PRIVATEERING SERVICE OF THE CONFEDERATES.

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war, and was by Yankee hyperbole exalted above the deeds of Nelson at Trafalgar and the Nile. He who had by the most indifferent prowess for the enemy's superiority on the water had always been a foregone conclusion-come to be the naval hero of the war, was immortalized after the modern New York fashion of big dinners and newspaper lyrics. A "poet" was employed to recite to him in public what the New York journals called "a masterly ballad," each stanza of which closed with the word "Farragut." A feast was prepared for him, where a plaster of ice-cream represented the American Eagle, and miniature ships, built of sticks of candy, loaded the table. The sober mind will turn from these coarse displays of New York enthusiasm, ridiculous to childishness, to look at facts. The naval fight in Mobile Bay was a match between eighteen Federal vessels, having two hundred and twelve guns, and four Confederate vessels, having twenty-two guns. The commentary of history will be taken from the words written at the time in the columns of the Richmond Examiner: "It was a most unequal contest in which our gallant little navy was engaged, and we lost the battle; but our ensign went down in a blaze of glory."

We pass to other events of the naval service of 1864, to find a record of Federal success, coupled with peculiar circumstances of dishonour.

SINKING OF THE CONFEDERATE PRIVATEER ALABAMA.

The privateering service of the Confederate States had not accomplished all that the public had expected from it; and yet the sum of its results was formidable, and amounted to a considerable weight in the war. From the time the pilot-boat Savannah and the little schooner Jeff. Davis sallied out in the first year of the war, terrour had been struck into the entire commercial marine of the enemy. The Sumter, carrying nine guns, under command of Capt. Raphael Semmes, was the first really formidable experiment of a Confederate privateer. After capturing a number of prizes, she was abandoned at Gibraltar, in January, 1862, as unseaworthy. Since then the two most famous Confederate privateers were the Alabama and the Florida, which scoured the seas from the East Indies to the Atlantic coast, inflicting on the Federal commerce and tonnage the most disastrous results.

A report was made to the Federal Congress of captures by Confederate cruisers up to the 30th of January, 1864. The list, which was not complete, footed up 193, with a tonnage of 89,704. At fifty dollars a ton, the vessels were valued at $4,485,200; the cargoes, at one hundred dollars a ton, were estimated at $8,970,400; total value, $13,455,500. Sixty-two were captured by the Alabama; twenty-six by the Sumter, and twenty two by the Florida.

But the effect of the Confederate privateering on Federal tonnage was even more marked. The perils of capture were standing temptations to Northern ship-owners to transfer their vessels, and put them under the protection of foreign flags; and in the summer of 1864 it was officially reported at Washington that 478,665 tons of American shippage were flying other flags. This loss to the North, as a matter of course, involved a consequent increase of the tonnage and power of its commercial rivals, and was a bitter and humiliating infliction upon its pride.

The Alabama, the most formidable of the Confederate privateers or cruisers, had been built at Birkenhead, England, and left the Mersey, July 29, 1862. The construction of this vessel within the British dominions was long a theme of diplomatic accusations at Washington, in which it was charged that Great Britain had, in this circumstance, overstepped the limits and obligations of her neutrality in the war. To this foolish and insolent assertion the latter Government made a reply which should have been conclusive of the matter. On the 11th September, 1863, Earl Russell had written: "With regard to the general duties of a neutral, according to international law, the true doctrine has been laid down repeatedly by Presidents and judges of eminence of the United States and that doctrine is, that a neutral may sell to either or both of two belligerent parties any implements or munitions of war which such belligerents may wish to purchase from the subjects of the neutral, and it is difficult to find a reason why a ship that is to be used for warlike purposes is more an instrument or implement of war than cannon, muskets, swords, bayonets, gunpowder, and projectiles to be fired from cannon and muskets. A ship or musket may be sold to one belligerent or the other, and only ceases to be neutral when the ship is owned, manned, and employed in war, and the musket is held by a soldier, and used for the purpose of killing his enemy. In fact, the ship can never be expected to decide a war or a campaign, whereas the other things above mentioned may, by equipping a larger army, enable the belligerent which requires them to obtain decisive advantages in the war."

Here was a plain, comprehensive definition of neutrality, which the good sense of the world evidently accepted. It is a sad reflection upon the British Government that it should have been driven from a position so well fortified by reason and justice, and should have subsequently allowed itself to be bullied by the Washington Government into the seizure of two iron-clads (combining the ram and monitor principles), which were being built by the Messrs. Laird, at Birkenhead, as alleged, for the service of the Confederates. That seizure was made in 1863. The terms in which that outrage was demanded, and the mean and cowardly circuit by which the British Government ultimately conceded it, may be placed here as an example of the timidity of that Government, and a striking evidence that

nothing had been further from its intentions during the war than the "recognition" of the Confederate States. The demand was made as follows

"LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, LONDON, Sept. 3, 1863.

"MY LORD: I have the honour to transmit copies of further depositions relating to the launching and other preparation of the second of the two vessels-of-war from the yard of Messrs. Laird, at Birkenhead, concerning which it has already been my disagreeable duty to make most serious representations to Her Majesty's Government.

"I believe there is not any reasonable ground for doubt that these vessels, if permitted to leave the port of Liverpool, will be at once devoted to the object of carrying on war against the United States of America. I have taken the necessary measures in the proper quarters to ascertain the truth of the respective statements current here, that they are intended for the use of the Government of France or for the Pacha of Egypt, and have found both without foundation. At this moment, neither of those Powers appears to have occasion to use concealment or equivocation in regard to its intentions, had it any in obtaining such ships. In the notes which I had the honour to address to your Lordship on the 11th of July and the 14th of August, I believe I stated the importance attached by my Government to the decision involved in this case with sufficient distinctness. Since that date I have had the opportunity to receive from the United States a full approbation of its contents. At the same time, I feel it my painful duty to make known to your Lordship that, in some respects, it has fallen short in expressing the earnestness with which I have been in the interval directed to describe the grave nature of the situation in which both countries must be placed in the event of an act of aggression committed against the Government and people of the United States by either of these formidable vessels.

"I pray your Lordship to accept the assurances of the highest consideration with which I have the honour to be, my Lord, your most obedient servant,

"CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

"Right Honourable Earl Russell, &c., &c."

The consequence of this menace was that the Messrs. Laird were forbidden to allow these vessels to leave their yard "without an ample explanation of their destination and a sustainable reference to the owner or owners for whom they are constructed." It was outrageously held by Lord Russell that "Messrs. Laird were bound to declare-and sustain on unimpeachable testimony such declaration-the Governments for whom the steam rams have been built." In other words, without an affidavit or other legal foundation for proceedings against them, these gentlemen were required to come forward and prove their innocence, a thing opposed to all the law of Coke and Blackstone, and practised for the first time in British dominions at the dictation of powers in Washington.

We return to a brief chronicle of the cruise of the Alabama. She arrived at Porto Praya on the 19th August. Shortly thereafter Capt. Raphael Semmes assumed command. Hoisting the Confederate flag, she cruised and captured several vessels in the vicinity of Flores. Cruising to the westward, and making several captures, she approached within two hundred miles of New York; thence going southward, arrived, on the

18th November at Port Royal, Martinique. On the night of the 19th she escaped from the harbour and the Federal steamer San Jacinto, and on the 20th November was at Blanquilla. On the 7th December she captured the steamer Ariel in the passage between Cuba and St. Domingo. On January 11th, 1863, she sunk the Federal gunboat Hatteras off Gai veston, and on the 30th arrived at Jamaica. Cruising to the eastward, and making many captures, she arrived, on the 10th April, at Fernando de Noronha, and on the 11th May at Bahia, where, on the 13th, she was joined by the Confederate steamer Georgia. Cruising near the line, thence southward towards the Cape of Good Hope, numerous captures were made. On the 29th July she anchored in Saldanha Bay, South Africa, and near there, on the 5th August, was joined by the Confederate. bark Tuscaloosa, Commander Low. In September, 1863, she was at St. Simon's Bay, and in October was in the Straits of Sunda, and up to January 20, 1864, cruised in the Bay of Bengal and vicinity, visiting Singapore, and making a number of very valuable captures, including the Highlander, Sonora, etc. From this point she cruised on her homeward track via Cape of Good Hope, capturing the bark Tycoon and ship Rockingham, and arrived at Cherbourg, France, in June, 1864, where she repaired.

