A number of wise men met, many years afterwards, in Geneva, Switzerland, and decided, that, as the British Government had allowed this vessel to leave their shores, when warned by the American minister of her character and intention to go privateering, it should therefore pay for all the vessels which the graceful cruiser had destroyed. England had broken the neutrality laws.
John Bull paid up.
But,
—Boys—
it
hurt!
EL CAPITAN
There was a Captain-General who ruled in Vera Cruz,
And what we used to hear of him was always evil news:
He was a pirate on the sea—a robber on the shore,
The Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador.
“There was a Yankee skipper who round about did roam;
His name was Stephen Folger,—Nantucket was his home:
And having sailed to Vera Cruz, he had been skinned full sore
By the Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador.
“But having got away alive, though all his cash was gone,
He said, ‘If there is vengeance, I will surely try it on!
And I do wish that I may be hung,—if I don’t clear the score
With Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador.’
“He shipped a crew of seventy men—well-arméd men were they,
And sixty of them in the hold he darkly stowed away;
And, sailing back to Vera Cruz, was sighted from the shore
By the Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador.