now stands arrange and draw up a 33,000,000, wise and patriotic men report of their grievances, or what they might suggest, according to the rules consider such and report to their res- prescribed in the original document, the pective Governors the result of their de- improvements which the actual condition liberations, and the conclusions at which of the country would seem to require. they have arrived. The same process The Constitution itself, in its letter and might be adopted in the States that have spirit, is no doubt the same as it was not seceded, and similar reports made when first framed; but everything around to their respective Governors. This us has been undergoing a change for would be only a preparatory measure for the last eighty years. For a peace of something more important. If a better that kind I would be a very sincere, if feeling or understanding could be even not an influential advocate. But to expartially arrived at, a future convention pect that a peace will spring up by the of all the States, by their representatives, advocacy of individuals in the midst of would have something to act upon. The the din and clash of arms, amid the mudifficulties might be investigated and pro- tually alienated feelings of the people, vided for; the Constitution might be re- and the widening of the breach which vised by general consent, and if the plat- has now separated them, would be, in form-sufficiently ample for 3,000,000 my opinion, hoping against hope. Still at the period when the Constitution was we must trust that the Almighty will formed is found to be neither of breadth overrule and direct the final issues of nor strength to support a population of this lamentable contest."

THE privateer, or ship of war, as she end of October, 1846, and was actively claimed herself to be, of the greatest re- engaged in an efficient prosecution of the pute in the service of the Confederates blockade till the sudden destruction of at this period, was undoubtedly the his vessel on the 8th of the ensuing DeSumter, sailing under the command of cember. While in pursuit of a vessel Captain Raphael Semmes. This officer apparently endeavoring to run the blockhad been of some note in the United ade, the Somers was struck by a heavy States Navy. A native of the State of norther, and being lightly ballasted, was Maryland, he had entered the service in thrown on her beam-ends, and in ten 1826, and since that time had been em- minutes sunk in the waves. In this brief ployed in eleven years of active service interval Lieutenant Semmes acted with at sea, and about ten years' duty on praiseworthy seamanship and heroism. shore. He had borne a part of consid- After doing all that could be done to save erable distinction in the naval operations the vessel, he gave orders to preserve as on the coast of Mexico in the war with many of the crew as possible, launching that nation in 1846-7, as Flag-Lieuten- a boat with success, and placing on board ant of the squadron, and Lieutenant- of her several officers and seventeen men, Commanding the ill-fated United States who were unable to swim, with directions brig Somers. He succeeded Commander to make for the neighboring Verde IsIngraham in charge of this vessel at the land and return for others. He himself

LIEUTENANT SEMMES.

remained in the fast-sinking ship to share the fortunes of his comrades in a plunge into the deep. Being a good swimmer he reached a floating portion of the wreck, and was presently rescued in the midst of the tempest by his ship's boat returning from the shore. Of seventysix persons composing the crew of the Somers, thirty-nine were lost in this disaster. The entire conduct of Lieutenant Semmes in this emergency appears to have been marked by exemplary presence of mind.*

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ing himself in the midst of the operations for the reduction of the capital, became attached as aid-de-camp to General Worth, and bore his part in the battles in the valley of Mexico-of all which, with the entry into the city, and his previous naval service on the coast, he afterwards published an interesting account, in a well-written volume, entitled "Service Afloat and Ashore during the Mexican War."

