THE "CROSSING" OF THE THIRTIETH PARALLEL--THE TOLL-GATE UPON THE SEA--HOW
THE TRAVELLERS PASS ALONG THE HIGHWAY--CAPTURE OF THE WASHINGTON; THE JOHN
A. PARKS; THE BATHIAH THAYER; THE PUNJAUB; THE MORNING STAR; THE
KINGFISHER; THE CHARLES HILL; AND THE NORA--CROSSES THE EQUATOR--CAPTURE
OF THE LOUISA HATCH--ARRIVAL AT FERNANDO DE NORONHA.
Reaching the blazed road, of which I spoke in the last chapter, I
shortened sail, at the crossing mentioned, that I might waylay such of the
passengers as chanced to be enemies. There were a great many ships
passing, both ways, on this road, some going to the Pacific, or the Far
East, and others returning from those distant points; but they were nearly
all neutral. The American ships, having, by this time, become thoroughly
alarmed, especially since they learned that neither English sealing-wax,
nor Admiral Milne could save them, had dodged the highways, as skulkers
and thieves are wont to do, and taken to the open fields and by-ways for
safety. On the day after the capture of the _Olive Jane_ and _Golden
Eagle_, the weather being cloudy and rainy, and the wind light, four more
sail were seen--all European bound. At eight A. M. we showed the United
States colors to one of them, which proved to be a French bark. It now
became calm, and we were compelled to get up steam, to overhaul the rest.
They lay long distances apart, and we were several hours in passing from
one to the other. They were all Englishmen, with various histories and
destinations, one of them--a fine frigate-built ship--being a Melbourne
and Liverpool packet. We received a paper from her, printed at the
antipodes, but there was not much in it, besides the proceedings of the
Australian Parliament, news from the gold-diggings, and the price of wool;
in neither of which subjects were we much interested.
On the next day but a solitary passenger came over the road. It was late
at night when she made her appearance--there being a bright moon and a
brisk breeze. We made sail in chase, and the chase, taking the alarm, gave
us a very pretty run for a few hours. We overhauled her, however, at
length, and fired the usual blank cartridge, to heave her to. She was an
hermaphrodite brig, and might be, for aught we could see, in the uncertain
light, American. The gun had no effect. We waited a few minutes for a
response, but none coming, we fired again--sending a shot whizzing, this
time, over the little craft. Still no response. We were now only a few
hundred yards distant. What could the fellow mean? All was as silent on
board the chase as death, and not a tack or sheet had been started. We ran
now almost on board of her, and hailing her, commanded her to heave to.
Great confusion followed. We could hear voices speaking in a foreign
tongue, and presently a disorderly array of sails whipping and flapping in
the wind, and of yards swinging to and fro, presented itself. At last the
little craft managed to come to the wind, and make a halt. She proved to
be a Portuguese brig, and the crew had been so alarmed, at being chased
and fired at, by night, as to lose all presence of mind, and become
incapable of any action whatever, until they were somewhat reassured, by
the near presence of our ship and the sound of our voices. She was bound
from Pernambuco to Lisbon, with a cargo of hides and sugar. It was,
indeed, something like a ghost-chase, to see the _Alabama_ coming, in the
dead of night after the little craft, with her seven-league boots on, and
those awful trysails of hers spread out in the moonlight like so many
winding-sheets.
On the day after this adventure, a Dutch bark and an English brig came
along; and on the same night, we boarded the English four-master, the
_Sarah Sands_, from the East Indies for Falmouth. At daylight, the next
morning, the look-out at the mast-head began to cry sails, until he
reported as many as seven in sight at one time. They were all European
bound, and were jogging along, in company, following Maury's blazes, like
so many passengers on a highway. The _Alabama_ stood like a toll-gate
before them, and though we could not take toll of them, as they were all
neutral, we made each traveller show us his passport, as he came up. One
obstinate fellow--a Hamburger--refused to show us his colors, until he was
commanded to do so by a gun. I made it a practice to punish these
unmannerly fellows, for their want of civility. On the present occasion,
the Hamburger was detained a considerable time, whilst I exercised, at my
leisure, my belligerent right of _viseing_ his papers. When his travelling
companions were some miles ahead of him, I told the surly fellow to pick
up his hat and be off.
