THE YANKEE COLONY IN THE ISLAND OF FLORES—WHAT THE CAPTAINS OF THE VIRGINIA AND ELISHA DUNBAR SAID OF THE ALABAMA, WHEN THEY GOT BACK TO THE LAND OF THE “SAINTS”—THE WHALING SEASON AT THE AZORES AT AN END—THE ALABAMA CHANGES HER CRUISING GROUND—WHAT SHE SAW AND DID.
The reader has seen how rapidly we had been peopling the little island of Flores. I had thrown ashore there, nearly as many Yankee sailors as there were original inhabitants. I should now have gone back with the crews of two more ships, but for the bad weather. Jack, suddenly released from the labors and confinement of his ship, must have run riot in this verdant little paradise, where the law was too weak to restrain him. With his swagger, devil-may-care air, and propensity for fun and frolic, when he has a drop in his eye, the simple inhabitants must have been a good deal puzzled to fix the genus of the bird that had so suddenly dropped down upon them. The history of my colony would, no doubt, be highly interesting; and I trust that some future traveller will disinter it from the archives of the island, for the benefit of mankind. The police reports would be of especial interest. In due time the Federal Consul at Fayal chartered a vessel, and removed the colony back to the New England States.
The gale which was described in the last chapter, did not prove to be very violent, though it blew sufficiently fresh to reduce the Alabama to close-reefed topsails, with the bonnets off her trysails. It was but the forerunner of a series of gales, occurring about the period of the equinox. The bad weather had the effect to put an end to the whaling season, a little in advance of the regular time. From the 19th to the 23d of September, we were constantly under reefed sails, and the wind being from the northward, we drifted as far south as the 34th degree of latitude. We were now in a comparatively unfrequented part of the ocean, and had not seen a sail since the capture of the Elisha Dunbar. During the prevalence of this bad weather, our prisoners necessarily suffered some inconvenience, and were obliged to submit to some discomforts. I need not say that these were greatly magnified by the Northern press. The masters of the captured ships took this mode of revenging themselves upon me. The captains of the last two ships captured, made long complaints against the Alabama, when they got back to New England, and I will here give them the benefit of their own stories, that the reader may see what they amount to. It is the master of the Virginia who speaks first—a Captain Tilton. He says:—
“I went on the quarter-deck, with my son, when they ordered me into the lee waist, with my crew, and all of us were put in irons, with the exception of the two boys, and the cook and steward. I asked if I was to be put in irons? The reply of Captain Semmes was, that his purser had been put in irons, and had his head shaved by us, and that he meant to retaliate. We were put in the lee waist, with an old sail over us, and a few planks to lie upon. The steamer was cruising to the west, and the next day, they took the Elisha Dunbar, her crew receiving the same treatment as ourselves. The steamer’s guns being kept run out, the side ports could not be shut, and when the sea was a little rough, or the vessel rolled, the water was continually coming in on both sides, and washing across the deck where we were, so that our feet and clothing were wet all the time, either from the water below, or the rain above. We were obliged to sleep in the place where we were, and often waked up in the night nearly under water. Our fare consisted of beef and pork, rice, beans, tea, and coffee, and bread. Only one of my irons was allowed to be taken off at a time, and we had to wash in salt water. We kept on deck all the time, night and day, and a guard was placed over us.”
The above statement is substantially correct, with the exception that the prisoners were not drenched with sea-water, or with the rain, all the time, as is pretended. It is quite true that they were compelled to live, and sleep on deck. We had nowhere else to put them. My berth-deck was filled with my own crew, and it was not possible to berth prisoners there, without turning my own men out of their hammocks. To remedy this difficulty, we spread a tent, made of spare sails, and which was quite tight, in the lee waist, and laid gratings upon the deck, to keep the men and their bedding as dry as possible. Ordinarily they were very comfortable, but sometimes, during the prevalence of gales, they were, no doubt, a little disturbed in their slumbers by the water, as Captain Tilton says. But I discharged them all in good physical condition, and this is the best evidence I could give, that they were well cared for. It was certainly a hardship that Captain Tilton should have nothing better to eat than my own crew, and should be obliged, like them, to wash in salt water, but he was waited upon by his own cook and steward, and the reader can see from his own bill of fare, that he was in no danger of starving. He was, as he says, ordered off the quarter-deck. That is a place sacred to the officers of the ship, where even their own crew are not permitted to come, except on duty, and much less a prisoner. He explains, himself, as I had previously explained to the reader, how he came to be put in irons. The “good book” says that we must have “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” The enemy had put one of my officers in irons, and I had followed the rule of the “good book.” Now let us hear from Captain Gifford, of the Dunbar. This witness says:—
“On the morning of the 18th of September, in latitude 39° 50′, longitude 35° 20′, with the wind from the south-west, and the bark heading south-east, saw a steamer on our port-quarter, standing to the north-west. Soon after, found she had altered her course, and was steering for the bark. We soon made all sail to get out of her reach, and were going ten knots at the time; but the steamer, gaining on us, under canvas alone, soon came up with us, and fired a gun under our stern, with the St. George’s cross flying at the time. Our colors were set, when she displayed the Confederate flag. Being near us, we hove to, and a boat, with armed officers and crew, came alongside, and upon coming on board, stated to me that my vessel was a prize to the Confederate steamer Alabama, Captain Semmes. I was then ordered on board the steamer with my papers, and the crew to follow me with a bag of clothing each. On getting on board, the captain claimed me as a prize, and said that my vessel would be burned. Not having any clothes with me, he allowed me to return for a small trunk of clothes;—the officer on board asked me what I was coming back for, and tried to prevent me from coming on board. I told him I came after a few clothes, which I took, and returned to the steamer. It blowing very hard at the time, and very squally, nothing but the chronometer, sextant, charts, &c., were taken, when the vessel was set fire to, and burnt; there were sixty-five barrels of sperm oil on deck, taken on the passage, which were consumed. We were all put in irons, and received the same treatment that Captain Tilton’s officers and crew did, who had been taken the day before. While on board, we understood that the steamer would cruise off the Grand Banks, for a few weeks, to destroy the large American ships, to and from the Channel ports. They had knowledge of two ships being loaded with arms for the United States, and were in hopes to capture them. They were particularly anxious to fall in with the clipper-ship Dreadnought, and destroy her, as she was celebrated for speed; and they were confident of their ability to capture, or run away from any vessel in the United States. The steamer being in the track of outward and homeward-bound vessels, and more or less being in sight, every day, she will make great havoc among them.”
