CAPTURE OF THE STARLIGHT, OCEAN ROVER, ALERT, WEATHER-GAUGE—A RACE BY NIGHT—CAPTURE OF THE ALTAMAHA, VIRGINIA, AND ELIJA DUNBAR—A ROUGH SEA, TOILING BOATS, AND A PICTURESQUE BURNING OF A SHIP IN A GALE.
We were running in, while the muster described in the last chapter was going on, for the little town, or, rather, sea-side village of Lagens, on the south side of the island of Flores, and, having approached the beach quite near, we hove the ship to, and hauling alongside, from the stern, where they had been towing, the whale-boats of the captured ship, which we had brought away from the prize for this purpose, we paroled our prisoners, and, putting them in possession of their boats, shoved them off for the shore. I had two motives in thus landing my prisoners in their own boats, or, to speak more properly, in the boats which had once belonged to them. It saved me the trouble of landing them myself; and, as the boats were valuable, and I permitted the prisoners to put in them as many provisions as they desired, and as much other plunder as they could pick up about the decks of their ships—excepting always such articles as we needed on board the Alabama—the sale of their boats and cargoes to the islanders gave them the means of subsistence, until they could communicate with their consul in the neighboring island of Fayal.
We had scarcely gotten through with the operation of landing our prisoners, before the cry of “sail ho!” came to us from the mast-head; and we made sail in chase of a schooner which was approaching the island, hoisting the English colors to throw the stranger off his guard. As the two vessels were sailing toward each other, they approached very rapidly, and in the course of an hour we were within a mile of each other. Still the schooner did not show any colors. The reason was quite plain; she was American in every feature, and could show us no other colors than such as would subject her to capture, in case we should prove to be her enemy, of which she seemed to be suspicious. Indeed, the gallant little craft, with every stitch of canvas set, sails well hoisted, and sheets a little eased, was now edging off a little from us, and endeavoring to gain the shelter of the well-known marine league, the land being distant only about five miles. Perceiving her object, and seeing that I had only a couple of miles to spare, I kept my own ship off, the better to throw myself across the stranger’s path, changed my colors, and fired a blank cartridge to heave her to. But she neither hove to, nor showed colors, being evidently intent upon giving me a race. Although I already had the little craft under my guns, I humored her for a few minutes, just to show her that I could beat her in a fair trial of speed, and when I had proved this, by gaining rapidly upon her, I sent a round shot from one of the bow guns between her masts, a few feet only over the heads of her people. If the reader has heard a 32-pounder whistle, in such close proximity, he knows very well what it says, to wit, that there must be no more trifling. And so the captain of the schooner understood it, for in a moment afterward we could see the graceful little craft luffing up in the wind, brailing up her foresail, and hauling her jib sheet to windward. The welcome stars and stripes fluttered soon afterward from her peak. The master being brought on board with his papers, the prize proved to be the schooner Starlight, of Boston, from Fayal, bound to Boston by the way of Flores, for which island she had some passengers, several ladies among the number.
The crew consisted of seven persons—all good Yankee sailors. Having heard, by this time, full accounts of the shameful treatment of my paymaster of the Sumter, which has been described, in a former chapter, I resolved to practise a little retaliation upon the enemy, and ordered the crew of the Starlight put in irons. I pursued this practice, painful as it was, for the next seven or eight captures, putting the masters and mates of the ships, as well as the crews, in irons. The masters would frequently remonstrate with me, claiming that it was an indignity put upon them; and so it was, but I replied to them, that their countrymen had put a similar indignity upon an officer and a gentleman, who had worn the uniform of the navies of both our countries. By the time that the capture of the Starlight had been completed, the sun was near his setting, and it was too late to land the passengers. I therefore sent a prize crew on board the captured ship, directing the prize-master to lie by me during the night, and giving him especial charge to inform the passengers that they should be safely landed in the morning, and, in the meantime, to quiet the fears of the ladies, who had been much alarmed by the chase and the firing, we hoisted a light at the peak of the Alabama, and lay to, all night, in nearly a calm sea. There were some dark clouds hanging over the island, but they had apparently gone there to roost, as no wind came from them. Among the papers captured on board the Starlight were a couple of despatches from the Federal Consul at Fayal, to the Sewards—father and son—in which there was the usual amount of stale nonsense about “rebel privateers,” and “pirates.”
