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| Fire-ball.4 |
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against a people with whom the British Government was at peace and entertaining the most amicable commercial relations, were for a long time.
as we have observed,1 practically countenanced by that Government, which failed to act upon the earnest remonstrances of the American minister in London.
The most formidable of these piratical vessels fitted out in Great Britain and afloat in 1864, were the Alabama and Florida, already noticed, commanded respectively by Captains Semmes and Maffit.2 The former was in command of the Sumter, whose career suddenly ended early in 1862.3 The latter, as we have observed, went out from Mobile in the Oreto, afterward
named Florida, to play the pirate by plundering on the high seas, without authority.
Four other vessels were added by British shipmasters in 1864, named, respectively, Georgia, Tallahassee, Olustee, and Chickamauga, whose ravages greatly swelled the sum total of damages already inflicted upon American commerce by Anglo-Confederate marauders.5 they sailed under British colors until a prize was secured, when they hoisted the Confederate flag.
They were everywhere greeted with the greatest enthusiasm in British ports, and their officers were honored with receptions and dinners by British officials and British subjects; and wherever these corsairs appeared, whether in “proper person” on the water, or in discussions in the British Parliament, or among the ruling classes of great Britain, they were ever the occasion for an exhibition of the practical hollowness of that neutrality proclaimed in good faith by the Queen at the beginning of the Rebellion.
the Florida hovered most of the time off the American coast, while the Alabama was seen in European and more distant waters.
The former was closely watched by Government vessels, especially when the pirate was cruising among the West India Islands,6 but she managed to elude them.
1 See page 568, volume II.
2 See page 569, volume II.
3 See page 568, volume II.
4 this is a representation of a fire-ball taken from on board one of the Anglo-Confederate pirate ships. It was made of stout canvas, inclosed in netting, and filled with combustible material. It was egg-shaped, a little more than a foot in length, and at the larger end had a solid piece of wood, which was used for the same purpose as the sabot on projectiles. These fire-balls were thrown into vessels, as well as forts, from cannon. On board of the
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| Hot metal shell. |
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| Greek fire shell. |
5 at the beginning of 1864 the pirates then on the ocean had captured 193 American merchant ships, whereof all but 17 were burnt. The value of their cargoes, in the aggregate, was estimated at $13,445,000. so dangerous became the navigation of the ocean for American vessels, that about 1,000 American ships were sold to foreign merchants, chiefly British. Full two-thirds of the carrying trade between the United States and Europe was driven to British bottoms.
6 while cruising in that region in May, 1868, the Florida captured the brig Clarence, and fitted her up as a pirate ship, with a crew under Lieutenant C. W. Read, formerly of the National Navy. She went up the coast of the United States, capturing valuable prizes, and near Cape Henry she seized the bark Tacony. to this vessel Read transferred his men and armament, and spread destruction and consternation among merchant and fishing vessels, from the coast of Virginia to that of Maine. Swift cruisers were sent after the Tacony. when informed of this, Read transferred his crew and armament to the prize schooner Archer, and destroyed the Tacony. then he went boldly to the entrance of the harbor of Portland, Maine,
June 24, 1868. |
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