LITMIR.BIZ

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of trade. The lower classes are simple, and primitive in their habits, and but little suffices to supply their wants. The St. Thomas packet sailed, to-day, and, as a consequence, the Federal cruisers, in and about that island, will have intelligence of our whereabouts, in four or five days. To mislead them, I have told the pilot, and several gentlemen from the shore, in great confidence, that I am going back to cruise on the coast of Cuba. The packet will of course take that intelligence to St. Thomas.

      July 23d.—Still coaling, refitting and painting. Weather more cloudy, and wind not so constantly fresh, within the last few days. Having taken sights for our chronometers, on the morning after our arrival, and again to-day, I have been enabled to verify their rates. They are running very well. The chronometer of the Golden Rocket proves to be a good instrument. We fix the longitude of Curaçoa to be 68° 58′ 30″, west of Greenwich.

      July 24th.—Sky occasionally obscured, with a moderate trade-wind. Our men have all returned from their visits to the shore, except one, a simple lad named Orr, who, as I learn, has been seduced away, by a Yankee skipper, in port, aided by the Boston hotel-keeper, and our particular friend, the consul. As these persons have tampered with my whole crew, I am gratified to know, that there has been but one traitor found among them.

      We had now been a week in Curaçoa, during which time, besides recruiting, and refreshing my crew, I had made all the necessary preparations for another cruise. The ship had been thoroughly overhauled, inside and out, and her coal-bunkers were full of good English coal. It only remained for us to put to sea. Accordingly, at twelve o’clock precisely, on the day last above mentioned, as had been previously appointed, the Sumter, bidding farewell to her new-made friends, moved gracefully out of the harbor—this time, amid the waving of handkerchiefs, in female hands, as well as of hats in the hands of the males; the quay being lined, as before, to see us depart. The photographer took a last shot at the ship, as she glided past his sanctum, and we looked with some little interest to the future numbers of that “Journal of Civilization,” vulgarly yclept “Harper’s Weekly,” for the interesting portrait; which came along in due time, accompanied by a lengthy description, veracious, of course, of the “Pirate.”

      Curaçoa lies a short distance off the coast of Venezuela, between Laguayra, and Puerto Cabello, and as both of these places had some commerce with the United States, I resolved to look into them. The morning after our departure found us on a smooth sea, with a light breeze off the land. The mountains, back of Laguayra, loomed up blue, mystic, and majestic, at a distance of about thirty miles, and the lookout, at the mast-head, was on the qui vive for strange sails. He had not to wait long. In the tropics, there is very little of that bewitching portion of the twenty-four hours, which, in other parts of the world, is called twilight. Day passes into night, and night into day, almost at a single bound. The rapidly approaching dawn had scarcely revealed to us the bold outline of the coast, above mentioned, when sail ho! resounded from the mast-head. The sail bore on our port-bow, and was standing obliquely toward us. We at once gave chase, and at half-past six A. M., came up with, and captured the schooner Abby Bradford, from New York, bound for Puerto Cabello.

      We knew our prize to be American, long before she showed us her colors. She was a “down-East,” fore-and-aft schooner, and there are no other such vessels in the world. They are as thoroughly marked, as the Puritans who build them, and there is no more mistaking the “cut of their jib.” The little schooner was provision laden, and there was no attempt to cover her cargo. The news of the escape of the Sumter had not reached New York, at the date of her sailing, and the few privateers that we had put afloat, at the beginning of the war, had confined their operations to our own, and the enemy’s coasts. Hence the neglect of the owners of the Bradford, in not providing her with some good English, or Spanish certificates, protesting that her cargo was neutral. The “old flag” was treated very tenderly on the present occasion. The “flaunting lie,” which Mr. Horace Greeley had told us, should “insult no sunny sky,” was hauled down, and stowed away in the quartermaster’s bag described a few pages back.

      The Bradford being bound for Puerto Cabello, and that port being but a short distance, under my lee, I resolved to run down, with the prize, and try my hand with my friend Castro’s opponent, the de facto President of Venezuela, to see whether I could not prevail upon him, to admit my prizes into his ports. I thought, surely, an arrangement could be made with some of these beggarly South American republics, the revenue of which did not amount to a cargo of provisions, annually, and which were too weak, besides, to be worth kicking by the stronger powers. What right had they, thought I, to be putting on the airs of nations, and talking about acknowledging other people, when they had lived a whole generation, themselves, without the acknowledgment of Spain.

      But, as the reader will see, I reckoned without my host. I found that they had a wholesome fear of the Federal gun-boats, and that even their cupidity could not tempt them to be just, or generous. If they had admitted my prizes into their ports, I could, in the course of a few months, have made those same ports more busy with the hum and thrift of commerce, than they had ever been before; I could have given a new impulse to their revolutions, and made them rich enough to indulge in the luxury of a pronunciamiento, once a week. The bait was tempting, but there stood the great lion in their path—the model Republic. The fact is, I must do this model Republic the justice to say, that it not only bullied the little South American republics, but all the world besides. Even old John Bull, grown rich, and plethoric, and asthmatic and gouty, trembled when he thought of his rich argosies, and of the possibility of Yankee privateers chasing them.

      Taking the Bradford in tow, then, we squared away for Puerto Cabello, but darkness came on before we could reach the entrance of the harbor, and we were compelled to stand off and on, during the night—the schooner being cast off, and taking care of herself, under sail. The Sumter lay on the still waters, all night, like a huge monster asleep, with the light from the light-house, on the battlements of the fort, glaring full upon her, and in plain hearing of the shrill cry of “Alerta!” from the sentinels. So quietly did she repose, with banked fires, being fanned, but not moved, by the gentle land-breeze that was blowing, that she scarcely needed to turn over her propeller during the night, to preserve her relative position with the light. There was no occasion to be in a hurry to run in, the next morning, as no business could be transacted before ten, or eleven o’clock, and so I waited until the sun, with his broad disk glaring upon us, like an angry furnace, had rolled away the mists of the morning, and the first lieutenant had holy-stoned his decks, and arranged his hammock-nettings, with his neat, white hammocks stowed in them, before we put the ship in motion.

      We had, some time before, hoisted the Confederate States flag, and the Venezuelan colors were flying from the fort in response. The prize accompanied us in, and we both anchored, within a stone’s throw of the town, the latter looking like some old Moorish city, that had been transported by magic to the new world, gallinazos, and all. Whilst my clerk was copying my despatch to the Governor, and the lieutenant was preparing himself, and his boat’s crew, to take it on shore, I made a hasty reconnoissance of the fort, which had a few iron pieces, of small calibre mounted on it, well eaten by rust, and whose carriages had rotted from under them. The following is a copy of my letter to his Excellency.

       Confederate States Steamer Sumter,

       Puerto Cabello, July 26, 1861.

       His Excellency, the Governor:—

      I have the honor to inform your Excellency of my arrival at this place, in this ship, under my command, with the prize schooner, Abby Bradford, in company, 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 honor 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 Cabello. Should any claim, however, be given 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 honor to request, that your Excellency will permit me to leave this prize vessel, with her cargo, in the port of Puerto Cabello, until the question of prize

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