Chapter 35:
- Capricious weather of the Gulf Stream -- capture of the packet-ship Tonawanda, the Manchester, and the Lamplighter -- a cyclone
Though the month of October is remarkable for its fine weather, along the American coast, yet here in the Gulf Stream, we had a constant succession of changes, the wind going regularly around the compass every two or three days, and thick, rainy weather predominating. We were now, besides, experiencing a south-easterly current of about two knots per hour, and as we were bound to the north-west, and frequently had the wind, as well as the current ahead, we made but slow progress. On the second day after capturing the Dunkirk, the familiar cry of ‘sail ho!’ again came ringing from the mast-head, and pretty soon a large ship loomed up above the horizon. We gave chase, and, just before sunset, came up with a fine packet-ship, whose deck, we could see, was crowded with passengers. This was a somewhat unusual spectacle—a sailing ship filled with passengers for Europe, during the month of October. Since the introduction of the steam-packet, but few passengers, except emigrants, take passage in a sailing ship, and the current of emigration sets the other way. Upon being boarded, the ship proved to be the Tonawanda, of, and from Philadelphia, bound to Liverpool. Some of the passengers were foreigners, fleeing from the tyranny, and outrages of person and property, which had overtaken them, under the reign of the Puritan, in the ‘land of the free, and the home of the brave,’ and others were patriotic Puritans themselves running away from the ‘City of Brotherly Love,’ to escape the draft. We captured the Tonawanda, and the question immediately presented itself what should we do with her?