"In

A passage from that work, in the concluding portion, where the author estiLieutenant Semmes was then reattached mates "the great advantages which are to the Flag-ship, and continued in ser- to accrue both to Mexico and ourselves" vice in the squadron till the following from the war with that country, curiousApril, when he was employed on a mis- ly exhibits the sentiments of the author sion into the interior to the Mexican in 1851, when his book was published, Government, to secure the safety of in reference to some of the political quesMidshipman R. C. Rogers, who, while tions directly involved in the great Reattached to the Somers, had been cap-bellion in which Lieutenant Semmes tured on the shore in an attempt at became so active a participant. night to gain information of the topography of the country, with a view to the destruction of a powder magazine of the enemy. The Mexicans, it was stated, threatened to try him as a spy, and Lieutenant Semmes was charged by Commodore Perry with a mission to the proper Minister in Mexico, to demand his release. At Jalapa he had some correspondence with General Scott on the object of his journey, that officer thinking that the matter, with other arrangements for the exchange of prisoners, should be left in his hands. The affair ended in sending forward Captain Kearney from Puebla with a flag of truce to negotiate an exchange. Lieutenant Semmes accompanied the flag, and some ineffectual negotiations were had at the outposts of the army, when the object of the expedition, so far as Lieutenant Semmes was specially concerned, was brought to an end by the appearance of Midshipman Rogers himself in Puebla, after an adventurous escape from the City of Mexico. Lieutenant Semmes then find

* Lieutenant Semmes to Commodore Perry, U. S. frigate Raritan, December 10, 1846.

my opinion," says he, "the salvation of our institutions depends, in a great degree upon a reasonable extension of our limits. This is the only thing which will rob faction of its bitterness, if it does not entirely destroy it. Fanaticism, whether religious, political or social, is always local; it never spreads unless indeed it be spread as the great Arabian enthusiast spread his faith by the sword. And the reason why it does not spread is, that it is error; and error, although it may be contagious in small districts, like the plague, can never inundate a vast country. Of what comparative importance is it at the present day, when our immense territory extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans; that a meeting to denounce a law of the Union, or for any other disloyal and treasonable purpose, is held in Faneuil Hall, in the good city of Boston? The little actors on this little stage may make themselves as ridiculous as they please, but the President of this great Republic will quietly point them to the map, to remind them that the Massachusetts of the old thirteen is not the Massachusetts of the

longer Britannia, but America, rules the waves.' But it would require a volume to enumerate all the advantages which have accrued, and are yet to accrue to us, from the Mexican war."*

It is to be regretted that Captain Semmes thought himself called upon to relinquish these encouraging prospects of a mighty empire for the revolutionary project of its destruction. When the Southern rebellion ripened to actual revolt, he abandoned the service of the national Government, and, in command of the Sumter, became one of the most active agents of the Confederates.

The first notice we have of this vessel in the rebel service is in the message of President Jefferson Davis, in April, 1861, to the Provisional Congress at Montgomery. He there speaks of her as one of two purchased vessels, which had been named the Sumter and Macree, and which were then being prepared for sea with all possible dispatch. The

thirty-forty-fifty-a hundred States! And that she is as powerless now for evil as she was formerly powerful for good. The Federal officers, armed with a posse comitatus, if need be, from the Pacific, will disperse her mobs, however composed, and execute the process which represents the majesty of twenty-thirty -forty fifty millions of people. As our territorial limits increase, the individual States will become less and less important, and local jealousies and heartburnings will scarcely produce more effect upon the nation at large than does the gossiping of a remote village upon a metropolitan city. Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts, and the Whisky Rebellion in Pennsylvania threw the whole country into commotion, and caused the Executive much anxiety and a good deal of trouble before they could be quelled. We should regard these things at the present day as mere 'tempests in a teapot.' And where is the solution for this? In the fact that then St. Mary's in Geor-Sumter was formerly the Marquis de la gia was our southern boundary, whereas Habana, a propeller steamer plying benow our flag floats proudly. on the shores tween Havana and New Orleans as a of the boundless Pacific! The diversity packet, and always noted as an extraorof climates, productions and pursuits, dinary fast sailor. After the purchase will be so many additional motives for from the Spanish owners, she was enadhesion, making us, comparatively more tirely refitted for naval service; the dependent upon each other, and binding upper works with the cabins were reus together in one great free-trades' moved, to afford a clear deck, and new union. While these great ends are ac- machinery was inserted, working below complished, each State will be as inde- the water-line. Her armament consistpendent in all local concerns as before, ed of four 32-pounder rifled guns, and and except in a few prescribed particulars, one rifled 68 on a pivot, to which a 12will be, to all intents and purposes, sov-pounder field howitzer was added. Her ereign. It is this particularity of our chief officers, when she was placed in system which befits it for extension al- commission in the beginning of June, most ad infinitum, in contradistinction to central and consolidated governments. As for commerce, it is only necessary to remark, that our Pacific front opens to us, and will enable us to monopolize almost all the commerce of the East Indies, and of the west coast of America, north and south. This will make us the carriers and the factors of the world. Twenty years hence and it will be no

