CHAPTER XLII.
THE “CROSSING” OF THE THIRTIETH PARALLEL—THE TOLL-GATE UPON THE SEA—HOW THE TRAVELLERS PASS ALONG THE HIGHWAY—CAPTURE OF THE WASHINGTON; THE JOHN A. PARKS; THE BATHIAH THAYER; THE PUNJAUB; THE MORNING STAR; THE KINGFISHER; THE CHARLES HILL; AND THE NORA—CROSSES THE EQUATOR—CAPTURE OF THE LOUISA HATCH—ARRIVAL AT FERNANDO DE NORONHA.
Reaching the blazed road, of which I spoke in the last chapter, I shortened sail, at the crossing mentioned, that I might waylay such of the passengers as chanced to be enemies. There were a great many ships passing, both ways, on this road, some going to the Pacific, or the Far East, and others returning from those distant points; but they were nearly all neutral. The American ships, having, by this time, become thoroughly alarmed, especially since they learned that neither English sealing-wax, nor Admiral Milne could save them, had dodged the highways, as skulkers and thieves are wont to do, and taken to the open fields and by-ways for safety. On the day after the capture of the Olive Jane and Golden Eagle, the weather being cloudy and rainy, and the wind light, four more sail were seen—all European bound. At eight A. M. we showed the United States colors to one of them, which proved to be a French bark. It now became calm, and we were compelled to get up steam, to overhaul the rest. They lay long distances apart, and we were several hours in passing from one to the other. They were all Englishmen, with various histories and destinations, one of them—a fine frigate-built ship—being a Melbourne and Liverpool packet. We received a paper from her, printed at the antipodes, but there was not much in it, besides the proceedings of the Australian Parliament, news from the gold-diggings, and the price of wool; in neither of which subjects were we much interested.
On the next day but a solitary passenger came over the road. It was late at night when she made her appearance—there being a bright moon and a brisk breeze. We made sail in chase, and the chase, taking the alarm, gave us a very pretty run for a few hours. We overhauled her, however, at length, and fired the usual blank cartridge, to heave her to. She was an hermaphrodite brig, and might be, for aught we could see, in the uncertain light, American. The gun had no effect. We waited a few minutes for a response, but none coming, we fired again—sending a shot whizzing, this time, over the little craft. Still no response. We were now only a few hundred yards distant. What could the fellow mean? All was as silent on board the chase as death, and not a tack or sheet had been started. We ran now almost on board of her, and hailing her, commanded her to heave to. Great confusion followed. We could hear voices speaking in a foreign tongue, and presently a disorderly array of sails whipping and flapping in the wind, and of yards swinging to and fro, presented itself. At last the little craft managed to come to the wind, and make a halt. She proved to be a Portuguese brig, and the crew had been so alarmed, at being chased and fired at, by night, as to lose all presence of mind, and become incapable of any action whatever, until they were somewhat reassured, by the near presence of our ship and the sound of our voices. She was bound from Pernambuco to Lisbon, with a cargo of hides and sugar. It was, indeed, something like a ghost-chase, to see the Alabama coming, in the dead of night after the little craft, with her seven-league boots on, and those awful trysails of hers spread out in the moonlight like so many winding-sheets.
On the day after this adventure, a Dutch bark and an English brig came along; and on the same night, we boarded the English four-master, the Sarah Sands, from the East Indies for Falmouth. At daylight, the next morning, the look-out at the mast-head began to cry sails, until he reported as many as seven in sight at one time. They were all European bound, and were jogging along, in company, following Maury’s blazes, like so many passengers on a highway. The Alabama stood like a toll-gate before them, and though we could not take toll of them, as they were all neutral, we made each traveller show us his passport, as he came up. One obstinate fellow—a Hamburger—refused to show us his colors, until he was commanded to do so by a gun. I made it a practice to punish these unmannerly fellows, for their want of civility. On the present occasion, the Hamburger was detained a considerable time, whilst I exercised, at my leisure, my belligerent right of viséing his papers. When his travelling companions were some miles ahead of him, I told the surly fellow to pick up his hat and be off.
