“I have had the honor to receive your note of the 8th of March, informing me that you had referred the subject of the capture of Messrs. Myers and Tunstall to Mons. Thouvenal, the French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but that the impression prevailed in Paris that those gentlemen had been liberated. With regard to the latter fact, you will, of course, have been undeceived before this. The prisoners will probably be in Fort Warren, before this reaches you. The French Consul-General at Tangier must have kept his Government badly informed on the subject, since the latter supposed, as late as the 8th inst., that the prisoners had been liberated.
“I trust that you will be able to make something out of the case. It is one in which all the Christian powers are interested. If this precedent is to stand, a French or an English subject may be seized, to-morrow, upon the simple requisition of a consul, and handed over to his enemy. And then, as I stated to you, in my first letter, is not the honor of the French flag involved? It is admitted that, as between civilized states, this question of the flag would not arise, the parties having disembarked. But a different set of rules has been applied to the dealings of the Christian powers, with the non-Christian, as is shown by this very arrest, under a claim of jurisdiction by a consul. A Frenchman in Morocco is, by treaty, under the protection of the French Consular flag. If he commits an offence, he is tried and punished by his Consul, regardless of the fact that he is literally within the jurisdiction of Morocco. And these concessions have been demanded by the Christian nations, for the security of their subjects.
“A French citizen, on board a French merchant-ship, lying in the waters of Morocco, would be subject to the same rule. Should, now, a French traveller, landing in Morocco, in itinere, only, from a French ship, be subject to a different rule? and if so, on what principle? And if a Frenchman would be protected under these circumstances—protected because of the flag which has brought him hither, and not because he is a Frenchman, simply, why may not Messrs. Myers and Tunstall claim French protection? Though they were on the soil of Morocco, when arrested, they were there, in itinere, under the French flag, which not only exterritorialized the ship, over which it floated, but every one who belonged to the ship, whether on ship-board or on shore, for the time being.
“But what appears to me most extraordinary in this case, is the apathy, or rather the fear of their own governments, which was manifested by the representatives of the Christian powers, on the occasion of the arrest. A friend of mine, the Captain of an English steam-frigate, on this station, visited Tangier, with his ship, a day or two only after the occurrence, and he informs me that the Moorish authorities were sorely perplexed, during the pendency of the affair, and that they implored the counsel and assistance of the representatives of the Christian powers, to enable them to solve the difficulty, but that not one word of advice was tendered.” * * *
I was sorry to lose my very efficient paymaster, but there was no remedy. He was incarcerated for a while, after his arrival in Boston, but was treated as a prisoner of war, and was finally released on parole. The Secretary of the Federal Navy directed his stolen watch to be returned to him which is worthy of record, as being something exceptional, but I have never learned whether any punishment was inflicted upon the party committing the theft. Probably not, as by this time, entire Federal armies had become demoralized and taken to plundering.
The Sumter was now blockaded by three ships of the enemy, and it being impossible for me to coal, I resolved to lay her up, and proceed to London, and consult with my Government as to my future course. I might possibly have had coal shipped to me from London, or some other English port, but this would have involved expense and delay, and it was exceedingly doubtful besides, whether I could elude the vigilance of so many blockading ships, in a slow ship, with crippled boilers. In her best days, the Sumter had been a very inefficient ship, being always anchored, as it were, in the deep sea, by her propeller, whenever she was out of coal. A fast ship, propelled entirely by sail-power, would have been better.
When I look back now, I am astonished to find what a struggle it cost me to get my own consent to lay up this old ship. As inexplicable as the feeling is, I had really become attached to her, and felt as if I would be parting forever with a valued friend. She had run me safely through two vigilant blockades, had weathered many storms, and rolled me to sleep in many calms. Her cabin was my bed-room and my study, both in one, her quarter-deck was my promenade, and her masts, spars, and sails, my playthings. I had handled her in all kinds of weather, watching her every motion in difficult situations, as a man watches the yielding and cracking ice over which he is making a perilous passage. She had fine qualities as a sea-boat, being as buoyant, active, and dry as a duck, in the heaviest gales, and these are the qualities which a seaman most admires.
And then, there are other chords of feeling touched in the sailor’s heart, at the end of a cruise, besides the parting with his ship. The commander of a ship is more or less in the position of a father of a family. He necessarily forms an attachment for those who have served under him, and especially for such as have developed honorable qualities, and high abilities, and I had a number on board the Sumter who had developed both. I only regretted that they had not a wider field for the exercise of their abilities. I had officers serving with me, as lieutenants, who were equal to any naval command, whatever. But, unfortunately for them, our poor, hard-pressed Confederate States had no navy worth speaking of; and owing to the timidity, caution, and fear of neutrals, found it impossible to improvise one. And then, when men have been drenched, and wind-beaten in the same storm, have stood on the deck of the same frail little ship, with only a plank between them and eternity, and watched her battling with the elements, which threaten every moment to overwhelm her, there is a feeling of brotherhood that springs up between them, that it is difficult for a landsman to conceive.
There was another, and if possible, stronger chord which bound us together. In the olden time, when the Christian warrior went forth to battle with the Saracen, for the cross, each knight was the sworn brother of the other. They not only slept in the same tents, endured the same hardships, and encountered the same risks, but their faith bound them together with hooks of steel. Without irreverence be it spoken, we of the Southern States had, too, our faith. The Saracen had invaded our beloved land, and was laying it waste with fire and sword. We were battling for our honor, our homes, and our property; in short, for everything that was dear to the human heart. Yea, we were battling for our blood and our race, for it had been developed, even at this early stage of the war, that it was the design of the Northern hordes that were swarming down upon us, not only to liberate the slave, but to enable him to put his foot upon the neck of his late master, and thus bastardize, if possible, his posterity. The blood of the white man in our veins could not but curdle at the contemplation of an atrocity which nothing but the brain of a demon could have engendered.
Besides my officers, I had many worthy men among my crew, who had stood by me in every emergency, and who looked forward with sorrowful countenances, to the approaching separation. The reader has been introduced to my Malayan steward, John, on several occasions. John’s black, lustrous eyes filled with ill-concealed tears, more than once, during the last days of the Sumter, as he smoothed the pillow of my cot with a hand as tender as that of a woman, or handed me the choicest dishes at meals.