Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

Bartelli now came to tell me, that my bath was ready, and descending to the cabin, I bathed, and dressed for breakfast, whilst the boarding-officer was boarding the prize. She proved to be the Alert, of, and from New London, and bound, by the way of the Azores, and Cape de Verde Islands, to the Indian Ocean. She was only sixteen days from port, with files of late newspapers; and besides her own ample outfit for a large crew, and a long voyage, she had on board supplies for the group known as the Navigators' Islands, in the South Indian Ocean, where among icebergs and storms, the Yankees had a whaling and sealing station. This capture proved to be a very opportune one, as we were in want of just such a lot of clothing, for the men, as we found on board the prize; and the choice beef, and pork, nicely put up ship-bread, boxes of soap, and tobacco, and numerous other articles of seaman's supplies did not come amiss. We had been particularly short of a supply of tobacco, this being a costly article in England, and I could see Jack's eye brighten, as he rolled aft, and piled up on the quarter-deck, sundry heavy oaken boxes of good ‘Virginia twist.’ That night the pipes seemed to have wonderfully increased in number, on board the Alabama, and the song and the jest derived new inspiration from the fragrance of the weed. We paroled the officers and crew of the Alert, and sent them ashore, in their own boats, as we had done the others.

I had now three prizes on my hands, viz.: the Starlight, the Ocean Rover, and the Alert, with a prize crew on board of each, and as I could make no better use of them than to destroy them, thanks to the unfriendly conduct of neutrals, so often referred to, it became necessary to think of burning them. They were lying at distances, ranging from half a mile to three miles from the Alabama, and were fired within a short time of each other, so that we had three funeral pyres burning around us at the same moment. The other whalers at a distance must have thought that there were a good many steamers passing Flores, that day. It was still early in the afternoon, and there was more work before us ere night set in. I had scarcely gotten my prize crews on board, and my boats run up, before another sail was discovered standing in for the island. We immediately gave chase, or rather, to speak more correctly,