I am, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,
E. Hammond.
Foreign Office, Nov. 7th, 1862.
After the usual period of gestation, Earl Russell informed his questioners, that British owners of property, on board of Federal ships, alleged to have been wrongfully captured by Confederate cruisers, were in the same position as any other neutral owners shipping in enemy’s bottoms during a war; they must look for redress to the country of the captor. But these British owners did what was more sensible—they withdrew, in due time, their freights from the enemy’s ships; and British and other neutral ships soon became the carriers of the American trade. It is claimed in the above correspondence, that there was British property destroyed on board the Manchester. If so, it was the fault of the British owner, in failing to document his property properly, for there was no certificate or other paper found on board that ship, claiming that any part of the cargo belonged to neutrals.
The Manchester brought us a batch of late New York papers, and I was much obliged to the editors of the New York “Herald,” for valuable information. I learned from them where all the enemy’s gunboats were, and what they were doing; which, of course, enabled me to take better care of the Alabama, than I should otherwise have been enabled to do. The Americans effected many reforms in the art of war during our late struggle. Perhaps this was the only war in which the newspapers ever explained, beforehand, all the movements of armies, and fleets, to the enemy.
The reader will observe, that I received my mails quite regularly, now, from the United States. They were sometimes daily, and rarely less frequent than tri-weekly. I appointed my excellent clerk, Mr. Breedlove Smith, whom I am glad to have this opportunity of introducing to the reader, postmaster, and he delivered the mail regularly to the officers and crew—that is to say, the newspaper and periodical mail—the letters I considered as addressed to myself personally. They might give valuable information of the objects and designs of the enemy, and throw some light upon the true ownership of cargoes, falsely documented. I therefore took the liberty, which the laws of war gave me, of breaking the seals. There were some curious developments made in some of these letters, nor were they all written on business. Sometimes, as I would break a seal, a photograph would tumble out, and the first few lines of the letter would inform me of a tender passion that was raging in the heart of the writer. These epistles, photographs, and all, were always pitched, with a pshaw! into the waste-paper basket, and were soon afterward consigned by Bartelli to the sea. So that the fair writers—and some of the writers were fair if I might judge by their portraits—may rest satisfied that their secrets are safe. My young officers became so accustomed to their morning’s newspaper, as they sat down to the breakfast-table, that if it was not forthcoming, they would wonder “what the d—l Alabama had been about, the past night, that she had not gotten hold of a mail?”
For two or three days after capturing the Manchester, we fell in with nothing but neutral vessels. When the nationality of these was distinctly marked, as generally it was, we forbore to chase them. The weather began now to give unmistakable signs, of a general disturbance of the atmospheric machine. On the 15th of October, we captured our next ship. It was blowing half a gale of wind, with a thick atmosphere, and rain-squalls. We were lying to, under topsails, when she was reported. As in the case of the Manchester, we had only to await her approach, for we were still in the beaten track of these lone travellers upon the sea. She came along quite fast, before the gale, and when within reach, we hove her to, with the accustomed gun. She proved, upon being boarded, to be the bark Lamplighter, of Boston, from New York, for Gibraltar, with a cargo of tobacco. There was no attempt to cover the cargo, and when we had removed the crew to the Alabama, we burned her.
From the frequent mention which has been made of “uncovered cargoes,” the reader will see how careless the enemy’s merchants were, and how little they dreamed of disaster. They had not yet heard of the Alabama, except only that she had escaped from Liverpool, as the “290.” They looked upon her, yet, as a mere myth, which it was not necessary to take any precautions against. But the reader will see how soon their course will change, and in what demand British Consular certificates, vouching for the neutrality of good American cargoes, will be, in the good city of Gotham, toward which, the Alabama is slowly working her way.
We captured the Lamplighter early in the day, and it was well for us she came along when she did. If she had delayed her arrival a few hours, we should probably not have been able to board her, so much had the gale increased, and the sea risen. For the next few days, as the reader will speedily see, we had as much as we could do to take care of ourselves, without thinking of the enemy, or his ships. We had a fearful gale to encounter. As this gale was a cyclone, and the first really severe gale that the Alabama had met with, it is worthy of a brief description. We begin, in our generation, to have some definite knowledge of the atmospheric laws. To our ancestors, of only a generation or two back, these laws were almost a sealed book. It is now well ascertained, that all the great hurricanes which sweep over the seas, are cyclones; that is, circular gales, revolving around an axis, or vortex, at the same time that they are travelling in a given direction. These gales all have their origin in warm latitudes, or, as has been prettily said, by an officer of the Dutch Navy writing on the subject, they “prefer to place their feet in warm water.” They do not, however, confine themselves to the places of their origin, but, passing out of the tropics, sweep over large tracts of extra-tropical seas. These circular gales are the great regulators, or balance-wheels, as it were, of the atmospheric machine. They arise in seasons of atmospheric disturbance, and seem necessary to the restoration of the atmospheric equilibrium.
In the East Indian and China seas, the cyclone is called a typhoon. It prevails there with even more destructive effect than in the western hemisphere. It takes its origin during the change of the monsoons. Monsoons are periodical winds, which blow one half of the year from one direction—the north-east for example—and then change, and blow the other half of the year, from the opposite direction, the south-west. When these monsoons are changing, there is great disturbance in the atmospheric equilibrium. A battle of the winds, as it were, takes place; the out-going wind struggling for existence, and the in-coming wind endeavoring to throttle it, and take its place. Calms, whirlwinds, water-spouts, and heavy and drenching rains set in; the black, wild-looking clouds, sometimes rent and torn, sweeping with their heavy burdens of vapor over the very surface of the sea. Now, the out-going, or dying monsoon will recede, for days together, its enemy, the in-coming monsoon, greedily advancing to occupy the space left vacant. The retreating wind will then rally, regain its courage, and drive back, at least for a part of the way, the pursuing wind. In this way, the two will alternate for weeks, each watching the other as warily, as if they were opposing armies. It is during these struggles, when the atmosphere is unhinged, as it were, that the typhoon makes its awful appearance. Every reader is familiar with the phenomenon of the miniature whirlwind, which he has so often seen sweep along a street or road, for a short distance, and then disappear; the want of local equilibrium in the atmosphere, which gave rise to it, having been restored.
These little whirlwinds generally occur at street-corners, or at cross-roads, and are produced by the meeting of two winds. When these winds meet, the stronger will bend the weaker, and a whirl will ensue. The two winds still coming on, the whirl will be increased, and thus a whirlwind is formed, which immediately begins to travel—not at random, of course, but in the direction of least pressure. The meeting of two currents of water, which form a whirlpool, may be used as another illustration. It is just so, that the typhoon is formed. It steps in as a great conservator of the peace, to put an end to the atmospherical strife which has been going on, and to restore harmony to nature. It is a terrible scourge whilst it lasts; the whole heavens seem to be in disorder, and that which was only a partial battle between outposts of the aërial armies, has now become a general engagement. The great whirl sweeps over a thousand miles or more, and when it has ceased, nature smiles again; the old monsoon has given up the ghost, and the new monsoon has taken its place. All will be peace now until the next change—the storms that will occur in the interval, being more or less local. We have monsoons in the western hemisphere, as well as in the eastern, though they are much more partial, both in space and duration.