We received from the Parks, sure enough, the mail we had been waiting for. There must have been a barrel-full, and more of newspapers and periodicals, going to the Montevideans and Buenos Ayreans—many of them in the best of Spanish, and all explaining the “great moral ideas,” on which the Southern people were being robbed of their property, and having their throats cut. We gleaned one gratifying piece of intelligence, however, from these papers. “The Pirate Florida” had put to sea from Mobile, to assist the “British Pirate,” in plundering, and burning the “innocent merchant-ships of the United States, pursuing their peaceful commerce,” as Mr. Charles Francis Adams, so often, and so naively expressed it to Earl Russell. Whilst the Parks was still burning, an English bark passed through the toll-gate, the captain of which was prevailed upon, to take the master of the burning ship, his wife, and two nephews, to London. We were glad, on the poor lady’s account, that she was so soon relieved from the discomforts of a small and crowded ship.
The next traveller that came along was the Bethiah Thayer, of Rockland, Maine, last from the Chincha Islands, with a cargo of guano for the Peruvian Government. The cargo being properly documented, I put the ship under ransom-bond, and permitted her to pass. It was Sunday; the Bethiah was dressed in a new suit of cotton canvas, and looked quite demure and saint-like, while her papers were being examined. I have no doubt if I had questioned her master, that he would have been found to have voted for Breckinridge.
I now resolved to fill away, stand down toward the equator, and hold myself stationary, for a few days, at the “crossing” of that famous great circle. I was far enough to the eastward, to make a free wind of the north-east trade, and we jogged along under topsails, making sail only when it became necessary to chase. We lost our fine weather almost immediately upon leaving the “crossing,” and took a series of moderate gales—sometimes, however, reducing us to close reefs—which lasted us for a week or ten days, or until we began to approach the rains and calms of the equator. We met a number of sails on the road, and now and then chased one, but they all proved to be neutral. On the night of the 15th of March, at a few minutes before midnight, the weather being thick and murky, the look-out at the cat-head suddenly cried “sail ho! close aboard;” and in a few minutes a large ship passed us on the opposite tack, within speaking distance. We hailed, but she passed on like a goblin ship, without giving us any reply. She had all sails set, there was no one stirring on board of her, and the only light that was visible, was the one which twinkled in the binnacle. We wore ship with all expedition, shook the reefs out of the topsails, and made sail in pursuit. It took us some minutes to accomplish this, and by the time we were well under way, the stranger was nearly out of sight. Both ships were on a wind, however, and this, as the reader has seen, was the Alabama’s best point of sailing. Our night-glasses soon began to tell the usual tale. We were overhauling the chase; and at a quarter past three, or a little before dawn, we were near enough to heave her to, with a gun. She proved to be the Punjaub, of Boston, from Calcutta for London. Her cargo consisted chiefly of jute and linseed, and was properly certificated as English property. The goods were, besides, of foreign growth, and were going from one English port to another. I released her on ransom-bond, and sent on board of her the prisoners from the last ship burned.
Soon after daylight, we gave chase to another sail in the E. S. E., with which we came up about eight A. M. She was an English ship, from the Mauritius, for Cork. She confirmed our suspicion, that the Yankee ships were avoiding, as a general rule, the beaten tracks, having spoken one of them on the “line,” bound to the coast of Brazil, which had travelled as far east as the twenty-third meridian; or about four hundred miles out of her way. We were still standing to the southward, and on the 21st of March we were very near the sun, for while he was crossing the equator, we were in latitude 2° 47′ N.; our longitude being 26° W. On that day, the weather is thus recorded in my journal: “Cloudy, with squalls of rain, and the wind shifting, indicating that we have lost the ‘trades.’ It is pleasant to hear the thunder roll, for the first time in several months, sounding like the voice of an old friend; and the crew seem to enjoy a ducking from the heavy showers—rain having been a rare visitor of late.” And on the next day, the following is the record: “Rains, and calms all day; the officers and crew alike, are paddling about the deck in bare feet, and enjoying the pelting of the rain, like young ducks. Three neutrals, in company, bound like ourselves, across the ‘line.’ They look, at a distance, with their drooping sails flapping idly in the calm, as disconsolate as wet barn-yard fowls at home, on a rainy day.”
