I had governed my crew with a rigid hand, never overlooking an offence, but I had, at the same time, always been mindful of justice, and I was gratified to find, both on the part of officers and men, an apparent forgetfulness of the little jars and discords which always grow out of the effort to enforce discipline, it matters not how suavely and justly the effort may be made.
Being more or less cut off from communication with the Navy Department, I deemed it but respectful and proper to consult with our Commissioner in London, Mr. Mason, and to obtain his consent before finally laying up the Sumter. Mr. Mason agreed with me entirely in my views, and telegraphed me to this effect on the 7th of April. The next few days were busy days on board the Sumter. Upon the capture of Paymaster Myers, I had appointed Lieutenant J. M. Stribling Acting Paymaster, and I now set this officer at work, closing the accounts of the ship and paying off the officers and men. The officers were formally detached from the command, as fast as paid off, and they embarked for London, on their way to another ship, or to the Confederate States, as circumstances might determine; and the men, with snug little sums in their pockets, were landed, and as is usually the case with sailors, soon dispersed to the four quarters of the globe; each carrying with him the material for yarn-spinning for the balance of his life.
By the 11th of April we had completed all our preparations for turning over the ship to the midshipman who was to have charge of her, and in two or three days afterward, accompanied by Mr. Kell, my first lieutenant, and several other of my officers, I embarked on board the mail-steamer for Southampton. The following is an extract from the last letter that was written to the Secretary of the Navy from on board the Sumter:—
“I now have the honor to report to you, that I have discharged and paid off, in full, all the crew, numbering fifty, with the exception of the ten men detailed to remain by the ship, as servants, and to form a boat’s crew for the officer left in charge. I have placed Midshipman R. F. Armstrong, assisted by Acting Master’s Mate I. T. Hester, in charge of the ship, with provisions and funds for ten or twelve months, and I have directed all the other officers to return to the Confederate States, and report themselves to the Department. I will myself proceed to London, and after conferring with Mr. Mason, make the best of my way home. I trust the Department will see, in what I have done, an anxious desire to advance the best interests of our country, and that it will justify the responsibility, which, in the best exercise of my judgment, I felt it my duty to assume, in the difficult circumstances by which I was surrounded and embarrassed. Enclosed is a copy of my order to Midshipman Armstrong, and a list of the officers and men left on board the ship.”
A brief summary of the services of the Sumter, and of what became of her, may not be uninteresting to the reader, who has followed her thus far, in her wanderings. She cruised six months, leaving out the time during which she was blockaded in Gibraltar. She captured seventeen ships, as follows: the Golden Rocket, Cuba, Machias, Ben. Dunning, Albert Adams, Naiad, Louisa Kilham, West Wind, Abby Bradford, Joseph Maxwell, Joseph Parke, D. Trowbridge, Montmorency, Arcade, Vigilant, Eben Dodge, Neapolitan, and Investigator. It is impossible to estimate the damage done to the enemy’s commerce. The property actually destroyed formed a very small proportion of it. The fact alone of the Sumter being upon the seas, during these six months, gave such an alarm to neutral and belligerent shippers, that the enemy’s carrying-trade began to be paralyzed, and already his ships were being laid up, or sold under neutral flags—some of these sales being bona fide, and others fraudulent. In addition to this, the enemy kept five or six of his best ships of war constantly in pursuit of her, which necessarily weakened his blockade, for which, at this time, he was much pressed for ships. The expense to my Government of running the ship was next to nothing, being only $28,000, or about the price of one of the least valuable of her prizes. The Sumter was sold in the course of a month or two after being laid up, and being put under the English flag as a merchant-ship, made one voyage to the coast of the Confederate States, as a blockade-runner, entering the port of Charleston. Her new owner changed her name to that of Gibraltar. She was lost afterward in the North Sea, and her bones lie interred not far from those of the Alabama.
CHAPTER XXVII.
AUTHOR LEAVES GIBRALTAR, AND ARRIVES IN LONDON—MR. MASON—CONFEDERATE NAVAL NEWS—SOJOURN IN LONDON—AUTHOR EMBARKS ON BOARD THE STEAMER MELITA, FOR NASSAU—SOJOURN IN NASSAU—NEW ORDERS FROM THE NAVY DEPARTMENT—AUTHOR RETURNS TO LIVERPOOL—THE ALABAMA GONE.
We had been long enough in Gibraltar to make many warm friends, and some of these came on board the mail-steamer in which we had taken passage to take leave of us; among others, Captain Lambert, R. N., in command of her Majesty’s steam frigate, the Scylla, to whom I am much indebted, for warm sympathy, and many acts of kindness. The captain was the son of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Lambert, whose hospitality I had enjoyed, for a single night, many years before, under peculiar circumstances. When the United States brig Somers was capsized and sunk, off Vera Cruz, and half her crew drowned, as briefly described some pages back, Sir Charles Lambert, then a captain, was in command of the sailing frigate Endymion, and it was on board that ship that I was carried, more dead than alive, on the evening of the fatal disaster. I recollect distinctly the plight in which I ascended the side of this English frigate. Like a waif which had been picked up from the sea, I had nothing on me but shirt and trousers, and these, as well as my hair, were dripping water. I had lost my ship only an hour or two before, and had witnessed the drowning of many helpless men, who had struggled in vain for their lives. My heart was oppressed with the weight of my misfortune, and my strength nearly exhausted. Sir Charles received me at the foot of the ladder, as I descended to the deck of his ship, as tenderly, and with as much genuine sympathy and compassion, as if I had been his own son, and taking me into his cabin, had my wants duly cared for. There are said to be secret chords of sympathy binding men together in spite of themselves. I know not how this may be, but I felt drawn toward the son of my benefactor, even before I knew him to be his son. I take this public mode of expressing to both father and son my thanks for the many obligations under which they have placed me.