Читать книгу The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter - Raphael Semmes - Страница 7

Sir—I was surprised to receive by the pilot this morning a message from your Excellency to the effect, that this ship could not be permitted to enter the harbour unless she was in distress, as your Excellency had received orders from your Government not to admit vessels of war of the Confederate States of America to the hospitality of the ports under your Excellency's command. I must respectfully suggest that there must be some mistake here, and I have sent to you the bearer, Lieut. Chapman, C.S. Navy, for the purpose of an explanation. Your Excellency must be under some misapprehension as to the character of this vessel. She is a ship of war, duly commissioned by the Government of the Confederate States, which States have been recognised as belligerents in the present war by all the leading Powers of Europe—viz., Great Britain, France, Spain, &c., as your Excellency must be aware. It is true that these Powers have prohibited both belligerents from bringing prizes into their several jurisdictions, but no one of them has made a distinction either between the prizes or the cruisers themselves of the belligerents, the cruisers of both Governments being admitted to the hospitalities of the ports of all these great Powers on terms of perfect equality. Am I to understand from your Excellency that Holland has adopted a different rule, and that she not only excludes the prizes, but the ships of war themselves of the Confederate States, and this at the same time that she admits the cruisers of the United States, thus departing from her neutrality in this war, ignoring the Confederate States as belligerents, and aiding and assisting their enemy? If this he the position which Holland has assumed in this contest, I pray your Excellency to be kind enough to say as much to me in writing.

I have the honour to be, &c., &c.

(Signed) R. SEMMES.

Governor Crol, St. Anne's, Curaçao.

This explanation removed all difficulties, and by 11 A.m. the requisite permission had been obtained, and the Sumter was safely at anchor in the lagoon.

Here she lay for some days, surrounded by bum-boats filled with picturesque natives of all colours, chattering like parrots, and almost as gaudy in their plumage. Meanwhile the crew were hard at work replenishing the coal-bunkers, filling up wood and water, taking in fresh provisions, and effecting the necessary repairs after the late cruise. While thus employed, a visit was received from a Venezuelan, who in very good English represented himself as a messenger or agent of President Castro, now in exile at Curaçao with four of his cabinet ministers. This emissary's object was to negotiate a passage in the Sumter for Don Castro and some twenty of his officers, with arms, ammunition, &c., to the mainland opposite. This proposition, however, Captain Semmes politely but very promptly declined, on the grounds, firstly, that he was not going in the direction indicated; and secondly, that if he were, it would be an undue interference on the part of a neutral with the revolutionary parties now contending for the control of Venezuela.

"It was remarked," he writes, "that Castro was the de jure President;" to which I replied, "that we did not look into these matters, the opposite party being in de facto possession of the government."

At Curaçao the Sumter remained until the 24th July, coaling, refitting, provisioning, and allowing each of her crew in turn a short run on shore, to recruit his spirits and get rid of his superfluous cash. At noon on the 24th she was once more under way, leaving behind her, however, one of her seamen, a worthless fellow of the name of John Orr, who, enticed away, as was suspected, by a Yankee captain and the Yankee keeper of a public-house, took the opportunity to make his escape from the ship. The loss, however, was not of importance; and after one or two slight attempts to trace him, the Sumter stood out of the harbour and shaped her course towards Venezuela.

Daybreak of the 25th July again presented to the eager eyes on board of the Sumter the welcome apparition of a sail. Chase was immediately given, and at half-past six the Abby Bradford, from New York to Puerto Caballo, was duly seized and taken in tow, her Captain proceeding with her upon her original course towards Puerto Caballo. It was late before that place was reached, and the night was spent standing off and on outside the harbour. With the return of day, however, the Sumter ran once more along the shore; and, without waiting for a pilot, steered boldly past the group of small, bold-looking islands, and dropped her anchor in the port.

No sooner was the anchor down than the following letter was despatched to the Governor, asking permission to leave the prize until adjudication:—

C.S. steamer Sumter. Puerto Caballo,

July 26th, 1861.

Sir—I have the honour to inform your Excellency of my arrival at this port in this ship, under my command, and with the prize schooner Abby Bradford, captured by me about seventy miles to the northward and eastward. The Abby Bradford is the property of citizens of the United States, with which States, as your Excellency is aware, the Confederate States, which I have the honour to represent, are at war; and the cargo would appear to belong also to citizens of the United States, who have shipped it on consignment to a house in Puerto Caballo. Should any claim be given, however, for the cargo, or any part of it, the question of ownership can only be decided by the Prize Courts of the Confederate States. In the meantime, I have the honour to request that your Excellency will permit me to leave this prize vessel with her cargo in the port of Puerto Caballo, until the question of prize can be adjudicated by the proper tribunals of my country. This will be a convenience to all parties, as well to any citizen of Venezuela who may have an interest in the cargo, as to the captors, who have also valuable interests to protect.

