his life, she was obliged to "back of all," and take him in. The sailor who grabbed at him first, missed him, and the boat shot ahead of him, which rendered it necessary for her to turn and pull back a short distance before she could rescue him. This done, he was flung into the bottom of the cutter, and the pursuit renewed. By this time the dug-out had gotten even a better start than she had had at first, and the two fugitive sailors, encouraged by the prospect of escape, were paddling more vigorously than ever. Fast flew the dug-out, but faster flew the cutter. Both parties now had their blood up, and a more beautiful and exciting moonlight race has not often been seen. We had watched it from the Alabama, until in the gloaming of the night, it had passed out of sight. We had seen the first manoeuvre of the halting, and pulling back of the cutter, but did not know what to make of it. The cutter began now to come up again with the chase. She had no musket on board, or in imitation of the Alabama, she might have "hove the chase to," with a blank cartridge, or a ball. When she had gotten within a few yards of her, a second time, in went the paddles again, and overboard went the other negro! and away went the dug-out! A similar delay on the part of the cutter ensued as before, and a similar advantage was gained by the dug-out.

But all things come to an end, and so did this race. The cutter finally captured the dug-out, and brought back Tom Bowse and Bill Bower to their admiring shipmates on board the Alabama. This was the only violation of neutrality I was guilty of, in Port Royal--chasing, and capturing a neutral craft, in neutral waters. My excuse was, the same that Wilkes made--she had contraband on board. I do not know whether Commodore Dunlap ever heard of it; but if he had complained, I should have set-off the rescuing of two of her Majesty's colored subjects from drowning, against the recapture of my own men. The fact is, the towns-people, themselves, were responsible for all these disorders. They had made heroes of all my fellows, and plied them with an unconscionable number of drinks. Every sea-port town has its sailor quarter, and this in the good old town of Kingston was a constant scene of revelry, by day as well as by night, during the stay of the Alabama's liberty men on shore. There was no end to the "break-downs," and "double-shuffles," which had been given in their honor, by the beaux and belles of Water Street. Besides my own crew, there were always more or less English man-of-war sailors on shore, on liberty from the different ships, and upwards of a hundred had been landed from the Hatteras. It was quite remarkable that in these merry-makings, and debaucheries, the Confederate sailors and the Yankee sailors harmonized capitally together. They might frequently be seen arm and arm in the streets, or hob-nobbing together--the Confederate sailor generally paying the score, as the Yankee sailor's strong box had gone down with his ship, and his paymaster was rather short of cash. They sailed as amicably together, up and down the contradance, and hailed each other to "heave to," when it was time to "freshen the nip," as though the Alabama and Hatteras had never been yard-arm and yard-arm, throwing broadsides into each other. In short, my men behaved capitally toward their late enemies. There was no unmanly exultation over their victory. The most that could be seen was an air of patronage very delicately put on, as though they would say, "Well, you know we whipped you, but then you did the best you could, and there's an end of it."

Among the amusing things that had occurred during my absence in the Jamaica mountains, was a flare-up, which Captain Blake, my prisoner, had had with the British Commodore.

The steamer Greyhound had a band of music on board, and as one of the young lieutenants was an old acquaintance of several of my officers, whom he had met at Nassau, he ordered the band on the evening after our arrival, and whilst Captain Blake was still on board the Alabama, to play "Dixie;" which, I may remark, by the way, had become a very popular air everywhere, as much on account of the air itself, perhaps, as because of its association with a weak and gallant people struggling for the right of self-government. Captain Blake chose to construe this little compliment to the Alabama, as an insult to Yankeedom, and made a formal protest to the British Commodore, in behalf of himself, and the "old flag." Commodore Dunlap must have smiled, when he read Blake's epistle. He was certainly a man of humor, for he hit upon the following mode of settling the grave international dispute. He ordered the offending Greyhound, when she should get up her band, on the following evening, first to play "Dixie," and then "Yankee Doodle."

When the evening, which was to salve the Yankee honor, arrived, great was the expectation of every one in the squadron. The band on board the Jason, flag-ship, led off by playing "God save the Queen," that glorious national anthem, which electrifies the Englishman, as the Marseilles' hymn does the Frenchman, the world over. The Challenger's band followed and played a fine opera air. The evening was still and fine, and the poops of all the ships were filled with officers. It then came the Greyhound's turn. She first played something unusually solemn, then "Dixie," with slowness, sweetness, and pathos, and when the chorus

"In Dixie's land, I'll take my stand, I'll live, and die in Dixie!"

had died away on the soft evening air, such an infernal din, of drums, and fifes, and cymbals, and wind instruments, each after its fashion, going it strong upon

"Yankee Doodle Dandy!"

arose, as to defy all description! The effect was electric; the officers had to hold their sides to preserve their dignity, and--Captain Blake was avenged. There could be no protest made against this time-honored rogue's march. It was the favorite tune of the b'hoys, and there the matter had to end. I have never learned whether Mr. Seward ever called Lord Palmerston to an account about it, in any one of his "Essays on English Composition."

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Chapter XLI

DEPARTURE FROM JAMAICA--CAPTURE OF THE GOLDEN RULE--COASTING THE ISLAND OF HAYTI--CAPTURE OF THE CHASTELAINE--THE OLD CITY OF ST. DOMINGO, AND ITS REMINISCENCES--THE DOMINICAN CONVENT, AND THE PALACE OF DIEGO COLUMBUS--THE CAPTURE OF THE PALMETTO, THE OLIVE JANE, AND THE GOLDEN EAGLE--HOW THE ROADS ARE BLAZED OUT UPON THE SEA--CAPTAIN MAURY.

On the 25th of January, 1863, or just five days after our arrival at Jamaica, we had completed all our preparations for sea, and at half-past eight P. M. steamed out of the harbor of Port Royal, bound to the coast of Brazil, and thence to the Cape of Good Hope. We had made many friends during our short stay, and mutual regrets were expressed at departure. My gallant young officers had not been idle, whilst I had been visiting the mountains. Many little missives, put up in the tiniest and prettiest of envelopes, were discovered among the mail, as our last mail-bag was prepared for the shore, and as a good deal of damage may be done in five days, there were probably some heart-beatings among the fair islanders, as those P. P. Cs. were perused. There is no lover so susceptible, or so devoted, or whose heart is so capacious, as that of the young seaman. His very life upon the sea is a poem, and his habitual absence from the sex prepares him to see loveliness in every female form.

Though it was night when we emerged from the harbor, and when we ought to have met with the blandest and gentlest of land breezes, laden with the perfume of shrub and flower, we passed at once into a heavy head sea, with a stiff north-easter blowing. With yards pointed to the wind, and a laboring engine, we steamed along past Point Mayrant light, off which, the reader may recollect, we discharged the Ariel, some weeks before, and the morning's light found us in the passage between Jamaica and St. Domingo. The sun rose brightly, the wind moderated, and the day proved to be very fine.

My first duty, after the usual morning's muster at quarters, was to hold a court of general sessions, for the discharge of my vagabonds, many of whom, the reader will recollect, were still in irons; and a beautiful-looking set of fellows they were, when their irons were removed, and they were brought on deck for this purpose. They were now all sober, but the effects of their late debauches were visible upon the persons of all of them. Soiled clothing, blackened eyes, and broken noses, frowsy, uncombed hair, and matted and disordered beard, with reddened eyes that looked as if sleep had long been a stranger to them--these were the principal features. Poor Jack! how much he is to be pitied! Cut loose early from the gentle restraints of home, and brought into contact with every description of social vice, at an age when it is so difficult to resist temptation, what wonder is it, that we find him a grown-up child of nature, subject to no other restraint than such as the discipline of his ship imposes upon him?