On the next day, being still in latitude 30 deg., and longitude 40 deg.,
or at the "crossing," an English and an American ship came along. The
Englishman saluted us civilly as he passed. He was from the East Indies,
laden with silks and wines. But the American, seeing that we were under
short sail--though the weather was fine--resting by the wayside, as it
were, and remembering that there was a little unpleasantness between the
North and South, fought rather shy of us, and endeavored to get out of the
way of possible harm. She was a fine, large ship, and the moment she showed
an intention not to pass through the toll-gate, we made sail in pursuit.
She had heels, but they were not quite as clean as the _Alabama's_, and we
came up with her, in the course of two or three hours; she having
approached pretty close, before she smelt the rat. She was obstinate, and
compelled me to wet the people on her poop, by the spray of a shot, before
she would acknowledge that she was beaten. The shower-bath made a stir
among the bystanders; there was a running hither and thither, a letting go
of sheets and halliards, and pretty soon the main-yard swung aback, and
the stars and stripes were seen ascending to the stranger's peak. When the
boarding-officer brought the master of the captured ship on board, with
his papers, she proved to be the ship _Washington_, of New York, from the
Chincha Islands, bound to Antwerp, with a cargo of guano, laden on account
of the Peruvian government, and consigned to its agent at Antwerp, for
sale. Being unable to destroy the ship, because of the neutral ownership
of her cargo, I released her on ransom-bond, sent my prisoners on board of
her to be landed, and permitted her to depart. This capture was made on
the 27th of February. On the 28th we overhauled two English ships, from
the East Indies, homeward bound, and a French ship, from Batavia, for
Nantes. The weather continued very fine, and we had had a uniformly high
barometer, ever since we had reached the "crossing."
The morning of the 1st of March dawned charmingly, with a very light
breeze. The night had been rather dark, and we had been lying-to under
topsails. In the darkness of the night, an enemy's ship had approached us
unawares. She had been following the blazes, without seeing the toll-gate,
and the revelations made by the morning's light, must have startled her;
for she found herself within half a mile of an exceedingly saucy-looking
gunboat, lying in wait for somebody, or something. It was nearly calm, and
she could not help herself if she would. On the other hand, the gunboat
was delighted to see a tall ship, whose masts tapered like a lady's
fingers, arrayed in the whitest of petticoats--to carry out our
figure--and which, from the course she was steering, was evidently just
out from Yankee-land, with that mail on board, which we had been anxiously
looking for, for several days past. We were in the midst of the scrubbing
and cleaning of the morning watch, and to effect the capture, it was not
even necessary to lay aside a holy-stone, or a scrubbing-brush. A gun and
a Confederate flag, were all that was required to bring the tall ship to a
halt, and remove her doubts, if she had had any. She was the _John A.
Parks_, of Hallowell, Maine.
The cargo of the _Parks_ consisted of white pine lumber which she had
taken on board at New York, and she was bound to Montevideo, or Buenos
Ayres, as the consignee might elect. There was an affidavit found among
her papers, made by one Snyder, before a Mr. Edwards Pierrepont, who
appears to have been acting as British Consul, claiming that the cargo was
shipped on account of a London house. The real facts of the case, however,
as gathered from the correspondence, and the testimony of the master,
were, that one Davidson, a lumber dealer in New York had chartered the
ship, and shipped the lumber, in the usual course of his business, to the
parties in Montevideo; that he had paid most of the freight, in advance,
and insured himself against the _war risk_, both upon the cargo and the
freight. The manner in which this case was "put up," in the papers, was an
improvement upon some others I had examined. The New York merchants were
evidently becoming expert in the preparation of bogus certificates. It was
no longer merely stated that the property belonged to "neutral owners,"
but the owners themselves were named. In short, the certificate found on
board the _Parks_ was in due form, but unfortunately for the parties who
contrived the clever little plot, the master forgot to throw overboard his
letter-bag, and among the letters found in that bag, was one written by
Davidson, giving instructions to the consignees, in which the following
expressions occur: "The cargo of the _John A. Parks_, I shall have
certified to, by the British Consul, as the property of British subjects.