A Federal steamer, the Kearsarge, was lying off the harbour. Capt. Semmes might easily have evaded this enemy; the business of his vessel was that of a privateer; and her value to the Confederacy was out of all comparison with a single vessel of the enemy, the loss of which would, of course, be but an unimportant subtraction from the immense superiority of the Federals on the water. But Capt. Semmes had been twitted with the name of "pirate;" and he was easily persuaded to attempt an éclat for the Southern Confederacy by a naval fight within sight of the French coast, which contest, it was calculated, would prove the Alabama a legitimate war vessel, and give such an exhibition of Confederate belligerency as possibly to revive the question of " recognition " in Paris and London. These were the secret motives of the gratuitous fight with which Capt. Semmes obliged the enemy off the port of Cherbourg.

The Alabama carried one 7-inch Blakely rifled gun, one 8-inch smoothbore pivot gun, and six 32-pounders, smooth-bore, in broadside; the Kearsarge carried four broadside 32-pounders, two 11-inch and one 28-pound rifle. The two vessels were thus about equal in match and armament; and their tonnage was about the same. On the morning of the 19th of June, the Alabama steamed out of the harbour of Cherbourg, for the purpose of engaging the Kearsarge, which had been lying off-and-on the port for several days previously. She came up with the latter at a distance of about seven miles from the shore. The vessels were about one mile from each other, when the Alabama opened with solid shot upon the enemy, to which he replied in a few minutes.

centre.

The two vessels, instead of coming to close quarters, resorted to a curious manœuvre-fighting in a circle, and steaming around a common The distance between them varied from a quarter to half a mile. The Alabama fired alternately with shot and shell; her guns were admirably worked; but strange to say, the Kearsarge showed no sign of material damage, when, after more than an hour's fire, Capt. Semmes ascertained that his own vessel was in a sinking condition, large apertures having been made in her sides and between decks. He now turned his vessel towards the French coast, hoping to reach it under a full head of steam and a crowd of sail. It was too late; the ship was evidently doomed; the fires were extinguished in the furnaces; and when the Kearsarge, which pursued her, was four hundred yards distant, Capt. Semmes hauled down his colours, and prepared to surrender. His vessel was evidently settling under him, and he looked with anxiety to the Kearsarge for her boats to put out to receive the surrender and rescue her prisoners from the fate of drowning. No boat came. Instead of despatching relief, the Kearsarge fired five times upon the Alabama after her colours had been struck. "It is charitable to suppose," says Capt. Semmes, "that a ship of war of a Christian nation could not have done this intentionally." But there is another explanation of this act. It has since become known to the world that in a certain diplomatic letter from Secretary Seward on questions growing out of this battle, he has taken the position that the Federal vessel had choice of a capture of prisoners, or "of sinking the crew of the pirate!

وو

It appeared that nothing but a watery grave awaited the officers and crew of the Alabama. As the vessel was on the point of sinking, the unhappy and desperate men leaped overboard, and the waves were soon filled with drowning men. Happily an English yacht, the Deerhound, was upon the scene, and having been allowed by the Kearsarge to go to the rescue, steamed up in the midst of the drowning men, and rescued most of them from the water. Capt. Semmes was taken by the Deerhound's boat from the water, as he was sinking for the last time. He turned his face to the rescuing party, and said: "I am Capt. Semmes-save me.” He was eagerly taken aboard when his rank was thus known, and, being covered with a tarpaulin, he was carried to the English yacht, directly under the guns of the Kearsarge, without attracting any attention from the vessel.

The loss of the Alabama, in killed and wounded, was thirty; and on the Kearsarge not a single life had been lost. But there was another inequality of results of much more curious interest. The hull of the Alabama had been fearfully opened by the enemy's shot and shell, and yet the Kearsarge, after the contest, showed such little evidence of serious damage, that it did not appear even necessary for her to come into port to repair.