"When wine is in, wit is out," was the proverb I always acted upon, on occasions similar to the present; that is to say, when the "wine" had any business to be "in." I expected, as a matter of course, when I sent my sailors on shore, "on liberty," that the result was to be a frolic, and I was always lenient to the mere concomitants of a frolic; but I never permitted them to abuse or maltreat the inhabitants, or perpetrate any malicious mischief. But if they got drunk on board, in violation of the discipline of the ship, or, in other words, if the wine had no business to be "in," I considered that the wit had no business to be "out." And so I listened to their penitential excuses, one by one, and restored them to duty, retaining one or two of the greatest culprits for trial by court-martial, as an example to the rest. Having disposed of the other cases, I turned to Tom Bowse and Bill Bower, the heroes of the moonlight-chase, and said to them, "And so you are a pretty set of fellows; you not only tried to desert your ship and flag, but you endeavored to commit murder, in your attempt to escape!" "Murder!" replied Bowse, with a start of horror, that I could see was entirely honest, "we never thought of such a thing, sir; them Jamaica niggers, they take to the water as natural as South-Sea Islanders, and there's no such thing as drowning them, sir." "That was it, your honor," now put in Bowse; "it was only a bit of a joke, you see, sir, played upon the officer of the cutter. We knew he'd stop to pick 'em up, and so give us the weathergauge of him." "That may do very well for the murder," I now rejoined, "but what about the desertion?" "Nary-a-bit of it, your honor," again replied Bowse; "we only meant to have another bit of a frolic, and come back all in good time, before the ship sailed." "Just so," added Bower; "the fact is, your honor, we were hardly responsible for what we did that night; for we had a small drop aboard, and then the moon was so bright, and Moll Riggs she had sent us such a kind message!" The moonlight and Moll clinched the argument, and turning to the master-at-arms, with an ill-suppressed smile, I directed him to turn the prisoners loose.

I had scarcely gotten through with this jail-delivery, before the cry of "sail ho!" rang out upon the clear morning air, from the mast-head. There was no necessity to alter our course, for the sail was nearly ahead. In an hour more, a very pretty, newly-painted bark, with her sails flapping idly in the calm which was now prevailing, arose to view from the deck. She had the usual Yankee ear-marks, tapering masts and cotton sails, and we felt sure of another prize. We showed her the United States colors as we approached, and a very bright "old flag" soon afterward ascended to her peak, drooping despondently for want of wind to blow it out. The cat did not torture the mouse long, for we soon changed flags, and gave the master of the doomed ship the same satisfaction that Jacob Faithful received, when he found his missing son's shirt in the maw of the shark--the satisfaction of being put out of doubt, and knowing that his ship would be burned. The prize proved, upon being boarded, to be the Golden Rule, from New York, for Aspinwall. She belonged to the Atlantic and Pacific Steamship Company, and was filled with an assorted cargo--having on board, among other things, masts, and a complete set of rigging for the United States brig Bainbridge, which had recently had everything swept by the board, in a gale at Aspinwall.

Judging from the bills of lading found on board, some small portions of the cargo appeared to be neutral, but there being no sworn evidence to vouch for the fact, in the way of Consular, or other certificates, I applied the well-known rule of prize law to the case, viz., that everything found on board an enemy's ship is presumed to belong to the enemy, until the contrary is shown by proper evidence; and at about six P. M. applied the torch. The islands of St. Domingo and Jamaica were both sufficiently near for their inhabitants to witness the splendid bonfire, which lighted up the heavens far and near, soon after dark. A looker-on upon that conflagration would have seen a beautiful picture, for besides the burning ship, there were the two islands mentioned, sleeping in the dreamy moonlight, on the calm bosom of a tropical sea, and the rakish-looking "British Pirate" steaming in for the land, with every spar, and line of cordage brought out in bold relief, by the bright flame--nay, with the very "pirates" themselves visible, handling the boxes, and bales of merchandise, which they had "robbed" from this innocent Yankee, whose countrymen at home were engaged in the Christian occupation of burning our houses and desolating our fields.

One of the pleasant recollections connected with the picture, was that I had tied up for a while longer, one of the enemy's gun-brigs, for want of an outfit. It must have been some months before the Bainbridge put to sea. There was another good act performed. Lots of patent medicines, with which the enemy was about inundating the South American coast, for the benefit of the livers of their fellow-democrats, were consigned to the flames. The reader had an opportunity to observe, when we captured the Dunkirk, how zealously our pious brethren of the North were looking out for the religion, and morals of the Portuguese, in a sly way. He now sees what a regard they have for the health of the atrabilious South Americans. Both operations paid, of course, and whether it was a tract, or a pill that was sold, could make but little difference to the manufacturers of the merchandise.

We steamed along the coast, at a distance of seven or eight miles, the remainder of that night without further adventure; and the next morning dawned clear, with a slight change of programme as to weather. There were clouds hurrying past us, wetting our jackets, now, and then, without interrupting the sunshine, and a stiff northeaster blowing. This was a head-wind, and we labored against it all day, with diminished speed. At three P. M. we made the remarkable island, or rather, mountain of rock, called in the beautiful Spanish, Alta Vela, or Tall Sail, from its resemblance to a ship under sail, at a distance. It rises, at a distance of ten or twelve miles from the main island of St. Domingo, with almost perpendicular sides, to the height of several hundred feet, and affords a foothold for no living creature, but the sea-gull, the gannet, and other water-fowl. Soon after nightfall, we boarded a Spanish brig from Montevideo, bound for Havana; and at eleven P. M., Alta Vela bearing north, and being distant from us, about five miles, we hove to, with a shot, another sail, that was running down the coast. She was a rakish-looking hermaphrodite brig, and in the bright moonlight looked Yankee. The report of our heavy gun, reverberated by a hundred echoes from Alta Vela, had a magical effect upon the little craft. Flying like a sea-gull before a gale only a moment before, she became, in an instant, like the same sea-gull with its wings folded, and riding upon the wave, without other motion than such as the wave gave it. Ranging within a convenient distance, we lowered, and sent a boat on board of her. She proved to be American, as we had suspected. She was the Chastelaine of Boston, last from the island of Guadeloupe, whither she had been to deliver a cargo of staves, and was now on her way to Cienfuegos, in the island of Cuba, in quest of sugar and rum for the Boston folks. We applied the torch to her, lighting up the sea-girt walls of Alta Vela with the unusual spectacle of a burning ship, and disturbing the slumber of the sea-gulls and gannets for the balance of the night.

The next morning found us still steaming to the eastward, along the Haytian coast. Having now the crews of two ships on board, as prisoners, I hauled in closer to the coast, with the intention of running into the old town of St. Domingo, and landing them. We got sight of this old city early in the afternoon, and at about four P. M. ran in and anchored. The anchorage is an open roadstead, formed by the debouchement of the picturesque little river Ozama, which seems to have burst through the rocky barrier of the coast, to find its way to the sea. We found but two vessels anchored here--one of them being a New York brig, recently put under English colors. She had a "bran-new" English ensign flying. Admiral Milne having failed to respond to the frantic cries of the New York "Commercial Advertiser," to protect the Yankee flag, the Yankee ship-owners, with many loathings and contortions, were at last forced to gulp the English flag. There was no other way of coaxing England to protect them. Being in a neutral port, I had no opportunity, of course, of testing the verity of this "cross of St. George," as the Yankees were fond of calling the hated emblem of England--hated, but hugged at the same time, for the protection which it gave ship and cargo.

It will be recollected that, at the time of my visit, Spain had repossessed herself of the eastern, or Dominican end of the island of St. Domingo; and a Spanish naval commander now came on board to visit me. I had no difficulty in arranging with him for the landing of my prisoners. I sent them to the guard-ship, and he sent them thence to the shore. This done, and arrangements being made for some fresh provisions and other refreshments, to be sent off to the crew in the morning, I landed for a stroll, on this most classical of all American soil.

The old city of St. Domingo! How many recollections does it not call up! It was a large and flourishing city a hundred years before that pestiferous little craft, called the Mayflower, brought over the cockatrice's egg that hatched out the Puritan. It was mentioned, incidentally, as the reader may remember, whilst we were running down the north side of the island, on our way to catch Mr. Vanderbilt's California steamer, that the little town of Isabella, on that side of the island, was the first city founded in the New World; and that the new settlement was soon broken up, and transferred to the city of St. Domingo. The latter city grew apace, and flourished, and was, for many years, the chief seat of the Spanish empire in the New World. It is, to-day, in its ruins, the most interesting city in all the Americas. Columbus himself lived here, and hither his remains were brought from Spain, and reposed for many years, until they were transferred to Cuba, with great pomp and ceremony. The names of Las Casas, Diego Columbus, the son and successor of the admiral, Oviedo, Hernando Cortez, and a host of others, are bound up in its history. The latter, the renowned conqueror of Mexico, was for several years a notary in an adjoining province.