In making this request, I do not propose that the Venezuelan Government shall depart from a strict neutrality between the belligerents; as the same rule it applies to us, it can give the other party the benefit of, also. In other words, with the most scrupulous regard for the neutrality, she may admit both belligerents to bring their prizes into her waters; and of this neither belligerent can complain, since whatever favour is extended to its enemy is extended also to itself.

I have an additional and cogent reason for making this request, and that is, that the rule of exclusion, although it might be applied in terms to both belligerents, would not operate equally and justly upon them both. It is well known to your Excellency that the Northern United States (which are now making an aggressive and unjust war upon the Confederate States, denying to the latter the right of self-government, which is fundamental in all republics, and invading their territories for the purpose of subjugation) are manufacturing and commercial states, whilst the Confederate States have been thus far agricultural and planting states; and that, as a consequence of this difference of pursuits, the former States had in their possession at the commencement of this war almost all the naval force of the old Government, which they have not hesitated to seize and appropriate to their own use, although a large proportion of it belonged of right to the Confederate States, which had been taxed to create it.

By means of this naval force, dishonestly seized as aforesaid, the enemy has been enabled to blockade all the important ports of the Confederate States.

This blockade necessarily shuts out the cruisers of the Confederate States from their own ports, and if foreign Powers shut them out also, they can make no other use of their prizes than to destroy them. Thus your Excellency sees that, under the rule of exclusion, the enemy could enjoy his right of capture to its full extent, his own ports being all open to him, whilst the cruisers of the Confederate States could enjoy it sub modo only, that is, for the purpose of destruction. A rule which would produce such effects as this is not an equal or a just rule (although it might in terms be extended to both parties); and as equality and justice are of the essence of neutrality, I take it for granted that Venezuela will not adopt it.

On the other hand, the rule admitting both parties alike, with their prizes, into your ports, until the Prize Courts of the respective countries can have time to adjudicate the cases as they arrive, would work equal and exact justice to both; and this is no more than the Confederate States demand.

With reference to the present case, as the cargo consists chiefly of provisions which are perishable, I would ask leave to sell them at public auction for the benefit of "whom it may concern," depositing the proceeds with a suitable prize agent until the decision of the court can be known. With regard to the vessel, I request that she may remain in the custody of the same agent until condemned and sold.

I have the honour to be, &c., &c.

(Signed) R. SEMMES.

His Excellency the Governor and Military Commander of Puerto Caballo.

To this, however, that functionary could not be induced to assent, his reply being that such a proposition was altogether beyond his province to entertain, and that the Sumter must take her departure within four-and-twenty hours. At daylight, therefore, on the 27th, a prize crew was sent on board of the Abby Bradford, with orders to proceed to New Orleans, and at six o'clock the Sumter was again outside of the inhospitable port of Puerto Caballo.

The anchor was not fairly at the cathead when a sail was reported seaward, which on capture proved to be the barque Joseph Maxwell, of Philadelphia. The capture having taken place at about seven miles from the port to which she was bound, and half of the cargo being the property of a neutral owner, a boat was despatched with her master and the paymaster of the Sumter to endeavour to effect negotiation. The proposition was, that the owner of the neutral half of the cargo should purchase at a small price the remaining half and the vessel herself, which should then be delivered to him intact without delay. This little arrangement, however, was somewhat summarily arrested by the action of the Governor, who, much to Captain Semmes' astonishment, sent off orders that the prize should at once be brought into port, there to remain in his Excellency's custody, until a Venezuelan court should have decided whether the capture had or had not been effected within the marine league from the coast prescribed by international law!

This somewhat extraordinary demand did not receive the respect or obedience on which its promulgator had doubtless relied. Beating to quarters, and with his men standing to their guns in readiness for instant action, the Sumter stood out once more towards her prize; sent the master and his family ashore in one of his own boats, put a prize crew on board the Maxwell, and despatched her to a port at the south side of Cuba. It is believed that these unfriendly demonstrations on the part of the Governor of Puerto Caballo were owing to a fear that the Sumter was in truth employed upon some such enterprise as that on which the agent of Don Castro at Curaçao had vainly endeavoured to engage her, and was endeavouring to effect a landing for revolutionary troops.

The Sumter now again stood away upon her course towards the eastward, and at five in the evening came across an hermaphrodite brig, from whose peak floated the hated but welcome stars and stripes. This time, however, it was able to wave in safe defiance before the eyes of the dreaded foe, for the sagacious master had kept carefully "within jumping distance" of the shore, and the sacred "marine league of neutrality" protected the vessel from the fate that had befallen so many of her countrymen.

The afternoon of the 28th July found the Sumter off the island of Tortuga, and at eleven that evening the ship was hove to in thirty-two fathoms of water off the eastern end of Margaritta. Two more days' run along the Venezuelan coast, at times in so dense a fog that it was necessary to run within a mile of the shore in order to "hold on" to the land, and the Gulf of Bahia was reached. Following close on the track of a vessel just arrived from Madeira, and acquainted with the harbour, the Sumter held on her course through the Huero or Umbrella Passage, and shortly after noon anchored off the town of Port of Spain, receiving as she did so a salute from the ensign of an English brig passing out of the harbour.