Captain Gifford does not seem to have anything to complain of, in particular, except that the sailors had to put their clothes in bags, and that his trunk was “small;” but both he and his sailors got their clothing, which was more than some of our women and children, in the South, did, when the gallant Sherman, and the gallant Wilson, and the gallant Stoneman, and a host of other gallant fellows, were making their “grand marches,” and “raids” in the South, merely for the love of “grand moral ideas.” The terrible drenchings, that Captain Tilton got, did not seem to have made the same impression upon Captain Gifford.
Few of the masters, whose ships I burned, ever told the whole truth, when they got back among their countrymen. Some of them forgot, entirely, to mention how they had implored me to save their ships from destruction, professing to be the best of Democrats, and deprecating the war which their countrymen were making upon us! How they had come to sea, bringing their New England cousins with them, to get rid of the draft, and how abhorrent to them the sainted Abraham was. “Why, Captain,” they would say, “it is hard that I should have my ship burned; I have voted the Democratic ticket all my life; I was a Breckinridge man in the last Presidential contest; and as for the ‘nigger,’ if we except a few ancient spinsters, who pet the darkey, on the same principle that they pet a lap-dog, having nothing else to pet, and a few of our deacons and ‘church-members,’ who have never been out of New England—all of whom are honest people enough in their way—and some cunning political rascals, who expect to rise into fame and fortune on the negro’s back, we, New England people, care nothing about him.” “That may be all very true,” I would reply; “but, unfortunately, the ‘political rascals,’ of whom you speak, have been strong enough to get up this war, and you are in the same boat with the ‘political rascals,’ whatever may be your individual opinions. Every whale you strike will put money into the Federal treasury, and strengthen the hands of your people to carry on the war. I am afraid I must burn your ship.” “But, Captain, can’t we arrange the matter in some way? I will give you a ransom-bond, which my owners and myself will regard as a debt of honor.” (By the way, I have some of these debts of honor in my possession, now, which I will sell cheap.) And so they would continue to remonstrate with me, until I cut short the conversation, by ordering the torch applied to their ships. They would then revenge themselves in the manner I have mentioned; and historians of the Boynton class would record their testimony as truth, and thus Yankee history would be made.
The whaling season at the Azores being at an end, as remarked, I resolved to change my cruising-ground, and stretch over to the Banks of Newfoundland, and the coast of the United States, in quest (as some of my young officers, who had served in the China seas, playfully remarked) of the great American junk-fleet. In China, the expression “junk-fleet” means, more particularly, the grain-ships, that swarm all the seas and rivers in that populous empire, in the autumn, carrying their rich cargoes of grain to market. It was now the beginning of October. There was no cotton crop available, with which to freight the ships of our loving Northern brethren, and conduct their exchanges. They were forced to rely upon the grain crop of the great Northwest; the “political rascals” having been cunning enough to wheedle these natural allies of ours into this New England war. They needed gold abroad, with which to pay for arms, and military supplies of various kinds, shiploads of which were, every day, passing into New York and Boston, in violation of those English neutrality laws, which, as we have seen, Mr. Seward and Mr. Adams had been so persistently contending should be enforced against ourselves. Western New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Iowa had gathered in the rich harvests from their teeming grain-fields; and it was this grain, laden in Yankee ships, which it was my object now to strike at.
The change from one cruising-ground to another, during which no vessels were sighted, afforded my crew a much-needed relaxation of a few days, for they had been much fagged and worn during the last month, by a succession of captures. That which had been but a pleasurable excitement, in the beginning, soon became a wearing and exhausting labor, and they were glad to be relieved, for a time, from the chasing and burning of ships, hard service in boats during all kinds of weather, and the wet jackets and sleepless nights, which had sometimes been the consequences of these. I will avail myself of this comparative calm, in the moral atmosphere on board the Alabama, to introduce the reader, more particularly, to our interior life. Thus far, he has only seen the ship of war, in her outward garb, engaged in her vocation. I propose to give him a sight of my military family, and show him how my children played as well as worked; how I governed them, and with what toys I amused them.