On the 23d of March, the weather being still as described, and very little change having taken place in our position, we made two more captures; the first, the Morning Star of Boston, from Calcutta for London, and the second the whaling schooner Kingfisher, of Fairhaven, Massachusetts. The cargo of the Morning Star being in the same category as that of the Punjaub, we released her also, on ransom-bond. The Kingfisher we burned. This adventurous little whaler had a crew of twenty-three persons, all of whom were Portuguese, except the master, and mate, and one or two boat-steerers. We set fire to her just at nightfall, and the conflagration presented a weird-like spectacle on the “line,” amid the rumbling of thunder, the shifting, but ever black scenery, of the nimbi, or rain clouds, and the pouring and dashing of torrents of rain. Sometimes the flames would cower beneath a drenching shower, as though they had been subdued, but in a moment afterward, they would shoot up, mast-head high, as brightly and ravenously as before. The oil in her hold kept her burning on the surface of the still sea, until a late hour at night.
On the next day, we boarded, as usual, a number of neutral ships, of different nationalities, some going south, and some going north. We were at the “crossing” of the equator, “blazed” by Maury, and with the main topsail at the mast, were reviewing, as it were, the commerce of the world. We were never out of sight of ships. They were passing, by ones, and twos, and threes, in constant succession, wreathed in rain and mist, and presenting frequently the idea of a funeral procession. The honest traders were all there, except the most honest of them all—the Yankees—and they were a little afraid of the police. Still we managed to catch a rogue now and then.
On the second day after burning the Kingfisher, we made two more captures. Late in the afternoon of that day, we descried two large ships approaching us, in company. They came along lovingly, arm-in-arm, as it were, as though in the light airs and calms that were prevailing, they had been having a friendly chat, or one of the masters had been dining on board of the other. They were evidently American ships, and had most likely been having a cosy talk about the war. The “sainted” Abraham’s Emancipation Proclamation was the favorite topic of the day, as we had learned from the mail-bags of the Parks, and perchance they had been discussing that; or perhaps the skippers were congratulating themselves upon having escaped the Alabama; they probably supposing her to be at the other toll-gate still. Whatever may have been the subject of their discourse, they evidently pricked up their ears, as soon as they saw the Alabama, stripped like a gentleman who was taking it coolly, with nothing but her topsails set, and lying across their path. They separated gradually; and quietly, and by stealth, a few more studding-sails were sent up aloft.
It was time now for the Alabama to move. Her main yard was swung to the full, sailors might have been seen running up aloft, like so many squirrels, who thought they saw “nuts” ahead, and pretty soon, upon a given signal the top-gallant sails and royals might have been seen fluttering in the breeze, for a moment, and then extending themselves to their respective yard-arms. A whistle or two from the boatswain and his mates, and the trysail sheets are drawn aft, and the Alabama has on those seven-league boots which the reader has seen her draw on so often before. A stride or two, and the thing is done. First, the Charles Hill, of Boston, shortens sail, and runs up the “old flag,” and then the Nora, of the same pious city, follows her example. They were both laden with salt, and both from Liverpool. The Hill was bound to Montevideo, or Buenos Ayres, and there was no attempt to cover her cargo. The Nora was bound to Calcutta, under a charter-party with one W. N. de Mattos. In the bill of lading, the cargo was consigned to order, and on the back of the instrument was the following indorsement: “I hereby certify, that the salt shipped on board the Nora, is the property of W. N. de Mattos, of London, and that the said W. N. de Mattos is a British subject, and was so at the time of the shipment.” This certificate was signed by one H. E. Folk, and at the bottom of the certificate were the words, “R. C. Gardner, Mayor”—presumed to mean the Mayor of Liverpool.
Here was a more awkward attempt to cover a cargo than any of my Yankee friends of New York or Boston had ever made. There was very little doubt that the salt was English-owned, but the certificate, I have recited, did not amount even to an ex parte affidavit, it not being sworn to. As a matter of course, I was bound to presume the property to be enemy, it being found, unprotected by any legal evidence, in an enemy’s ship. The Hill and the Nora were, therefore, both consigned to the flames, after we had gotten on board from them such articles as we stood in need of. We received from the two ships between thirty and forty tons of coal, or about two days’ steaming. It took us nearly all the following day to transport it in our small boats, and we did not set fire to the ships until five in the afternoon. We received, also, half a dozen recruits from them. I had now quite as many men as I wanted.
Among the papers of the Hill was found the following brief letter of instructions from her owner to her master. It is dated from the good city of Boston, and was written while the ship was lying at that other good city, Philadelphia. It is addressed to Captain F. Percival, and goes on to say:—