n barely enumerate, without describing events.
We ran the blockade of Pass à L'Outre, by the Brooklyn, on the 30th of June, that ship giving us chase.
On the morning of the 3d of July, I doubled Cape Antonio, the western extremity of Cuba, and, on the same day, captured, off the Isle of Pines, the American ship, Golden Rocket, belonging to parties in Bangor, in Maine.
She. was a fine ship of 600 tons, and worth between thirty and forty thousand dollars. I burned her. On the next day, the 4th, I captured the brigantines Cuba and Machias, both of Maine, also.
They were laden with sugars.
I sent them to Cienfuegos, Cuba.
On the 5th of July, I captured the brigs Ben. Dunning, and Albert Adams, owned in New York, and Massachusetts.
They were laden, also, with sugars.
I sent them to Cienfuegos.
On the next day, the 6th, I captured the barks West Wind, and Louisa Kilham, and the brig Naiad, all owned in New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
I sent them, also, to Cienfuegos.
crew, with the hope that she may be able to elude the vigilance of the blockading squadron, of the enemy, and run into some one of the shoal passes, to the westward of the mouth of the Mississippi, as Barrataria, or Berwick's Bay.
In great haste, I avail myself of this opportunity to send you my first despatch, since leaving New Orleans.
I can do no more, for want of time, than barely enumerate, without describing events.
We ran the blockade of Pass à L'Outre, by the Brooklyn, on the 30th of June, that ship giving us chase.
On the morning of the 3d of July, I doubled Cape Antonio, the western extremity of Cuba, and, on the same day, captured, off the Isle of Pines, the American ship, Golden Rocket, belonging to parties in Bangor, in Maine.
She. was a fine ship of 600 tons, and worth between thirty and forty thousand dollars. I burned her. On the next day, the 4th, I captured the brigantines Cuba and Machias, both of Maine, also.
They were laden with sugars.
I sent them to Cien
ms.
These questions were for the Venezuelans, themselves, to decide.
The only government I could know in Venezuela was the de facto. government, for the time being, and that, by his own showing, was in the hands of his antagonists.
Here the conversation closed, and my visitor, who had the bearing and speech of a cultivated gentleman, departed.
The jottings of my diary for the next few days, will perhaps now inform the reader, of our movements, better than any other form of narrative.
July 19th.—Wind unusually blustering this morning, with partial obscuration of the heavens.
The engineers are busy, overhauling and repairing damages to their engine and boilers; the gunner is at work, polishing up his battery and ventilating his magazine, and the sailors are busy renewing ratlines and tarring down their rigging.
An English bark entered the harbor to-day from Liverpool.
July 20th.—Painting and refitting ship; got off the new foretopmast from the shore.
It is a good pine stick
fortunately, as the reader has seen, she had some neutral cargo on board, and this I had no right to destroy.
I resolved, therefore, to send her in; not to the Confederate States, for she drew too much water to enter any, except the principal ports, and these being all blockaded, by steamers, it was useless for her to make the attempt.
The following letter of instructions to her prize-master, will show what disposition was made of her.
Confederate States steamer Sumter, at sea, July 27, 1861. midshipman and prize-master Wm. A. Hicks:—
You will take charge of the prize bark, Joseph Maxwell, and proceed, with her, to some port on the south side of the island of Cuba, say St. Jago, Trinidad, or Cienfuegos.
I think it would be safest for you to go into Cienfuegos, as the enemy, from the very fact of our having been there, recently, will scarcely be on the look for us a second time.
The steamers which were probably sent thither from Havana in pursuit of the Sumter must, lon