We have not much time to spare, reader, as the Alabama will be on the wing, again, with the morning's light, but I cannot forbear pointing out to you two of the principal ruins of this famous old city. One of them is the Dominican Convent, and the other the Palacio, or residence of Diego Columbus. The old city being named in honor of St. Dominic, great pains were evidently bestowed upon the church and convent that were to bear his name; and so substantially was the former built, that it stands entire, and is still used as a place of worship, after the lapse of three hundred and fifty years. The altars are all standing, though faded and worm-eaten, and see! there is a lamp still burning before the altar of the Holy Eucharist. That lamp was lighted in the days of Columbus, and has been burning continuously ever since! Observe these marble slabs over which we are walking. The entire floor is paved with them. They are the tombstones of the dead, that were distinguished in their day, but who have long since been forgotten. Here is a date of 1532, on one of them. It is much defaced and worn by the footsteps of the generations that have passed over it, but we can see by the mitre and crozier, that have been sculptured on it, in bas-relief, that the remains of a bishop lie beneath. His name? We cannot make it out. The record of a bishop, carved upon the enduring marble, and placed upon the floor of his own cathedral, has been lost. What a sermon is here in this stone! Raise your eyes now from the floor, and cast them on the wall opposite. In that niche, in the great cathedral wall, sang the choir of ancient days. These vaulted roofs have resounded with music from the lips of many generations of beauties, that have faded like the butterfly of the field, leaving no more trace of their names and lineage than that little wanderer of an hour. There stands the silent organ, whose last note was sounded a century or more ago, with its gilding all tarnished, its stately carving tumbled down and lying in debris at its feet, and the bat and the spider building their nests in the cylinders that once mimicked the thunder, and sent thrills of devotion through the hearts of the multitude. There are remains of frescoes on the walls, but the damp and the mildew, in this humid climate, have so effectually performed their office, that the bright colors have disappeared, and only a dim outline of their design is visible.

Let us step over from the cathedral, to the conventual portion of the massive block. The walls, as you see, are extensive, and are standing, in a sufficient state of preservation, to enable us to trace out the ground-plan, and reconstruct, in imagination, the ancient edifice. Its design is that of a hollow square, after the fashion prevalent in Spain. On all four sides of the square are arrayed the cells of the monks, the colonnades in front of which are still standing. In the centre of the square, occupying the space, which, in a private house, would have been appropriated to a jet d'eau, and flowers in vases, is an oblong hall, connected at either end with the main building. This was the refectory of the ancient establishment. What scenes does not the very sight of this refectory present to the imagination? We see the table spread, with its naked board, humble service, and still more humble food; we hear the dinner-signal sound; and we see long lines of bearded and hooded monks, with crosses and beads pendent from their girdles, enter, and seat themselves to partake of the wonted refreshment. We hear the subdued hum of many voices--the quiet joke, and half-suppressed merriment. There, at the head of the board, sits the venerable abbot, whilst the chaplain reads his Latin text, from his stand, during the repast. Let now the years begin to roll by. We shall miss, first one familiar face from the humble board, and then another, until finally they all disappear, being carried away, one by one, to their silent tombs! The abbots repose beneath those marble slabs in the cathedral that we so lately wandered over, with lightened footfall, and subdued breath; but the brothers are carried to the common burial-ground of the order, in the outskirts of the town. New generations enter, occupy the same seats, go through the same routine of convent life, and in turn disappear, to give place to newer comers still; and thus is ever swollen the holocaust of the mighty dead! "What is man, O Lord! that thou shouldst be mindful of him?"

"The dead--the honored dead are here-- For whom, behind the sable bier, Through many a long-forgotten year, Forgotten crowds have come, With solemn step and falling tear, Bearing their brethren home.

"Beneath these boughs, athwart this grass, I see a dark and moving mass, Like Banquo's shades across the glass, By wizard hands displayed; Stand back, and let these hearses pass, Along the trampled glade."

The Convent of St. Dominic being situated in the southern part of the old city, in the angle formed by the river Ozama, and the sea, observe what a delightful sea-breeze meets us, as we emerge from the ruined refectory. Let us pause a while, to lift our hats, from our heated brows, and refresh ourselves, while we listen to the unceasing roar of the surf, as it beats against the rocky cliff below, and throws its spray half-way to our feet. What a charming view we have of the sea, as it lies in its blue expanse, dotted here and there with a sail; and of the coasts of the island east and west of us--those blackened, rock-bound shores that seem hoary with age, and so much in unison with the train of thought we have been pursuing.

There are but three crafts anchored in the roadstead, where formerly fleets used to lie. Of two of these, we have already spoken. The third is the Alabama. There is a little current setting out of the river, and she lies, in consequence, broadside to the sea, which is setting in to the beach. She is rolling gently to this sea, displaying every now and then, bright streaks of the copper on her bottom. She is full of men, and a strange flag is flying from her peak--not only strange to the dead generations of whom we have been speaking, but new even to our own times and history. It is the flag of a nation which has just risen above the horizon, and is but repeating the history of the world. The oppressed has struggled against the oppressor since time began. The struggle is going on still. It will go on forever, for the nature of man will always be the same. The cockatrice's egg has been hatched, and swarms of the Puritan have come forth to overrun the fair fields of the South that they may possess them; just as the wild Germans overran the plains of Italy centuries before.

But away with such thoughts for the present. We came on shore to get rid of them. They madden the brain, and quicken the pulse. The little craft, with the strange flag, has borne her captain hither, on a pilgrimage to the shrine of the great discoverer, whose history may be written in a single couplet.

"A Castilla, y Leon Nuevo Mundo, dio Colon."

On her way hither, her keel has crossed the very track of the three little vessels from Palos--two of them mere open caravels--that first ventured across the vast Atlantic; and now her commander is standing where the great admiral himself once stood--on the very theatre of his early glory. And alas! for Spain, on the theatre of his shame, or rather of her shame, too; for there stands the fortress still, in which are exhibited to the curious spectator the rings in the solid masonry of the wall, to which Columbus was chained!

A short walk will take us to the ruins of the palace of Diego Columbus. We must ascend the river a few hundred yards. Here it is, a little below the port of the present day. When built it stood alone, and we may remember that the townspeople complained of it, on this account--saying that it was intended as a fortress, to keep them in subjection. It is now surrounded, as you see, by the ruins of many houses. If you have read Oviedo's description of it, you are disappointed in its appearance; for that historian tells us, that "no man in Spain had a house to compare with it." Its form is that of two quadrangles connected by a colonnade, but it, by no means, comes up to the modern idea of a palace. The roof has entirely disappeared, and the quadrangles are mere shells filled with the accumulating debris of centuries, amid which large forest-trees have taken root and are flourishing. It was built of solid and substantial blocks of stone, and in any other country but the tropics, would have scarcely shown signs of age in three centuries. But here the fierce rays of a perpendicular sun, the torrents of rain in the wet season, and the occasional hurricanes and earthquakes, that desolate and destroy everything in their path, soon beat down the stanchest buildings--the very blocks of granite being disintegrated, by the alternate rain and sunshine, and crumbling away beneath their influence. It is situated on a rising ground, commanding a fine view of the sea, and the surrounding country. It is surrounded by walls and battlements, but the most imposing feature about it, must have been the approach to it from the city--the visitor passing through a wide avenue of shade-trees, and gaining admission to it by a majestic flight of stone steps. The shade-trees have disappeared, and the stone steps have been removed to be worked up into other buildings.