The weather proved fine, the next morning, and standing in, within a stone’s throw of the little town of Santa Cruz, we landed both passengers and prisoners, putting the latter, as usual, under parole. In the meantime, the Governor of the island, and a number of the dignitaries came off to visit us. They were a robust, farmer-looking people, giving evidence, in their persons, of the healthfulness of the island, and were very polite, franking to us the ports of the island, and informing us that supplies were cheap, and abundant. Their visit was evidently one of curiosity, and we treated his Excellency with all due ceremony, notwithstanding the smallness of his dominions. We talked to him, however, of bullocks, and sheep, fish and turtles, yams and oranges, rather than of the war between the States, and the laws of nations. Bartelli made the eyes of the party dance with flowing goblets of champagne, and when I thought they had remained long enough, I bowed them out of the cabin, with a cigar all round, and sent them on shore, with rather favorable impressions, I do not doubt, of the “pirate.”
Hauling off, now, from the island, and running seaward for a space, we chased and overhauled a Portuguese whaling brig. Seeing by her boats and other indications that she was a whaler, I thought, at first, that I had a prize, and was quite disappointed when she showed me the Portuguese colors. Not being willing to trust to the verity of the flag, I sent a boat on board of her, and invited the master to visit me with his papers, which he did. The master was himself a Portuguese, and I found his papers to be genuine. Thanking him for his visit, I dismissed him in a very few minutes. I had no right to command him to come on board of me—he being a neutral, it was my business to go on board of him, if I desired to examine his papers, but he waived ceremony, and it was for this that I had thanked him. I may as well remark here, in passing, that this was the only foreign whaling-ship that I ever overhauled; the business of whaling having become almost exclusively an American monopoly—the monopoly not being derived from any sovereign grant, but resulting from the superior skill, energy, industry, courage, and perseverance of the Yankee whaler, who is, perhaps, the best specimen of a sailor, the world over.
Later in the same afternoon, we chased a large ship, looming up almost like a frigate, in the northwest, with which we came up about sunset. We had showed her the American colors, and she approached us without the least suspicion that she was running into the arms of an enemy; the master crediting good old Mr. Welles, as the master of the Ocmulgee had done, with sending a flashy-looking Yankee gunboat, to look out for his whalebone and oil. This large ship proved to be, upon the master being brought on board with his papers, the Ocean Rover, of New Bedford, Massachusetts. She had been out three years and four months, cruising in various parts of the world, had sent home one or two cargoes of oil, and was now returning, herself, with another cargo, of eleven hundred barrels. The master, though anxious to see his wife, and dandle on his knee the babies that were no longer babies, with true Yankee thrift thought he would just take the Azores in his way home, and make another “strike,” or two, to fill up his empty casks. The consequence was, as the reader has seen, a little disappointment. I really felt for the honest fellow, but when I came to reflect, for a moment, upon the diabolical acts of his countrymen of New England, who were out-heroding Herod, in carrying on against us a vindictive war, filled with hate and vengeance, the milk of human kindness which had begun to well up in my heart disappeared, and I had no longer any spare sympathies to dispose of.
It being near night when the capture was made, I directed the prize to be hove to, in charge of a prize crew until morning. In the meantime, however, the master, who had heard from some of my men, that I had permitted the master of the Ocmulgee, and his crew, to land in their own boats, came to me, and requested permission to land in the same manner. We were four or five miles from the land, and I suggested to him, that it was some distance to pull. “Oh! that is nothing,” said he, “we whalers sometimes chase a whale, on the broad sea, until our ships are hull-down, and think nothing of it. It will relieve you of us the sooner, and be of some service to us besides.” Seeing that the sea was smooth, and that there was really no risk to be run, for a Yankee whale-boat might be made, with a little management, to ride out an ordinary gale of wind, I consented, and the delighted master returned to his ship, to make the necessary preparations. I gave him the usual permission to take what provisions he needed, the whaling gear belonging to his boats, and the personal effects of himself and men. He worked like a beaver, for not more than a couple of hours had elapsed, before he was again alongside of the Alabama, with all his six boats, with six men in each, ready to start for the shore. I could not but be amused when I looked over the side into these boats, at the amount of plunder that the rapacious fellow had packed in them. They were literally loaded down, with all sorts of traps, from the seamen’s chests and bedding, to the tabby cat and parrot. Nor had the “main chance” been overlooked, for all the “cabin stores” had been secured, and sundry barrels of beef and pork, besides. I said to him, “Captain, your boats appear to me, to be rather deeply laden; are you not afraid to trust them?” “Oh! no,” he replied; “they are as buoyant as ducks, and we shall not ship a drop of water.” After a detention of a few minutes, during which my clerk was putting the crew under parole, I gave the master leave to depart.
