No doubt it was fate that drew Fisk and me together. He intimated, in his grandiloquent way, that he was in a huckleberry patch where nothing but money grew on the bushes, and asked what I was doing that I looked so prosperous and well satisfied with myself. I told him briefly and he asked me to call on him the next day. I did not go to see him but the following day he called on me at the St. Nicholas Hotel. After we had exchanged confidences regarding our careers he said he wanted to buy a half interest in the distillery and asked me to put a price on it. I told him I did not want a partner. He insisted and said he had influence at Washington, which he afterward proved, and that it would be valuable to us.
“We will make a good team,” he said. “Here,” and he scribbled off a check for one hundred thousand dollars and tossed it over to me, “now we are partners.”
“Not much,” I said, as I tossed it back to him. “I am making too much money for you to get in at that price, even if I wanted you as a partner.”
“All right, then,” he replied, as he wrote out another check for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and handed it to me, “take that. I am in half with you now.”
Before I could enter another objection he stalked out of the room and I let it go at that, for I had a scheme in mind and figured that his influence, if it was as powerful as he claimed, would be useful.
The constant and heavy increase in the tax on spirits had forced all of the distillers except King and me to shut down, and when it finally reached a point where high wines which it cost two dollars and forty cents a gallon to produce, by the ordinary methods and with the payment of the full tax, were selling for one dollar and ninety cents a gallon, King was compelled to go out of business. In the meantime I had devised a scheme for reducing the proof before the tax was paid and then, by a chemical process which operated mechanically, restoring the proof until the product was almost, if not quite, equal to Cologne spirits. My contention was that my process improved the quality of the spirits, which it assuredly did, but the effect of it was that I and not the Government received the full benefit of the change. By Fisk’s advice I engaged Robert Corwin, of Dayton, Ohio, a cousin of the great “Tom” Corwin, and an intimate friend of high officials in the Treasury Department, whose names it is not necessary to mention at this late date, to secure a patent on my process. While the application was pending I was given permission to use my process, the result being that I could operate at a good profit, while the other distillers could not run except at a heavy loss. We were, as a matter of fact, cheating the Government, and I have since thought that it probably was Fisk’s influence rather than any merit in my invention that made it smooth sailing for us, but I did not then look at it in that light. I considered that I was a very clever young man and that I was rightfully entitled to profit by my shrewdness, without any regard to the rights of the Government, or to what rival concerns might think about it.
King and the other distillers, convinced that there was something wrong somewhere, tried repeatedly but in vain to discover our method of operation. Then they complained to Washington and one revenue officer after another came over to investigate us. During the progress of these protests, which in the course of a year or more increased in number and vigor, the revolt in Cuba had broken out and the old sea lust, with its passion for excitement, came over me. I wanted Fisk to buy my interest in the distillery but he suggested that we quit business and we did so, with a profit of about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Fisk and I continued in partnership and in the Summer of 1866 we bought the fast and stanch little steamer “Edgar Stuart,” which had been a blockade runner. We bought a cargo of arms and ammunition, consisting of old Sharps rifles and six mountain guns, and were just putting it on board when the first Cuban Junta came to New York and opened offices on New Street. They sent for me and wanted to buy our cargo and pay for it in bonds of the Cuban Republic, at a big discount. I refused, as we insisted on gold or its equivalent, which has always been my rule in dealing in contraband. They finally arranged that we should be paid part in cash, on the delivery of the arms, and the balance in fine Havana cigars. The Spaniards were not as watchful then as they found it necessary to be later on and the arms were delivered without much trouble at Cape Maysi, at the extreme eastern end of Cuba. On our return the cigars we had received in part payment, in waterproof cases and attached to floats, were thrown overboard in the lower bay, to be picked up by waiting small boats and sold to a tobacco merchant who had a store in the old Stevens House.
By the time we got back the Junta had raised funds from some source and engaged us to deliver several cargoes of arms to the rebels. I was always in command of these expeditions, with a sailing master in charge of the ship, while, in keeping with our agreement, Fisk stayed at home and attended to the Washington end of the business. When we sailed without clearance papers, as we sometimes were compelled to do to avoid detention and arrest, for we were constantly under suspicion, Fisk exerted his influence with such good effect that we never were prosecuted. We made three or four trips to Cape Maysi, and on one occasion took one hundred women and children from there to Cape San Antonio, at the western end of the island, where the rebels were better able to protect them.
In furtherance of their efforts to establish a government and make such a formidable showing as would secure their recognition, especially by the United States, as belligerents, thus making it legal to sell them munitions of war, the revolutionists attempted to build up a navy. Through the Junta they bought the fore and aft schooner “Pioneer,” which was fitted out as a warship and placed in command of Francis Lay Norton, who was given the rank of Admiral of the Cuban Navy. He sailed up through Long Island Sound and out past Montauk Point, where he hoisted the Cuban flag, saluted it, and gravely declared the “Pioneer” in commission. He neglected to wait until he was well out on the high seas before going through with this formality and a revenue cutter which had followed him seized his ship and brought it dismally back to port as a filibuster. I did not then know Norton but we afterward became partners and fought side by side through adventures and exploits more thrilling than any that have ever been told about in fiction, so far as I have read. Without knowing him I had great respect for his nerve but not much for his discretion, as displayed in the “Pioneer” incident, and the intimate association of later years did not change my opinion of him except to increase my admiration for his superb daring.