We have called this house, the palace of Diego Columbus, but it must have been constructed either by his father, the admiral, or his uncle Bartholomew, the Adelantado, as we read that when Diego came out, after his father's death, to assume the viceroyalty, he found it ready built at his hand. Its blackened walls and dirt-filled saloons, now in the midst of a squalid purlieu of the modern city, must have witnessed many a scene of revelry in its day, as Oviedo tells us, that when the young admiral was restored to the honors and command of his father, he brought out to his new government, with him, some of the most elegant young women of Spain, as a sort of maids of honor to his own beautiful young wife--the marriage portions of all of whom he undertook to provide. And that in due time these young women were all happily bestowed upon gallant knights and wealthy planters.

There, now, reader, we have taken a stroll through the classical old city of St. Domingo--a piece of good fortune, which falls to the lot of very few. Its romantic history seems to have been forgotten; it has fallen into the hands of a mongrel race of blacks and whites, and is rarely visited for any other purpose than that of trade. The negro and the mulatto in this oldest of American cities are thought rather more of than the white man, and the Yankee skipper finds in it, a congenial mart, in which to vend his cheese and his codfish, and distribute his tracts--political and moral--and put forth his patent medicines!

We did not get under way, the next morning, until eight o'clock, as the supplies from the butchers and fruiterers could not be gotten on board at an earlier hour. Bartelli came off from the market, loaded as usual, bringing with him a bunch of wild pigeons, very similar to those found in our forests, and some excellent cigars. The flavor of the latter is not quite equal to those of the Havana, but they are mild and pleasant smokers. He brought off, also, a specimen of the Haytian paper money, worth five cents on the dollar. Like the American greenback, it is the offshoot of revolution and political corruption.

As eight o'clock struck, turning out of the ship the motley crowd of negroes and mulattoes who had come off to trade with the sailors, we tripped our anchor, and turning the ship's head again to the eastward, gave her the steam. The day was fine, and the sea smooth, and we had a picturesque run along the Haytian coast, for the rest of the day. The coast is generally clean, what few dangers there are being all visible. The only sails sighted were fishing-boats and small coasters laden with farm produce, running down to St. Domingo for a market. At times a number of these were in sight, and the effect was very pleasing. The coasts of Hayti abound in fish, and as there is a succession of fruits all the year round, it is the paradise of the negro. A canoe and a fishing-line, or cast-net, and a few plantain and mango-trees supply his table; and two or three times a year, he cuts a mahogany log, and floats it down the little mountain streams, to the coast, where he sells it for paper money enough to buy him a few yards of cotton cloth, or calico. Voila tout!

We entered the Mona Passage at half-past eight P. M. It was unguarded as before. During the night, we let our steam go down, to give the engineer an opportunity of screwing up the cylinder-head. Under way again before daylight. The weather continued fine, and we began again to fall in with sails. They were all neutral, however. We spoke a Spanish schooner, among the rest, and gave her the longitude. As soon as we had well cleared the passage, we banked fires, and lowering the propeller, put the ship under sail. On Sunday, February 1st, we had our first muster since leaving Jamaica. We had been out now a week, and in that time I had gotten my crew straightened up again. The rum had been pretty well worked out of them; most of the black rings around the eyes had disappeared, and beards had been trimmed, and heads combed. The court-martial which had been trying the few culprits, that had been retained for trial, had gotten through its labors, and been dissolved, and Jack, as he answered to his name, and walked around the capstan, was "himself again," in all the glory of white "ducks," polished shoes, straw hats, and streaming ribbons. No more than two or three desertions had occurred, out of the whole crew, and this was very gratifying.

The next day, we had an alarm of fire on board. It was near twelve o'clock. I happened to be standing on the horse-block, at the time, observing the sun for latitude, when suddenly I heard a confusion of voices below, and simultaneously the officer of the deck, with evident alarm depicted in his countenance, came running to me, and said, "The ship is on fire, sir!" This is an alarm that always startles the seaman. The "fire-bell in the night" is sufficiently alarming to the landsman, but the cry of fire at sea imports a matter of life and death--especially in a ship of war, whose boats are always insufficient to carry off her crew, and whose magazine and shell-rooms are filled with powder, and the loaded missiles of death. The fire-bell on board a ship of war, whose crew is always organized as a fire company, points out the duty of every officer and man in such an emergency. The first thing to be done is to "beat to quarters," and accordingly I gave this order to the officer; but before the drummer could brace his drum for the operation, it was announced that all danger had disappeared. When we had a little leisure to look into the facts, it appeared, that the alarm had arisen from the carelessness of the "captain of the hold," who, in violation of the orders of the ship, had taken a naked light below with him, into the spirit-room, to pump off the grog by. The candle had ignited some of the escaping gas, but the flame was suppressed almost immediately. The captain of the hold, who is a petty officer, paid the penalty of his disobedience, by being dismissed from his office; and in half an hour, the thing was forgotten.

Since leaving the Mona Passage, we had been steering about N. N. W., or as near north as the trade-wind would permit us. We expected, as a matter of course, to meet with the usual calms, as we came up with the Tropic of Cancer, but the north-east trade, instead of dying away, as we had expected, hauled to the south-east, and shot us across the calm-belt, with a fine breeze all the way. We carried this wind to the twenty-seventh parallel, when we took, with scarcely any intermission, a fresh north-wester. This does not often happen in the experience of the navigator, as the reader has seen, when he has before been crossing the calm-belts with us.

On the 3d of February, we made our first capture since leaving St. Domingo. It was the schooner Palmetto, bound from New York to St. John's, in the island of Porto Rico. We gave chase to her, soon after breakfast, and came up with her about half-past one P. M. It was a fair trial of heels, with a fine breeze and a smooth sea; both vessels being on a wind; and it was beautiful to see how the Alabama performed her task, working up into the wind's eye, and overhauling her enemy, with the ease of a trained courser coming up with a saddle-nag. There was no attempt to cover the cargo of the Palmetto. The enemy merchants seemed to have come to the conclusion, that it was no longer of any use to prepare bogus certificates, and that they might as well let their cargoes run the chances of war, without them. Upon examination of the papers of the schooner, it appeared that the cargo was shipped by the Spanish house of Harques & Maseras, domiciled, and doing business in New York, to Vincent Brothers, in San Juan, Porto Rico, on joint account; the shippers owning one third, and the consignee two thirds. The case came, therefore, under the rule applied in a former case, viz., that when partners reside, some in a belligerent, and some in a neutral country, the property of all of them, which has any connection with the house in the belligerent country, is liable to confiscation. (3 Phillimore, 605, and 1 Robinson, 1, 14, 19. Also, The Susa, ib. 255.) Getting on board from the Palmetto, such articles of provisions--and she was chiefly provision-laden--as we needed, we applied the torch to her about sunset, and filled away, and made sail.

The next afternoon we sighted a sail on our weather-bow, close hauled, like ourselves, and continued to gain upon her, until night shut her out from view, when we discontinued the chase. We were satisfied from her appearance, that she was neutral, or we should, probably, have expended a little steam upon her. At night the weather set in thick, and the wind blew so fresh from the north-east, that we took a single reef in the topsails. This bad weather continued for the next two or three days, reducing us, a part of the time, to close reefs. The reader is probably aware, that a ship bound from the West Indies to the coast of Brazil, is compelled to run up into the "variables," and make sufficient easting, to enable her to weather Cape St. Roque. This is what the Alabama is now doing--working her way to the eastward, on the parallel of about 30 deg. We observed on the 20th of February, in latitude 28 deg. 32'; the longitude being 45 deg. 05'.

The next day, the weather being very fine, with the wind light from the southward and eastward, a sail was descried from aloft, and soon afterward another, and another, until four were seen. We gave chase to the first sail announced; standing to the eastward, in pursuit of her, for an hour or two, but she being a long distance ahead, and to windward, and the chase being likely, in consequence, to be long, and to draw us away from the other three sail, besides, we abandoned it, and gave chase to two of the latter. These were fine, tall ships, under a cloud of canvas, steering, one to the eastward, and the other to the westward. Being quite sure that they were Americans, and the wind falling light, we got up steam for the chase. Coming up with the eastward-bound ship, we hove her to, but not until we had thrown a couple of shot at her, in succession--the latter whizzing over the master's head on the quarter-deck. She was evidently endeavoring to draw us after her, as far to the eastward as possible, to give her consort, with whom she had spoken, and who was running, as the reader has seen, to the westward, an opportunity to escape. Throwing a boat's crew hastily on board of her, and directing the prize-master to follow us, we now wheeled in pursuit of the other fugitive. The latter was, by this time, fifteen miles distant--being hull down--and was running before the wind with studding sails, "alow and aloft." Fortunately for the Alabama, as before remarked, the wind was light, or the chase might have put darkness between us, before we came up with her. As it was, it was three P. M. before we overhauled her, and we had run our other prize nearly out of sight. She was less obstinate than her consort, and shortened sail, and hove to, at the first gun, hoisting the United States colors at her peak. She proved to be the bark Olive Jane, of New York, from Bordeaux, bound to New York, with an assorted cargo of French wines, and brandies, canned meats, fruits, and other delicacies. There was no attempt to cover the cargo. There were a great many shippers. Some few of these had consigned their goods to their own order, but most of the consignments were to New York houses. It is possible that some of the consignments, "to order," really belonged to French owners, but if so, I was relieved from the necessity of making the investigation, by the carelessness of the owners themselves, who had taken no pains to protect their property, by proper documentary evidence of its neutral character. In the absence of sworn proof, as before remarked, the rule of law is imperative, that all property found on board of an enemy's ship, is presumed to belong to the enemy. I acted upon this presumption, and set fire to the Olive Jane. What a splendid libation was here to old Neptune! I did not permit so much as a bottle of brandy, or a basket of champagne to be brought on board the Alabama, though, I doubt not, the throats of some of my vagabonds, who had so recently cooled off, from the big frolic they had had in Jamaica, were as dry as powder-horns. There were the richest of olives, and pates de fois gras, going to tickle the palates of the New York shoddyites, and other nouveau-riche plebeians, destroyed in that terrible conflagration. I should have permitted Bartelli, and the other stewards to have a short run among these delicacies, but for the wine and the brandy. A Fouche could not have prevented the boats' crews from smuggling some of it on board, and then I might have had another Martinique grog-watering on my hands.

Amid the crackling of flames, the bursting of brandy casks, the shrivelling of sails, as they were touched by the fire, and the tumbling of the lighter spars of the Olive Jane from aloft, we turned our head to the eastward again, and rejoined our first prize, coming up with her just as the shades of evening were closing in. I had now a little leisure to look into her character. She, like the Olive Jane, had shown me the "old flag," and that, of course, had set at rest all doubts as to the nationality of the ship. There was as little doubt, as soon appeared, about the cargo. The ship was the Golden Eagle, and I had overhauled her near the termination of a long voyage. She had sailed from San Francisco, in ballast, for Howland's Island, in the Pacific; a guano island of which some adventurous Yankees had taken possession. There she had taken in a cargo of guano, for Cork and a market; the guano being owned by, and consigned to the order of the American Guano Company. This ship had buffeted the gales of the frozen latitudes of Cape Horn, threaded her pathway among its icebergs, been parched with the heats of the tropic, and drenched with the rains of the equator, to fall into the hands of her enemy, only a few hundred miles from her port. But such is the fortune of war. It seemed a pity, too, to destroy so large a cargo of a fertilizer, that would else have made fields stagger under a wealth of grain. But those fields would be the fields of the enemy; or if it did not fertilize his fields, its sale would pour a stream of gold into his coffers; and it was my business upon the high seas, to cut off, or dry up this stream of gold. The torch followed the examination of the papers. The reader may, perhaps, by this time have remarked, how fond the Yankees had become of the qualifying adjective, "golden," as a prefix to the names of their ships. I had burned the Golden Rocket, the Golden Rule, and the Golden Eagle.

We were now in latitude 30 deg., and longitude 40 deg., and if the curious reader will refer to a map, or chart of the North Atlantic Ocean, he will see that we are on the charmed "crossing," leading to the coast of Brazil. By "crossing" is meant the point at which the ship's course crosses a given parallel of latitude. We must not, for instance, cross the thirtieth parallel, going southward, until we have reached a certain meridian--say that of 40 deg. W. If we do, the north-east trade-wind will pinch us, and perhaps prevent us from weathering Cape St. Roque.

And when we reach the equator, there is another crossing recommended to the mariner, as being most appropriate to his purpose. Thus it is, that the roads upon the sea have been blazed out, as it were--the blazes not being exactly cut upon the forest-trees, but upon parallels and meridians. The chief blazer of these roads, is an American, of whom all Americans should be proud--Captain Maury, before mentioned in these pages. He has so effectually performed his task, in his "Wind and Current Charts," that there is little left to be desired. The most unscientific and practical navigator, may, by the aid of these charts, find the road he is in quest of. Maury has been, in an eminent degree, the benefactor of the very men who became most abusive of him, when they found that he, like other Southern statesmen--for he is a statesman as well as sailor--was obliged to preserve his self-respect, by spitting upon the "old flag." He has saved every Yankee ship, by shortening her route, on every distant voyage she makes, thousands of dollars. The greedy ship-owners pocket the dollars, and abuse the philosopher.[2]

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter XLII

THE "CROSSING" OF THE THIRTIETH PARALLEL--THE TOLL-GATE UPON THE SEA--HOW THE TRAVELLERS PASS ALONG THE HIGHWAY--CAPTURE OF THE WASHINGTON; THE JOHN A. PARKS; THE BATHIAH THAYER; THE PUNJAUB; THE MORNING STAR; THE KINGFISHER; THE CHARLES HILL; AND THE NORA--CROSSES THE EQUATOR--CAPTURE OF THE LOUISA HATCH--ARRIVAL AT FERNANDO DE NORONHA.

Reaching the blazed road, of which I spoke in the last chapter, I shortened sail, at the crossing mentioned, that I might waylay such of the passengers as chanced to be enemies. There were a great many ships passing, both ways, on this road, some going to the Pacific, or the Far East, and others returning from those distant points; but they were nearly all neutral. The American ships, having, by this time, become thoroughly alarmed, especially since they learned that neither English sealing-wax, nor Admiral Milne could save them, had dodged the highways, as skulkers and thieves are wont to do, and taken to the open fields and by-ways for safety. On the day after the capture of the Olive Jane and Golden Eagle, the weather being cloudy and rainy, and the wind light, four more sail were seen--all European bound. At eight A. M. we showed the United States colors to one of them, which proved to be a French bark. It now became calm, and we were compelled to get up steam, to overhaul the rest. They lay long distances apart, and we were several hours in passing from one to the other. They were all Englishmen, with various histories and destinations, one of them--a fine frigate-built ship--being a Melbourne and Liverpool packet. We received a paper from her, printed at the antipodes, but there was not much in it, besides the proceedings of the Australian Parliament, news from the gold-diggings, and the price of wool; in neither of which subjects were we much interested.

On the next day but a solitary passenger came over the road. It was late at night when she made her appearance--there being a bright moon and a brisk breeze. We made sail in chase, and the chase, taking the alarm, gave us a very pretty run for a few hours. We overhauled her, however, at length, and fired the usual blank cartridge, to heave her to. She was an hermaphrodite brig, and might be, for aught we could see, in the uncertain light, American. The gun had no effect. We waited a few minutes for a response, but none coming, we fired again--sending a shot whizzing, this time, over the little craft. Still no response. We were now only a few hundred yards distant. What could the fellow mean? All was as silent on board the chase as death, and not a tack or sheet had been started. We ran now almost on board of her, and hailing her, commanded her to heave to. Great confusion followed. We could hear voices speaking in a foreign tongue, and presently a disorderly array of sails whipping and flapping in the wind, and of yards swinging to and fro, presented itself. At last the little craft managed to come to the wind, and make a halt. She proved to be a Portuguese brig, and the crew had been so alarmed, at being chased and fired at, by night, as to lose all presence of mind, and become incapable of any action whatever, until they were somewhat reassured, by the near presence of our ship and the sound of our voices. She was bound from Pernambuco to Lisbon, with a cargo of hides and sugar. It was, indeed, something like a ghost-chase, to see the Alabama coming, in the dead of night after the little craft, with her seven-league boots on, and those awful trysails of hers spread out in the moonlight like so many winding-sheets.