The boats, shoving off from the side, one by one, and falling into line, struck out for the shore. That night-landing of this whaler’s crew was a beautiful spectacle. I stood on the horse-block, watching it, my mind busy with many thoughts. The moon was shining brightly, though there were some passing clouds sailing lazily in the upper air, that fleckered the sea. Flores, which was sending off to us, even at this distance, her perfumes of shrub and flower, lay sleeping in the moonlight, with a few fleecy, white clouds wound around the mountain-top, like a turban. The rocky islets that rise like so many shafts out of the sea, devoid of all vegetation, and at different distances from the shore, looked weird and unearthly, like sheeted ghosts. The boats moving swiftly and mysteriously toward the shore, might have been mistaken, when they had gotten a little distance from us, for Venetian gondolas, with their peaked bows and sterns, especially when we heard coming over the sea, a song, sung by a powerful and musical voice, and chorussed by all the boats. Those merry fellows were thus making light of misfortune, and proving that the sailor, after all, is the true philosopher. The echo of that night-song lingered long in my memory, but I little dreamed, as I stood on the deck of the Alabama, and witnessed the scene I have described, that four years afterward, it would be quoted against me as a violation of the laws of war! And yet so it was. It was alleged by the malice of my defamers, who never have, and never can forgive me for the destruction of their property, that miles away at sea, in rough and inclement weather, I compelled my prisoners to depart for the shore, in leaky and unsound boats, at the hazard of their lives, designing and desiring to drown them! And this was all the thanks I received for setting some of these fellows up as nabobs, among the islanders. Why, the master of the Ocean Rover, with his six boats, and their cargoes, was richer than the Governor, when he landed in Flores; where the simple islanders are content with a few head of cattle, a cast-net, and a canoe.
The Alabama had now two prizes in company, with which she lay off and on the island during the night, and she was destined to secure another before morning. I had turned in, and was sleeping soundly, when about midnight, an officer came below to inform me that there was another large ship close on board of us. I was dressed and on deck in a few minutes. The stranger was plainly visible, being not more than a mile distant. She was heading for the island. I wore ship, as quietly as possible, and followed her, but she had, in the meantime, drawn some distance ahead, and an exciting chase now ensued. We were both close-hauled, on the starboard tack, and the stranger, seeing that he was pursued, put every rag of sail on his ship that he could spread. I could but admire her, with her square yards and white canvas, every sheet home, and every leach taut. For the first half hour, it was hard to tell which ship had the heels of the other, but at the end of that time, we began to head-reach the chase very perceptibly, though the latter rather “eat us out of the wind,” or, to speak more conformably with the vocabulary of the land, went to windward of us. This did not matter much, however, as when we should be abreast of her, we would be near enough to reach her with a shot. After a chase of about four hours, day broke, when we hoisted the English ensign. This was a polite invitation to the chase, to show her colors, but she declined to do so. We now felt sure that she was an enemy, and a prize, and as we were still gaining on her, it was only a matter of an hour or two, when she would fall into our hands. Our polite invitation to the chase, to show her colors, not succeeding, we became a little more emphatic, and fired a blank cartridge. Still she was obstinate. She was steering for Flores, and probably, like the Starlight, had her eye on the marine league. Having approached her, in another half hour, within good round-shot range, I resolved to treat her as I had treated the Starlight, and threw a 32-pounder near enough to her stern to give the captain a shower-bath. Shower-baths are very efficacious, in many cases, and we found it so in this, for in a moment more, we could see the stars and stripes ascending to the stranger’s peak, and that he had started his tacks and sheets, and was in the act of hauling up his courses. This done, the main-yard was swung aback, and the prize had surrendered herself a prisoner.