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drew the fire of the Kearsarge again, and then she steamed ahead, and laid across the Alabama's bows, for raking.
The white flag was still flying, and Winslow's fire was again reserved.1 very soon afterward the boats of the Alabama were seen to be lowering, and in one of them an officer came alongside the Kearsarge with information that her antagonist had surrendered, and was fast sinking.2 at that moment, the Deerhound, with Lancaster and his family on board, having come out professedly to see the fight, but really for another purpose, passed by the Kearsarge, and Winslow humanely requested her owner to assist in saving the people of the Alabama. Twenty minutes afterward the pirate ship went down in the deep waters of the British channel.
Sixty-five of the unfortunate men were rescued by the Kearsarge. the Deerhound picked up Semmes, his officers, and some men, and carried them out of harm's way, to England, where the pirate Commander was received with all the attentions due to a hero in honorable warfare.3 it was an exhibition of which the honest heart of England was greatly ashamed.
thus ended the great naval duel, seen by thousands from the French shore, with very little loss of life.4 it resulted in closing the career of a vessel whose existence and doings were a perpetual outrage of the British Government against the citizens of our Republic.
And the organs of British opinion, favorable to that Government, bewailed her loss as a British disaster; while thinking, honest Englishmen, representing the great heart of the British nation, blushed with shame, for they regarded her existence and career as a stigma upon the crown and the people.
They insisted, also, what the Government of the United States has never ceased to claim, that the
1 Semmes, in a letter to J. M. Mason, the Confederate “Envoy” in London, omitting to mention his own perfidious conduct in opening fire after he had displayed a white flag, said:--“Although we were but 400 yards from each other, the enemy fired upon me five times after my colors had been struck. It is charitable to suppose
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2 before going into action, Semmes made a speech to his crew, in which he declared that the Kearsarge must be conquered, or the Alabama, with her officers and crew, should go to the bottom. As that crew were nearly all Englishmen, he repeated to them the words of Lord Nelson on a more noble occasion:--“England expects every man to do his duty.” but when the Alabama was found to be actually sinking, and Semmes saw his friend Lancaster near, he changed his mind, and with the spirit of his fellow-confederates on land, who were always talking of “dying in the last ditch,” he determined to risk being hanged as a pirate rather than drown as a voluntary and foolish martyr.
3 Lancaster carried the pirates to Southampton, and Winslow's claim that they were lawful prisoners of War, having formally surrendered, was denied. At Southampton a public dinner was given to Semmes and his officers; and Admiral Anson, of the British Navy, headed a list of subscribers to a fund raised for the purpose of purchasing an elegant sword to be presented to the Corsair as a token of sympathy and esteem.
4 the Kearsarge had three men badly wounded, one of them mortally. The latter was William Gowin, of Michigan, a genuine hero, whose leg was badly shattered at the beginning of the action, but who concealed the extent of his injuries and gave every encouragement to his comrades. The Alabama had nine men killed and Twenty-one wounded. Of the latter, two were drowned before they could be saved.
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