You will find it a very good cargo, and should command the highest
prices." By the time that I had finished the examination of the case,
Bartelli announced breakfast, and I invited my Hallowell friend to take a
cup of coffee with me, telling him, at the same time, that I should burn
his ship. As well as I recollect, he declined the coffee, but I am quite
certain that the ship was burned. The carpenter of the _Alabama_ was
thrown into ecstasies by this capture. All the other departments of the
ship had been kept well supplied, except his own. The paymaster, who was
also commissary, the boatswain, the sailmaker, had all been "plundering"
the enemy quite extensively, but no "boards" had come along, until now,
for the poor carpenter. Here they were at last, however, and if I had not
put some restraint upon my zealous officer of the adze and chisel, I
believe he would have converted the _Alabama_ into a lumberman.
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 deg. 47' N.; our longitude being 26 deg. 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:--
"DEAR SIR:--I have received your several letters from Philadelphia.
As a rebel privateer has burned several American ships, it may be as
well if you can have your bills of lading indorsed as English
property, and have your cargo certified to by the British Consul."
Such nice little missives as these, written from one city of "grand moral
ideas," to another city, whose ideas were no less grand or moral, quietly
instructing ship-masters to commit perjury, were of great assistance to
me, when, in the classical words of the New York "Commercial Advertiser,"
I had a "Yankee hash" to deal with.
On the 29th of March we crossed the equator. The event is thus recorded in
my journal: "Crossed the equator at five P. M. in the midst of a dense
rain-squall, with lowering, black clouds, and the wind from the
south-west. We were in chase of a sail at the time, but lost her in the
gloom. It rained all night, with light airs and calms. We have experienced
a south-easterly current, setting at the rate of a knot and a half the
hour, for the last twenty-four-hours." We made our crossing a little
farther to the eastward than usual--26 deg.--on purpose to counteract the
Yankee dodge spoken of a little while back. We now encountered a variety
of currents, some setting to the south-east as just mentioned, others to
the east, others to the south, until finally we fell in with the great
equatorial current setting to the westward.
The study of the phenomena of the currents, is one of the most interesting
that can engage the attention of the marine philosopher. We have already
had occasion to explain the circulation of the atmosphere--how the wind
"cometh and goeth," not at random, but in obedience to certain
well-defined natural laws. The circulation of the sea is no less regular
than that of the atmosphere, and has equally important offices to perform.
If the sea were a stagnant mass of waters, some portions of the earth
which now enjoy temperate climates, and teem with millions of population
in the enjoyment of an abundant fauna and flora, would be almost
uninhabitable because of the extreme cold. Some portions of the sea would
dry up, and become beds of salt, and others again would, from the
superabundance of precipitation, become fresh, or nearly so. In short,
there would be a general disturbance of the harmonies of creation. To
obviate this, and to put the sea in motion, various agencies have been set
at work by the great Architect; chief among which is the unequal
distribution of heat over the earth's surface. We have already called the
sun the Father of the Winds; he is equally the father of the currents. The
warm water of the equator is constantly flowing off to the poles, and the
cold water of the poles flowing back, as undercurrents, to the equator.
This flow is not directly north, or directly south, but by a variety of
tortuous channels. The different depths of the ocean, the obstructions of
islands, and continents, clouds and sunshine, and a great many other
agencies, combine to give this tortuosity and seeming irregularity to the
currents.
