The day after our escape from Martinique was Sunday, and we made it, emphatically, a day of rest—even the Sunday muster being omitted, in consideration of the crew having been kept up nearly all the preceding night. I slept late, nothing having been seen to render it necessary to call me. When I came on deck, the weather still looked angry, with a dense bank of rain-clouds hanging over the islands we had left, and the stiff northeaster blowing as freshly as before. We were now running by the island of Deseada, distant about ten miles. At noon we observed in latitude 16° 12′, and, during the day, we showed the French colors to a French bark, running for Guadeloupe, and to a Swedish brig standing in for the islands. Being in the track of commerce, and the night being dark, we carried, for the first time, our side-lights, to guard against collision. It was a delightful sensation to breathe the free air of heaven, and to feel the roll of the sea once more; and as I sat that evening, in the midst of my officers, and smoked my accustomed cigar, I realized the sense of freedom, expressed by the poet, in the couplet,—
“Far as the breeze can bear, the billow foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!”
We had no occasion, here, to discuss jurisdictions, or talk about marine leagues; or be bothered by Iroquois, or bamboozled by French governors.
Monday, November 25th.—Morning clear, with trade-clouds and a fresh breeze. We are still holding on to our steam, and are pushing our way to the eastward; my intention being to cross the Atlantic, and see what can be accomplished in European waters. We may be able to exchange the Sumter for a better ship. At seven, this morning, we gave chase to a Yankee-looking hermaphrodite brig. We showed her the United States colors, and were disappointed to see her hoist the English red in reply. In the afternoon, a large ship was descried running down in our direction. When she approached sufficiently near, we hoisted again the United States colors, and hove her to with a gun. As she rounded to the wind, in obedience to the signal, the stars and stripes were run up to her peak. The wind was blowing quite fresh, but the master and his papers were soon brought on board, when it appeared that our prize was the ship Montmorency, of Bath, Maine, from Newport, in Wales, and bound to St. Thomas, with a cargo of coal, for the English mail-steamers rendezvousing at that island. Her cargo being properly documented, as English property, we could not destroy her, but put her under a ransom bond, for her supposed value, and released her. We received on board from her, however, some cordage and paints; and Captain Brown was civil enough to send me on board, with his compliments, some bottles of port wine and a box of excellent cigars. The master and crew were parolled, not to serve against the Confederate States during the war, unless exchanged.
I began, now, to find that the Yankee masters, mates, and sailors rather liked being parolled; they would sometimes remind us of it, if they thought we were in danger of forgetting it. It saved them from being conscripted, unless the enemy was willing first to exchange them; and nothing went so hard with the enemy as to exchange a prisoner. With cold-blooded cruelty, the enemy had already counted his chances of success, as based upon the relative numbers of the two combatants, and found that, by killing a given number of our prisoners by long confinement—the same number of his being killed by us, by the same process—he could beat us! In pursuance of this diabolical policy, he threw every possible difficulty in the way of exchanges, and toward the latter part of the war put a stop to them nearly entirely. Our prisons were crowded with his captured soldiers. We were hard pressed for provisions, and found it difficult to feed them, and we were even destitute of medicines and hospital stores, owing to the barbarous nature of the war that was being made upon us. Not even a bottle of quinine or an ounce of calomel was allowed to cross the border, if the enemy could prevent it. With a full knowledge of these facts, he permitted his soldiers to sigh and weep away their lives in a hopeless captivity—coolly “calculating,” that one Confederate life was worth, when weighed in the balance of final success, from three to four of the lives of his own men!
The enemy, since the war, has become alarmed at the atrocity of his conduct, and at the judgment which posterity will be likely to pass upon it, and has set himself at work, to falsify history, with his usual disregard of truth. Committees have been raised, in the Federal Congress, composed of unscrupulous partisans, whose sole object it was, to prepare the false material, with which to mislead the future historian. Perjured witnesses have been brought before these committees, and their testimony recorded as truth. To show the partisan nature of these committees, when it was moved by some member—Northern member, of course, for there are no Southern members, at this present writing, in the Rump Parliament—to extend the inquiry, so as to embrace the treatment of Southern prisoners, in Northern prisons, the amendment was rejected! It was not the truth, but falsehood that was wanted. Fortunately for the Southern people, there is one little record which it is impossible to obliterate. More men perished in Northern prisons, where food and medicines were abundant, than in Southern prisons, where they were deficient—and this, too, though the South held the greater number of prisoners. See report of Secretary Stanton.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE SUMTER PURSUES HER VOYAGE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC—CAPTURE AND BURNING OF THE ARCADE, VIGILANT, AND EBENEZER DODGE—A LEAKY SHIP, AND A GALE—AN ALARM OF FIRE.