On the day after this adventure, a Dutch bark and an English brig came along; and on the same night, we boarded the English four-master, the Sarah Sands, from the East Indies for Falmouth. At daylight, the next morning, the look-out at the mast-head began to cry sails, until he reported as many as seven in sight at one time. They were all European bound, and were jogging along, in company, following Maury's blazes, like so many passengers on a highway. The Alabama stood like a toll-gate before them, and though we could not take toll of them, as they were all neutral, we made each traveller show us his passport, as he came up. One obstinate fellow--a Hamburger--refused to show us his colors, until he was commanded to do so by a gun. I made it a practice to punish these unmannerly fellows, for their want of civility. On the present occasion, the Hamburger was detained a considerable time, whilst I exercised, at my leisure, my belligerent right of viseing his papers. When his travelling companions were some miles ahead of him, I told the surly fellow to pick up his hat and be off.

On the next day, being still in latitude 30 deg., and longitude 40 deg., or at the "crossing," an English and an American ship came along. The Englishman saluted us civilly as he passed. He was from the East Indies, laden with silks and wines. But the American, seeing that we were under short sail--though the weather was fine--resting by the wayside, as it were, and remembering that there was a little unpleasantness between the North and South, fought rather shy of us, and endeavored to get out of the way of possible harm. She was a fine, large ship, and the moment she showed an intention not to pass through the toll-gate, we made sail in pursuit. She had heels, but they were not quite as clean as the Alabama's, and we came up with her, in the course of two or three hours; she having approached pretty close, before she smelt the rat. She was obstinate, and compelled me to wet the people on her poop, by the spray of a shot, before she would acknowledge that she was beaten. The shower-bath made a stir among the bystanders; there was a running hither and thither, a letting go of sheets and halliards, and pretty soon the main-yard swung aback, and the stars and stripes were seen ascending to the stranger's peak. When the boarding-officer brought the master of the captured ship on board, with his papers, she proved to be the ship Washington, of New York, from the Chincha Islands, bound to Antwerp, with a cargo of guano, laden on account of the Peruvian government, and consigned to its agent at Antwerp, for sale. Being unable to destroy the ship, because of the neutral ownership of her cargo, I released her on ransom-bond, sent my prisoners on board of her to be landed, and permitted her to depart. This capture was made on the 27th of February. On the 28th we overhauled two English ships, from the East Indies, homeward bound, and a French ship, from Batavia, for Nantes. The weather continued very fine, and we had had a uniformly high barometer, ever since we had reached the "crossing."

The morning of the 1st of March dawned charmingly, with a very light breeze. The night had been rather dark, and we had been lying-to under topsails. In the darkness of the night, an enemy's ship had approached us unawares. She had been following the blazes, without seeing the toll-gate, and the revelations made by the morning's light, must have startled her; for she found herself within half a mile of an exceedingly saucy-looking gunboat, lying in wait for somebody, or something. It was nearly calm, and she could not help herself if she would. On the other hand, the gunboat was delighted to see a tall ship, whose masts tapered like a lady's fingers, arrayed in the whitest of petticoats--to carry out our figure--and which, from the course she was steering, was evidently just out from Yankee-land, with that mail on board, which we had been anxiously looking for, for several days past. We were in the midst of the scrubbing and cleaning of the morning watch, and to effect the capture, it was not even necessary to lay aside a holy-stone, or a scrubbing-brush. A gun and a Confederate flag, were all that was required to bring the tall ship to a halt, and remove her doubts, if she had had any. She was the John A. Parks, of Hallowell, Maine.

The cargo of the Parks consisted of white pine lumber which she had taken on board at New York, and she was bound to Montevideo, or Buenos Ayres, as the consignee might elect. There was an affidavit found among her papers, made by one Snyder, before a Mr. Edwards Pierrepont, who appears to have been acting as British Consul, claiming that the cargo was shipped on account of a London house. The real facts of the case, however, as gathered from the correspondence, and the testimony of the master, were, that one Davidson, a lumber dealer in New York had chartered the ship, and shipped the lumber, in the usual course of his business, to the parties in Montevideo; that he had paid most of the freight, in advance, and insured himself against the war risk, both upon the cargo and the freight. The manner in which this case was "put up," in the papers, was an improvement upon some others I had examined. The New York merchants were evidently becoming expert in the preparation of bogus certificates. It was no longer merely stated that the property belonged to "neutral owners," but the owners themselves were named. In short, the certificate found on board the Parks was in due form, but unfortunately for the parties who contrived the clever little plot, the master forgot to throw overboard his letter-bag, and among the letters found in that bag, was one written by Davidson, giving instructions to the consignees, in which the following expressions occur: "The cargo of the John A. Parks, I shall have certified to, by the British Consul, as the property of British subjects. You will find it a very good cargo, and should command the highest prices." By the time that I had finished the examination of the case, Bartelli announced breakfast, and I invited my Hallowell friend to take a cup of coffee with me, telling him, at the same time, that I should burn his ship. As well as I recollect, he declined the coffee, but I am quite certain that the ship was burned. The carpenter of the Alabama was thrown into ecstasies by this capture. All the other departments of the ship had been kept well supplied, except his own. The paymaster, who was also commissary, the boatswain, the sailmaker, had all been "plundering" the enemy quite extensively, but no "boards" had come along, until now, for the poor carpenter. Here they were at last, however, and if I had not put some restraint upon my zealous officer of the adze and chisel, I believe he would have converted the Alabama into a lumberman.

We received from the Parks, sure enough, the mail we had been waiting for. There must have been a barrel-full, and more of newspapers and periodicals, going to the Montevideans and Buenos Ayreans--many of them in the best of Spanish, and all explaining the "great moral ideas," on which the Southern people were being robbed of their property, and having their throats cut. We gleaned one gratifying piece of intelligence, however, from these papers. "The Pirate Florida" had put to sea from Mobile, to assist the "British Pirate," in plundering, and burning the "innocent merchant-ships of the United States, pursuing their peaceful commerce," as Mr. Charles Francis Adams, so often, and so naively expressed it to Earl Russell. Whilst the Parks was still burning, an English bark passed through the toll-gate, the captain of which was prevailed upon, to take the master of the burning ship, his wife, and two nephews, to London. We were glad, on the poor lady's account, that she was so soon relieved from the discomforts of a small and crowded ship.

The next traveller that came along was the Bethiah Thayer, of Rockland, Maine, last from the Chincha Islands, with a cargo of guano for the Peruvian Government. The cargo being properly documented, I put the ship under ransom-bond, and permitted her to pass. It was Sunday; the Bethiah was dressed in a new suit of cotton canvas, and looked quite demure and saint-like, while her papers were being examined. I have no doubt if I had questioned her master, that he would have been found to have voted for Breckinridge.

I now resolved to fill away, stand down toward the equator, and hold myself stationary, for a few days, at the "crossing" of that famous great circle. I was far enough to the eastward, to make a free wind of the north-east trade, and we jogged along under topsails, making sail only when it became necessary to chase. We lost our fine weather almost immediately upon leaving the "crossing," and took a series of moderate gales--sometimes, however, reducing us to close reefs--which lasted us for a week or ten days, or until we began to approach the rains and calms of the equator. We met a number of sails on the road, and now and then chased one, but they all proved to be neutral. On the night of the 15th of March, at a few minutes before midnight, the weather being thick and murky, the look-out at the cat-head suddenly cried "sail ho! close aboard;" and in a few minutes a large ship passed us on the opposite tack, within speaking distance. We hailed, but she passed on like a goblin ship, without giving us any reply. She had all sails set, there was no one stirring on board of her, and the only light that was visible, was the one which twinkled in the binnacle. We wore ship with all expedition, shook the reefs out of the topsails, and made sail in pursuit. It took us some minutes to accomplish this, and by the time we were well under way, the stranger was nearly out of sight. Both ships were on a wind, however, and this, as the reader has seen, was the Alabama's best point of sailing. Our night-glasses soon began to tell the usual tale. We were overhauling the chase; and at a quarter past three, or a little before dawn, we were near enough to heave her to, with a gun. She proved to be the Punjaub, of Boston, from Calcutta for London. Her cargo consisted chiefly of jute and linseed, and was properly certificated as English property. The goods were, besides, of foreign growth, and were going from one English port to another. I released her on ransom-bond, and sent on board of her the prisoners from the last ship burned.