Let us take an example. The _Alabama_ has just experienced a south-east
current in a locality where the current sets, as a general rule, to the
westward. How are we to account for this? It may be due to a variety of
causes, all working in harmony, however, with the general design. In the
first place, it may be a counter-current going to fill the place left
vacant by some other current; for, as a matter of course, when a given
quantity of water flows away from a place, the same quantity must flow
back to it. Or it may be a principal, and not an accessory current, set in
motion, say by heat. Let us see how easily this may be accomplished.
Suppose a dense canopy of clouds to overshadow some considerable space of
the sea, for a day, or it may be, for a few hours only. Whilst the rays of
the sun are shut out from this space, they are pouring down their heat
with tropical fervor, say to the south of this cloud-bank. Under the
cloud-bank the water is cooling, beyond the bank it is being heated. Under
the bank evaporation has ceased almost altogether, beyond the bank it is
going on at the rate of about an inch in twenty-four hours. Here are
powerful agencies at work, changing both the temperature, and specific
gravity of the waters.
Waters to be at rest must have the same temperature and specific gravity.
These waters therefore cannot remain at rest, and a current is the
consequence. To-morrow, perhaps, the process will be reversed, the cloud
and the sunshine changing places, and the current flowing in a contrary
direction. These are local disturbances of the system of oceanic
circulation--little venous derangements, as it were, the great arterial
system not being materially affected by them.
There are other exceedingly beautiful agencies at work, on a smaller
scale, to disturb the oceanic equilibrium, and set the waters in motion.
It has puzzled philosophers to account for the saltness of the sea.
Whatever may be its cause, it plays a very important part in giving
vitality to its circulation. If sea-water were fresh, evaporation would
not produce any change in its specific gravity. One element of motion,
therefore, would be wanted. But being salt, and the salts not being taken
up by the thirsty air, in the process of evaporation, every rain-drop that
is withdrawn from it, helps to put the currents in motion.
But these are surface operations; let us dive beneath the surface, and
witness some of the wonders that are going on in the depths below. We have
before shown the reader, the coralline insect, that wonderful little
stone-mason of the sea, which, in the hands of Providence, is the
architect of islands and continents. The sea-water is the quarry from
which this little toiler extracts his tiny blocks of masonry. If the
water were fresh, it would not hold the materials in solution, which he
needs for his work. But being salt, it has just the materials which he
needs.
But how does he affect the currents? the reader will ask. As follows:
Every particle of solid matter that he extracts from the sea-water--and he
must have limestone to build those islands and continents of which he is
the architect--alters its specific gravity. The little globule of water,
from which he has just taken the block of stone that would be scarcely
visible under a powerful microscope, has become lighter than the
surrounding globules, and ascends to the surface. In obedience to the law
which we have mentioned, that as much water must flow back to a place, as
flows away from it, a globule of water from the surface now descends to
take the place of that which has arisen; descends to the little
stone-mason, that he may rob it, in turn, of the block of stone that it
contains. The globules of water thus become the hod-carriers for these
little stone-masons, working away, in countless myriads, at the bottom of
the sea.
But what becomes of this lighter globule of water, which has arisen to the
surface, because it has been deprived of its solid matter? It must flow
away somewhere in search of the salts it has lost, for if it remain
stationary, in course of time, the sea in its neighborhood will all be
deprived of its salts, and there will be no more globules to descend to
the little stone-mason. But when the globule starts to flow off, a current
is established.
The reader may recollect that when we were at the Azores, breaking up that
Yankee whaling station, we spoke of the currents, in connection with the
whales, and other fishes; how, like "reapers and gleaners," they bore to
them the food which was prepared for them in other latitudes. The reader
sees, now, how the currents build the coral bank. Every sea-shell, as it
secretes the solid matter for its edifice, helps on the movement set on
foot by the coral insect.
