We steamed due east from the island some forty miles, when we let our steam go down, raised the propeller, and put the ship under sail. The Alabama, with full coal-bunkers and a refreshed crew, was again in pursuit of the enemy’s commerce. I had at last accomplished my cherished design—which had been frustrated in the Sumter—of a cruise on the coast of Brazil. In my stanch and fleet little ship, I was in a condition to defy both winds and currents. On the day after leaving Fernando de Noronha, I observed in latitude 5° 45′ S., and had thus run entirely from under the Cloud Ring. We were met by a bright sky, and the first gentle breathings of the south-east trade. This change in the weather had an electric effect upon my people. Cheerfulness returned to their countenances, and elasticity to their step. It took us some time to dry and ventilate the ship, the rigging being filled, for a day or two, with wet pea-jackets and mattresses, and the decks strewed with mouldy boots and shoes.
Before we had been twenty-four hours at sea, the usual bugle-note was sounded from the mast-head, and the Alabama had pricked up her ears in chase. It was another unfortunate whaler. The fates seemed to have a grudge against these New England fishermen, and would persist in throwing them in my way, although I was not on a whaling-ground. This was the sixteenth I had captured—a greater number than had been captured from the English by Commodore David Porter, in his famous cruise in the Pacific, in the frigate Essex, during the war of 1812. The prize proved to be the bark Nye, of New Bedford. This bluff old whaler was returning home from a cruise of thirty-one months in the far-off Pacific, during which her crew had become almost as much Sandwich Islanders, as Americans in appearance, with their garments so saturated with oil that they would have been quite valuable to the soap-boiler. She had sent “home” one or two cargoes of oil, and had now on board 425 barrels more. It seemed a pity to break in upon the menage of these old salts, who had weathered so many gales, and chased the whale through so many latitudes, but there was no alternative. The New England wolf was still howling for Southern blood, and the least return we could make for the howl, was to spill a little “ile.” Everything about the Nye being greased to saturation, she made a splendid conflagration.
The next day the wind freshened, and we might now be said to be in the well-pronounced south-east trades. Indeed, it blew so fresh at nightfall, that we took the single reefs in the topsails. We were jogging along leisurely on the great Brazilian highway, waiting for the passengers, rather than hunting them up. Presently another came along—a fine, taunt ship, that represented the boxes and bales of merchandise, rather than harpoons and whale-oil. We gave chase under the enemy’s colors, but the chase was coy and shy, and refused to show colors in return, until she was commanded to do so by a gun. The stars and stripes, which now fluttered to the breeze, sufficiently explained her reluctance. Upon being boarded she proved to be the Dorcas Prince, of New York, bound for Shanghai. Her cargo consisted chiefly of coal. She had been fourty-four days out, an unusually long passage, and what was quite wonderful for an American ship, she had no documents on board from the college, either of the political or religious propaganda, and only three or four old newspapers. When we learned she was from New York, we had been in hopes of capturing a mail. We burned her as soon as we could transfer her crew, there being no claim of neutral cargo found among her papers. Her master had his wife on board, which resulted, as usual, in sending one of my young lieutenants into the “country.”
Reducing sail again, we jogged along as before, but for the next few days we overhauled nothing but neutrals. A St. John’s, New Brunswick, ship, brought us the mail we had expected to receive by the Dorcas Prince, but it contained nothing of interest. On the 3d of May, the weather being fine, though interrupted occasionally by a rain-squall, we gave chase, about eleven A. M., to a clipper-ship, with square yards, white canvas, and long mast-heads—and the reader must be enough of an expert, by this time, to know what these mean. In an hour and a half of fine sailing, we came near enough to the chase, to make her show the Federal colors, and heave to. She proved to be the Union Jack, of Boston, bound for Shanghai. Whilst we had been pursuing the Union Jack, another “suspicious” sail hove in sight, and as soon as we could throw a prize-crew on board of the former, we started off in pursuit of the latter. This second sail proved also to be a prize, being the Sea Lark, of New York, bound for San Francisco. Here were two prizes, in as many hours.