were Captain Semmes, Lieutenants John. M. Kells, R. F. Chapman, W. E. Evans, and J. M. Stripling, with a complement of 114 men. She was shortly after brought down the river to the forts at the entrance, and the remainder of the month was passed in drill and preparation for sea, awaiting an opportunity for running the blockade, which was main

* Service Afloat and Ashore, pp. 473-4.

RUNNING THE BLOCKADE.

tained at the mouth of the Mississippi by the United States steam sloops Brooklyn and Powhatan. At length, on the last day of June, it being ascertained that the blockading vessels were temporarily out of the way, the Sumter ran out to sea. She had scarcely, however, crossed the bar when the Brooklyn was perceived in chase of a sailing vessel, which was immediately given up for the pursuit of the Sumter. A trial of speed now ensued between the two war steamers with every inch of canvas spread, which was continued for several hours, when, by the extraordinary efforts of the Confederate vessel-her field howitzer being thrown overboard to lighten her-she gained on her competitor, and the Brooklyn returned to her station on the blockade.

When he perceived that the pursuit was abandoned, Captain Semmes, rejoicing in the liberty of the seas, called all hands on deck, and gave three lusty cheers for the Southern Confederacy. The first trophy of his cruise was the capture, off the Isle of Pines, on the 3d of July, of the ship Golden Rocket, of Maine, of 600 tons, valued at $40.000. The officers and crew were taken off, and after being rifled of specie, provisions, extra sails, and whatever was available, the ship was burnt to the water's edge. "The flames," says an enthusiastic sailor of the Sumter, in a letter intercepted by one of our cruizers in the Gulf, "leaped wild and high. First the fire ascended the mizzen-mast, and ran along the deck to the main, and then to the foremast. I have seen many beautiful sights, but this burning vessel was the most sublimely-grand sight my eyes ever witnessed." The next day Captain Semmes celebrated the national anniversary by the capture of the brigantines Cuba and Machias, laden with sugar, both of Maine. On the 5th and 6th five other Northern vessels, also laden with sugar, fell prizes to the Sumter. Seven of the captured vessels were carried in to Cienfuegos, where

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they were held for the benefit of the captors, under protection of the authorities till directions should be received as to their disposal from the home government. The matter immediately became the subject of earnest remonstrance from Washington, as a violation of the Royal Proclamation, when the affair presently ended in the release of the vessels to their rightful owners, an examination of the case, proving to the satisfaction of the Captain-General of the Island of Cuba that the captures had been made in waters within the jurisdiction of the island, and under unlawful circumstances.*

One of these early prizes of the Sumter, the brig Cuba, failed to reach the port of Cienfuegos, to which she had been ordered with the rest. On her capture a prize crew, consisting of a midshipman, two sailors, and two marines, had been put on board of her, under whose threats she was navigated by her crew, till the 7th, when Captain Stront, with his officers, secured the arms, put the captors in irons, and regained possession of the vessel. He presently sent the two sailors on to New York by a brig which he fell in with, and pursued his way to the same port without further adventure than a somewhat threatening scene with the rebel prize officer, Midshipman A. D. Hudgins, a Virginian, who had been educated at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. This person succeeded in getting hold of a pistol, and mounted with it to the maintop, from which place he held a parley with the Captain on deck, threatening his life if he should go below for arms. Captain Stront, however, not intimidated, went into the cabin, procured a revolver, and called upon the gentleman to descend. To this at first he paid no attention, but when two shots were fired at him, one of which took effect in his shoulder, the order was obeyed.

* Mr. Tassara, Spanish Minister at Washington, to Mr. Seward, August 9, 1861.