I might fill page after page with an account of what was said or done from eight o’clock on that morning until nearly noon, when we had the Britisher close under our guns, for we could sail nearly two miles to her one; but so much has already been set down here concerning a chase that I shall say, without further preamble, it was quickly at an end once we came within range.
It was the brig Euphemia, of Glasgow, bound for Gibraltar from La Guayra, with four hundred thousand pounds of coffee on board, which we had overhauled, and, although the Britisher carried ten guns and was manned by thirty-five men, she submitted to capture as peacefully as if she had been a child.
We had only to fire a shot across her bows after she was beneath our guns, and the deed was done.
That valuable cargo and staunch vessel was ours without further parley, and would serve to swell the amount of prize-money until our men’s heads swam with thinking of the good hard dollars which would be theirs once we made Salem again.
This last capture rejoiced me more than had any of the others; not particularly on account of the rich cargo, but because she had fallen into our hands so easily, and when we believed we had done, for the time being, with capturing Britishers.
The king, who claimed the right to overhaul our vessels in order to impress Yankees under the subterfuge that they had once been Englishmen, would soon learn how much of blood and treasure it was necessary to spend in the effort to make good the claim, if indeed he ever could.
Well, we made a prize of the Euphemia; displaced Captain John Gray, who commanded her when she left La Guayra, by our boatswain’s mate, Archibald S. Dennis, and threw on board eleven men to take the places of the twenty-one sailors and two officers we made prisoners.
The remainder of the crew promised to obey faithfully the new master, and were allowed to remain aboard the craft they had counted on taking into a British port.
Four hundred thousand pounds of coffee is not to be picked up on the ocean every day, and it can well be fancied that our crew, what was left of them, made exceeding merry over the capture; but any one of them might have been reduced to a state of shame had the cook but whispered in his ear the single word “ghost.”
After we were on our course once more, in company with the prize, which we did not count on losing sight of, all hands came to understand why Captain Ropes, who had the name of being most greedy when Britishers were to be captured, was so willing to steer for the home port before we had been at sea four months.