On the 3d of April, we observed in latitude 2 deg. 11' S.; our longitude
being 26 deg. 02'. The weather was still thick and rainy, and we had fitful
gusts of wind, and calms by turns. During the morning watch, the dense
clouds lifted for a while, and showed us a fine, tall ship, steering, like
ourselves, to the southward. We immediately made sail in chase. The wind
was blowing quite fresh from the south-west, at the time, and we gained
very rapidly upon the stranger. At twelve o'clock the wind died away, and
the heavy rains being renewed, she was entirely shut out from view. We
continued the chase all day; now being sure of her, and now being baffled
by the ever-shifting clouds, and changing wind and weather. At length, at
five P. M., it being no longer safe to trust to contingencies, as night
would set in, in another hour, I sent a whale-boat to board, and halt her,
although she was still two miles distant. The boarding was successfully
accomplished, and just before dark, we could see the stranger's head
turned in our direction. We knew from this circumstance that she was a
prize, and hoisting a light, as night set in, to guide the
boarding-officer, in an hour or two more she was alongside of us.
The prize proved to be the _Louisa Hatch_, of Rockland, Maine, from
Cardiff, with a cargo of the best Welsh coal, for Point-de-Galle, in the
island of Ceylon. The bill of lading required the cargo to be delivered to
the "_Messageries Imperiales_," steamship company, and there was a
certificate on the back of the bill of lading to the effect that the coal
belonged to that company, but the certificate was not sworn to by the
subscriber. This was tantamount to no evidence at all, and I condemned
both ship and cargo as prize of war. Here was quite a windfall--a thousand
tons of coal, near the coast of Brazil, where it was worth $17 per ton.
But what was I to do with the prize? It would be an interminable job to
attempt to supply myself from her, by means of my boats, and hauling the
two ships alongside of each other, at sea, was not to be thought of. I was
bound to the island of Fernando de Noronha, that being the second
rendezvous which I had assigned to my old Scotch collier, the _Agrippina_,
and I resolved to take the _Hatch_ in, with me, to abide contingencies. If
the _Agrippina_ should arrive in due time, I could burn the _Hatch_; if
not, the _Hatch_ would supply her place.
This being determined upon, I sent a prize crew on board the captured
ship, and directed the prize-master to keep company with me. We overhauled
an English bark, the next day, bound from Lisbon to Rio Janeiro, from
which we received some late Portuguese newspapers, of no particular
interest; and on the day afterward, we chased what we took certainly to be
a Yankee whaling schooner, but which we found, upon coming up with her, to
be a Portuguese. The schooner was a capital imitation of the "down East"
fore-and-after, but upon being boarded, she not only proved to be foreign
built, but her master and crew were all Portuguese, nearly as black as
negroes, with a regular set of Portuguese papers. What added considerably
to the cheat was, that the little craft had heels, and I was some two or
three hours in coming up with her.
The weather was so thick for the next two or three days, that it was
necessary to keep the prize very close to me, to prevent losing sight of
her. At night I showed her a light from my peak, and we jogged along
within speaking distance of each other. Having had no observation for
fixing the position of my ship, during the prevalence of this thick
weather, and the direction and velocity of the currents being somewhat
uncertain, I was quite anxious lest I should drift past the island I was
in quest of, and fall upon some of the foul ground lying between it and
the coast of Brazil. On the 9th of April, the sun showed himself for an
hour or two, near noon, and I got latitude and longitude, and found that
we were in the great equatorial current, as I had supposed, setting us
about S. W. by W. at the rate of a knot and a half per hour. I now got up
steam, and taking the prize in tow, for it was nearly calm, with but a few
cats'-paws playing upon the water, made the best of my way toward Fernando
de Noronha.
At daylight, the next morning, we made the famous peak, some forty miles
distant, and at half-past two P. M. we came to anchor in thirteen fathoms
water. The prize, having been cast off as we ran in, anchored near us. The
_Agrippina_ had not arrived; nor did I ever see her afterward. Captain
Bullock had duly dispatched her, but the worthless old Scotch master made
it a point not to find me, and having sold his coal in some port or other,
I have forgotten where, returned to England with a cock-and-a-bull story,
to account for his failure. The fact is, the old fellow had become alarmed
lest he should fall into the hands of the Yankees. It was fortunate that I
had not burned the _Louisa Hatch_.