Soon after daylight, we gave chase to another sail in the E. S. E., with which we came up about eight A. M. She was an English ship, from the Mauritius, for Cork. She confirmed our suspicion, that the Yankee ships were avoiding, as a general rule, the beaten tracks, having spoken one of them on the "line," bound to the coast of Brazil, which had travelled as far east as the twenty-third meridian; or about four hundred miles out of her way. We were still standing to the southward, and on the 21st of March we were very near the sun, for while he was crossing the equator, we were in latitude 2 deg. 47' N.; our longitude being 26 deg. W. On that day, the weather is thus recorded in my journal: "Cloudy, with squalls of rain, and the wind shifting, indicating that we have lost the 'trades.' It is pleasant to hear the thunder roll, for the first time in several months, sounding like the voice of an old friend; and the crew seem to enjoy a ducking from the heavy showers--rain having been a rare visitor of late." And on the next day, the following is the record: "Rains, and calms all day; the officers and crew alike, are paddling about the deck in bare feet, and enjoying the pelting of the rain, like young ducks. Three neutrals, in company, bound like ourselves, across the 'line.' They look, at a distance, with their drooping sails flapping idly in the calm, as disconsolate as wet barn-yard fowls at home, on a rainy day."

On the 23d of March, the weather being still as described, and very little change having taken place in our position, we made two more captures; the first, the Morning Star of Boston, from Calcutta for London, and the second the whaling schooner Kingfisher, of Fairhaven, Massachusetts. The cargo of the Morning Star being in the same category as that of the Punjaub, we released her also, on ransom-bond. The Kingfisher we burned. This adventurous little whaler had a crew of twenty-three persons, all of whom were Portuguese, except the master, and mate, and one or two boat-steerers. We set fire to her just at nightfall, and the conflagration presented a weird-like spectacle on the "line," amid the rumbling of thunder, the shifting, but ever black scenery, of the nimbi, or rain clouds, and the pouring and dashing of torrents of rain. Sometimes the flames would cower beneath a drenching shower, as though they had been subdued, but in a moment afterward, they would shoot up, mast-head high, as brightly and ravenously as before. The oil in her hold kept her burning on the surface of the still sea, until a late hour at night.

On the next day, we boarded, as usual, a number of neutral ships, of different nationalities, some going south, and some going north. We were at the "crossing" of the equator, "blazed" by Maury, and with the main topsail at the mast, were reviewing, as it were, the commerce of the world. We were never out of sight of ships. They were passing, by ones, and twos, and threes, in constant succession, wreathed in rain and mist, and presenting frequently the idea of a funeral procession. The honest traders were all there, except the most honest of them all--the Yankees--and they were a little afraid of the police. Still we managed to catch a rogue now and then.

On the second day after burning the Kingfisher, we made two more captures. Late in the afternoon of that day, we descried two large ships approaching us, in company. They came along lovingly, arm-in-arm, as it were, as though in the light airs and calms that were prevailing, they had been having a friendly chat, or one of the masters had been dining on board of the other. They were evidently American ships, and had most likely been having a cosy talk about the war. The "sainted" Abraham's Emancipation Proclamation was the favorite topic of the day, as we had learned from the mail-bags of the Parks, and perchance they had been discussing that; or perhaps the skippers were congratulating themselves upon having escaped the Alabama; they probably supposing her to be at the other toll-gate still. Whatever may have been the subject of their discourse, they evidently pricked up their ears, as soon as they saw the Alabama, stripped like a gentleman who was taking it coolly, with nothing but her topsails set, and lying across their path. They separated gradually; and quietly, and by stealth, a few more studding-sails were sent up aloft.

It was time now for the Alabama to move. Her main yard was swung to the full, sailors might have been seen running up aloft, like so many squirrels, who thought they saw "nuts" ahead, and pretty soon, upon a given signal the top-gallant sails and royals might have been seen fluttering in the breeze, for a moment, and then extending themselves to their respective yard-arms. A whistle or two from the boatswain and his mates, and the trysail sheets are drawn aft, and the Alabama has on those seven-league boots which the reader has seen her draw on so often before. A stride or two, and the thing is done. First, the Charles Hill, of Boston, shortens sail, and runs up the "old flag," and then the Nora, of the same pious city, follows her example. They were both laden with salt, and both from Liverpool. The Hill was bound to Montevideo, or Buenos Ayres, and there was no attempt to cover her cargo. The Nora was bound to Calcutta, under a charter-party with one W. N. de Mattos. In the bill of lading, the cargo was consigned to order, and on the back of the instrument was the following indorsement: "I hereby certify, that the salt shipped on board the Nora, is the property of W. N. de Mattos, of London, and that the said W. N. de Mattos is a British subject, and was so at the time of the shipment." This certificate was signed by one H. E. Folk, and at the bottom of the certificate were the words, "R. C. Gardner, Mayor"--presumed to mean the Mayor of Liverpool.

Here was a more awkward attempt to cover a cargo than any of my Yankee friends of New York or Boston had ever made. There was very little doubt that the salt was English-owned, but the certificate, I have recited, did not amount even to an ex parte affidavit, it not being sworn to. As a matter of course, I was bound to presume the property to be enemy, it being found, unprotected by any legal evidence, in an enemy's ship. The Hill and the Nora were, therefore, both consigned to the flames, after we had gotten on board from them such articles as we stood in need of. We received from the two ships between thirty and forty tons of coal, or about two days' steaming. It took us nearly all the following day to transport it in our small boats, and we did not set fire to the ships until five in the afternoon. We received, also, half a dozen recruits from them. I had now quite as many men as I wanted.

Among the papers of the Hill was found the following brief letter of instructions from her owner to her master. It is dated from the good city of Boston, and was written while the ship was lying at that other good city, Philadelphia. It is addressed to Captain F. Percival, and goes on to say:--

"DEAR SIR:--I have received your several letters from Philadelphia. As a rebel privateer has burned several American ships, it may be as well if you can have your bills of lading indorsed as English property, and have your cargo certified to by the British Consul."

Such nice little missives as these, written from one city of "grand moral ideas," to another city, whose ideas were no less grand or moral, quietly instructing ship-masters to commit perjury, were of great assistance to me, when, in the classical words of the New York "Commercial Advertiser," I had a "Yankee hash" to deal with.

On the 29th of March we crossed the equator. The event is thus recorded in my journal: "Crossed the equator at five P. M. in the midst of a dense rain-squall, with lowering, black clouds, and the wind from the south-west. We were in chase of a sail at the time, but lost her in the gloom. It rained all night, with light airs and calms. We have experienced a south-easterly current, setting at the rate of a knot and a half the hour, for the last twenty-four-hours." We made our crossing a little farther to the eastward than usual--26 deg.--on purpose to counteract the Yankee dodge spoken of a little while back. We now encountered a variety of currents, some setting to the south-east as just mentioned, others to the east, others to the south, until finally we fell in with the great equatorial current setting to the westward.

The study of the phenomena of the currents, is one of the most interesting that can engage the attention of the marine philosopher. We have already had occasion to explain the circulation of the atmosphere--how the wind "cometh and goeth," not at random, but in obedience to certain well-defined natural laws. The circulation of the sea is no less regular than that of the atmosphere, and has equally important offices to perform. If the sea were a stagnant mass of waters, some portions of the earth which now enjoy temperate climates, and teem with millions of population in the enjoyment of an abundant fauna and flora, would be almost uninhabitable because of the extreme cold. Some portions of the sea would dry up, and become beds of salt, and others again would, from the superabundance of precipitation, become fresh, or nearly so. In short, there would be a general disturbance of the harmonies of creation. To obviate this, and to put the sea in motion, various agencies have been set at work by the great Architect; chief among which is the unequal distribution of heat over the earth's surface. We have already called the sun the Father of the Winds; he is equally the father of the currents. The warm water of the equator is constantly flowing off to the poles, and the cold water of the poles flowing back, as undercurrents, to the equator. This flow is not directly north, or directly south, but by a variety of tortuous channels. The different depths of the ocean, the obstructions of islands, and continents, clouds and sunshine, and a great many other agencies, combine to give this tortuosity and seeming irregularity to the currents.