There was no attempt to cover the cargo of the Sea Lark, and the only attempt that was made in the case of the Union Jack, was made by one Allen Hay, who was anxious to save five cases of crackers, and ten barrels of butter from capture. In this case, a Mr. Thomas W. Lillie, made oath before the British Consul in New York, that the said articles were shipped “for and on account of subjects of her Britannic Majesty.” The reader has seen me burn several other ships, with similar certificates, the reasons for which burnings were assigned at the time. I will not stop, therefore, to discus this. In due time both ships were consigned to the flames. I was sorry to find three more women, and two small children on board of the Union Jack. That ship was, in fact, about to expatriate herself for several years, after the fashion of many of the Yankee ships in the Chinese coasting-trade, and the master was taking his family out to domicile it somewhere in China. There were several male passengers also on board this ship, among them an ex-New-England parson, the Rev. Franklin Wright, who was going out as Consul to Foo Chow. The Rev. Mr. Wright had been editor of a religious paper for some years, in one of the New England villages, and probably owed his promotion to the good services he had rendered in hurrying on the war. He had Puritan written all over his lugubrious countenance, and looked so solemn, that one wondered how he came to exchange the clergyman’s garb for the garb of Belial. But so it was; Franklin was actually going out to India, in quest of the dollars. We deprived him of his Consular seal and commission, though we did not molest his private papers, and of sundry very pretty Consular flags, that had been carefully prepared for him by Mr. Seward, fils, at the State Department, in Washington. I am pained to see, by that “little bill” of Mr. Seward, père, against the British Government, for “depredations of the Alabama,” before referred to, that the Rev. Mr. Wright puts his damages down at $10,015. I had no idea that a New England parson carried so much plunder about with him.
We received large mails from these two last ships, and had our “moral ideas” considerably expanded, for the next few days, by the perusal of Yankee newspapers. We found among other interesting items, a vivid synopsis of the war news, in a speech of Governor Wright, of Indiana, who, if I mistake not, had been chargé to Berlin, where he had been in the habit of holding conventicles and prayer-meetings. The Governor is addressing a meeting of the “truly loil” at Philadelphia, and among other things, said:—
“The stars and stripes now wave over half the slave grounds. I believe in less than thirty days we will open the Mississippi and take Charleston. [Loud applause.] Leave Virginia alone, that can’t sprout a black-eyed pea [Laughter.] Scripture teaches us that no people can live long where there is no grass. The question then is only, whether they can live thirty or sixty days.”
Thus, amid the laughter and jeers of an unwashed rabble, did an ex-Governor, and ex-U. S. Minister, gloat over the prospect of starving an entire people, women and children included. Did we need other incitement on board the Alabama, to apply a well-lighted torch to the enemy’s ships?
There were copious extracts from the English papers found in this mail, and I trust the reader will excuse me, while I give a portion of a speech made to his constituents, by a member of the British Parliament, who was also a member of the cabinet. The speaker is Mr. Milner Gibson, President of the Board of Trade. A great war, which covered a continent with the fire and smoke of battle, was raging between a people, who were the near kinsmen of the speaker. Battles were being fought daily, that dwarfed all the battles that had gone before them. Feats of brilliant courage were being performed, on both sides, that should have made the blood of the speaker course more rapidly through his veins, and stir to their depths the feelings of humanity and brotherhood. Under such circumstances, what think you, reader, was the subject of Mr. Gibson’s discourse? It was bacon and eggs! Listen:—
“Now,” continues Mr. Gibson, “these large importations of foreign wheat and flour, and other provisions, into this country, must, to some extent, have tended to mitigate the distress, and have enabled many to provide for the wants of others out of their own surplus means. But supposing that the Government of this country had been induced, as they were urged frequently, to involve themselves in interference in the affairs of the United States; supposing, by some rash and precipitate recognition of those who are conducting hostilities against the United States—called the Confederate States of America—we had brought ourselves into collision with the United States, where would have been this flour, and ham, and bacon, and eggs? I suppose, if we had been compelled to take up arms against the United States, by any unfortunate policy, blockading would have been resorted to, and we should have been obliged to establish a blockade of the coast of America, for the very purpose of keeping out of this country all this wheat, flour, and eggs which have gone to mitigate the distress of the cotton industry in the present alarming state of affairs. We have from the commencement carried out the doctrine of non-intervention. We have endeavored to preserve a strict neutrality between the two contending parties. It was impossible to avoid recognizing the belligerent rights of the South at the outset of the contest, because it was a contest of such magnitude, and the insurgents, as they were called, were so numerous and so powerful, that it would have been impossible to recognize them in any other capacity but as persons entitled to bear arms; and if we had not done so, and if their armed vessels found on the seas were treated as pirates, it must be obvious to every one that this would have been an unparalleled course of action. We were compelled to recognize the belligerent rights of the South, but there has been no desire on the part of the Government to favor either the one side or the other. My earnest desire is to preserve strict neutrality; and, whatever may be my individual feelings—for we must have our sympathies on the one side or the other—whatever may be my feelings as a member of Parliament and the executive administration, I believe it to be for the interest of England that this neutrality should be observed.”