On the next day, being still in latitude 30°, and longitude 40°, or at the “crossing,” an English and an American ship came along. The Englishman saluted us civilly as he passed. He was from the East Indies, laden with silks and wines. But the American, seeing that we were under short sail—though the weather was fine—resting by the wayside, as it were, and remembering that there was a little unpleasantness between the North and South, fought rather shy of us, and endeavored to get out of the way of possible harm. She was a fine, large ship, and the moment she showed an intention not to pass through the toll-gate, we made sail in pursuit. She had heels, but they were not quite as clean as the Alabama’s, and we came up with her, in the course of two or three hours; she having approached pretty close, before she smelt the rat. She was obstinate, and compelled me to wet the people on her poop, by the spray of a shot, before she would acknowledge that she was beaten. The shower-bath made a stir among the bystanders; there was a running hither and thither, a letting go of sheets and halliards, and pretty soon the main-yard swung aback, and the stars and stripes were seen ascending to the stranger’s peak. When the boarding-officer brought the master of the captured ship on board, with his papers, she proved to be the ship Washington, of New York, from the Chincha Islands, bound to Antwerp, with a cargo of guano, laden on account of the Peruvian government, and consigned to its agent at Antwerp, for sale. Being unable to destroy the ship, because of the neutral ownership of her cargo, I released her on ransom-bond, sent my prisoners on board of her to be landed, and permitted her to depart. This capture was made on the 27th of February. On the 28th we overhauled two English ships, from the East Indies, homeward bound, and a French ship, from Batavia, for Nantes. The weather continued very fine, and we had had a uniformly high barometer, ever since we had reached the “crossing.”
The morning of the 1st of March dawned charmingly, with a very light breeze. The night had been rather dark, and we had been lying-to under topsails. In the darkness of the night, an enemy’s ship had approached us unawares. She had been following the blazes, without seeing the toll-gate, and the revelations made by the morning’s light, must have startled her; for she found herself within half a mile of an exceedingly saucy-looking gunboat, lying in wait for somebody, or something. It was nearly calm, and she could not help herself if she would. On the other hand, the gunboat was delighted to see a tall ship, whose masts tapered like a lady’s fingers, arrayed in the whitest of petticoats—to carry out our figure—and which, from the course she was steering, was evidently just out from Yankee-land, with that mail on board, which we had been anxiously looking for, for several days past. We were in the midst of the scrubbing and cleaning of the morning watch, and to effect the capture, it was not even necessary to lay aside a holy-stone, or a scrubbing-brush. A gun and a Confederate flag, were all that was required to bring the tall ship to a halt, and remove her doubts, if she had had any. She was the John A. Parks, of Hallowell, Maine.
The cargo of the Parks consisted of white pine lumber which she had taken on board at New York, and she was bound to Montevideo, or Buenos Ayres, as the consignee might elect. There was an affidavit found among her papers, made by one Snyder, before a Mr. Edwards Pierrepont, who appears to have been acting as British Consul, claiming that the cargo was shipped on account of a London house. The real facts of the case, however, as gathered from the correspondence, and the testimony of the master, were, that one Davidson, a lumber dealer in New York had chartered the ship, and shipped the lumber, in the usual course of his business, to the parties in Montevideo; that he had paid most of the freight, in advance, and insured himself against the war risk, both upon the cargo and the freight. The manner in which this case was “put up,” in the papers, was an improvement upon some others I had examined. The New York merchants were evidently becoming expert in the preparation of bogus certificates. It was no longer merely stated that the property belonged to “neutral owners,” but the owners themselves were named. In short, the certificate found on board the Parks was in due form, but unfortunately for the parties who contrived the clever little plot, the master forgot to throw overboard his letter-bag, and among the letters found in that bag, was one written by Davidson, giving instructions to the consignees, in which the following expressions occur: “The cargo of the John A. Parks, I shall have certified to, by the British Consul, as the property of British subjects. You will find it a very good cargo, and should command the highest prices.” By the time that I had finished the examination of the case, Bartelli announced breakfast, and I invited my Hallowell friend to take a cup of coffee with me, telling him, at the same time, that I should burn his ship. As well as I recollect, he declined the coffee, but I am quite certain that the ship was burned. The carpenter of the Alabama was thrown into ecstasies by this capture. All the other departments of the ship had been kept well supplied, except his own. The paymaster, who was also commissary, the boatswain, the sailmaker, had all been “plundering” the enemy quite extensively, but no “boards” had come along, until now, for the poor carpenter. Here they were at last, however, and if I had not put some restraint upon my zealous officer of the adze and chisel, I believe he would have converted the Alabama into a lumberman.