Let us take an example. The Alabama has just experienced a south-east current in a locality where the current sets, as a general rule, to the westward. How are we to account for this? It may be due to a variety of causes, all working in harmony, however, with the general design. In the first place, it may be a counter-current going to fill the place left vacant by some other current; for, as a matter of course, when a given quantity of water flows away from a place, the same quantity must flow back to it. Or it may be a principal, and not an accessory current, set in motion, say by heat. Let us see how easily this may be accomplished. Suppose a dense canopy of clouds to overshadow some considerable space of the sea, for a day, or it may be, for a few hours only. Whilst the rays of the sun are shut out from this space, they are pouring down their heat with tropical fervor, say to the south of this cloud-bank. Under the cloud-bank the water is cooling, beyond the bank it is being heated. Under the bank evaporation has ceased almost altogether, beyond the bank it is going on at the rate of about an inch in twenty-four hours. Here are powerful agencies at work, changing both the temperature, and specific gravity of the waters.

Waters to be at rest must have the same temperature and specific gravity. These waters therefore cannot remain at rest, and a current is the consequence. To-morrow, perhaps, the process will be reversed, the cloud and the sunshine changing places, and the current flowing in a contrary direction. These are local disturbances of the system of oceanic circulation--little venous derangements, as it were, the great arterial system not being materially affected by them.

There are other exceedingly beautiful agencies at work, on a smaller scale, to disturb the oceanic equilibrium, and set the waters in motion. It has puzzled philosophers to account for the saltness of the sea. Whatever may be its cause, it plays a very important part in giving vitality to its circulation. If sea-water were fresh, evaporation would not produce any change in its specific gravity. One element of motion, therefore, would be wanted. But being salt, and the salts not being taken up by the thirsty air, in the process of evaporation, every rain-drop that is withdrawn from it, helps to put the currents in motion.

But these are surface operations; let us dive beneath the surface, and witness some of the wonders that are going on in the depths below. We have before shown the reader, the coralline insect, that wonderful little stone-mason of the sea, which, in the hands of Providence, is the architect of islands and continents. The sea-water is the quarry from which this little toiler extracts his tiny blocks of masonry. If the water were fresh, it would not hold the materials in solution, which he needs for his work. But being salt, it has just the materials which he needs.

But how does he affect the currents? the reader will ask. As follows: Every particle of solid matter that he extracts from the sea-water--and he must have limestone to build those islands and continents of which he is the architect--alters its specific gravity. The little globule of water, from which he has just taken the block of stone that would be scarcely visible under a powerful microscope, has become lighter than the surrounding globules, and ascends to the surface. In obedience to the law which we have mentioned, that as much water must flow back to a place, as flows away from it, a globule of water from the surface now descends to take the place of that which has arisen; descends to the little stone-mason, that he may rob it, in turn, of the block of stone that it contains. The globules of water thus become the hod-carriers for these little stone-masons, working away, in countless myriads, at the bottom of the sea.

But what becomes of this lighter globule of water, which has arisen to the surface, because it has been deprived of its solid matter? It must flow away somewhere in search of the salts it has lost, for if it remain stationary, in course of time, the sea in its neighborhood will all be deprived of its salts, and there will be no more globules to descend to the little stone-mason. But when the globule starts to flow off, a current is established.

The reader may recollect that when we were at the Azores, breaking up that Yankee whaling station, we spoke of the currents, in connection with the whales, and other fishes; how, like "reapers and gleaners," they bore to them the food which was prepared for them in other latitudes. The reader sees, now, how the currents build the coral bank. Every sea-shell, as it secretes the solid matter for its edifice, helps on the movement set on foot by the coral insect.

On the 3d of April, we observed in latitude 2 deg. 11' S.; our longitude being 26 deg. 02'. The weather was still thick and rainy, and we had fitful gusts of wind, and calms by turns. During the morning watch, the dense clouds lifted for a while, and showed us a fine, tall ship, steering, like ourselves, to the southward. We immediately made sail in chase. The wind was blowing quite fresh from the south-west, at the time, and we gained very rapidly upon the stranger. At twelve o'clock the wind died away, and the heavy rains being renewed, she was entirely shut out from view. We continued the chase all day; now being sure of her, and now being baffled by the ever-shifting clouds, and changing wind and weather. At length, at five P. M., it being no longer safe to trust to contingencies, as night would set in, in another hour, I sent a whale-boat to board, and halt her, although she was still two miles distant. The boarding was successfully accomplished, and just before dark, we could see the stranger's head turned in our direction. We knew from this circumstance that she was a prize, and hoisting a light, as night set in, to guide the boarding-officer, in an hour or two more she was alongside of us.

The prize proved to be the Louisa Hatch, of Rockland, Maine, from Cardiff, with a cargo of the best Welsh coal, for Point-de-Galle, in the island of Ceylon. The bill of lading required the cargo to be delivered to the "Messageries Imperiales," steamship company, and there was a certificate on the back of the bill of lading to the effect that the coal belonged to that company, but the certificate was not sworn to by the subscriber. This was tantamount to no evidence at all, and I condemned both ship and cargo as prize of war. Here was quite a windfall--a thousand tons of coal, near the coast of Brazil, where it was worth $17 per ton. But what was I to do with the prize? It would be an interminable job to attempt to supply myself from her, by means of my boats, and hauling the two ships alongside of each other, at sea, was not to be thought of. I was bound to the island of Fernando de Noronha, that being the second rendezvous which I had assigned to my old Scotch collier, the Agrippina, and I resolved to take the Hatch in, with me, to abide contingencies. If the Agrippina should arrive in due time, I could burn the Hatch; if not, the Hatch would supply her place.

This being determined upon, I sent a prize crew on board the captured ship, and directed the prize-master to keep company with me. We overhauled an English bark, the next day, bound from Lisbon to Rio Janeiro, from which we received some late Portuguese newspapers, of no particular interest; and on the day afterward, we chased what we took certainly to be a Yankee whaling schooner, but which we found, upon coming up with her, to be a Portuguese. The schooner was a capital imitation of the "down East" fore-and-after, but upon being boarded, she not only proved to be foreign built, but her master and crew were all Portuguese, nearly as black as negroes, with a regular set of Portuguese papers. What added considerably to the cheat was, that the little craft had heels, and I was some two or three hours in coming up with her.

The weather was so thick for the next two or three days, that it was necessary to keep the prize very close to me, to prevent losing sight of her. At night I showed her a light from my peak, and we jogged along within speaking distance of each other. Having had no observation for fixing the position of my ship, during the prevalence of this thick weather, and the direction and velocity of the currents being somewhat uncertain, I was quite anxious lest I should drift past the island I was in quest of, and fall upon some of the foul ground lying between it and the coast of Brazil. On the 9th of April, the sun showed himself for an hour or two, near noon, and I got latitude and longitude, and found that we were in the great equatorial current, as I had supposed, setting us about S. W. by W. at the rate of a knot and a half per hour. I now got up steam, and taking the prize in tow, for it was nearly calm, with but a few cats'-paws playing upon the water, made the best of my way toward Fernando de Noronha.

At daylight, the next morning, we made the famous peak, some forty miles distant, and at half-past two P. M. we came to anchor in thirteen fathoms water. The prize, having been cast off as we ran in, anchored near us. The Agrippina had not arrived; nor did I ever see her afterward. Captain Bullock had duly dispatched her, but the worthless old Scotch master made it a point not to find me, and having sold his coal in some port or other, I have forgotten where, returned to England with a cock-and-a-bull story, to account for his failure. The fact is, the old fellow had become alarmed lest he should fall into the hands of the Yankees. It was fortunate that I had not burned the Louisa Hatch.

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