James Russell Soley, Professor U. S. Navy, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 7.1, The blockade and the cruisers
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

After two months of cruising in the Atlantic, the Sumter put in to St. Pierre, in the island of Martinique, for coal and water. She had been here only five days when the Iroquois came in, a very fast sloop-of-war, under Captain Palmer. The usual warnings in regard to the neutrality of the port were administered by the French authorities, and the American sloop, after reconnoitering the Sumter closely, came to anchor. Finding that the rule forbidding either vessel to leave port within twenty-four hours of the other would be rigidly enforced, Palmer lost no time in getting under way again, to take a position outside. The coast at St. Pierre forms an open roadstead, twelve miles wide; and here Palmer waited, standing off and on, as near as he could venture without laying himself open to the charge of hovering within neutral waters. So matters remained for a week.

On the night of the 23d of November, when the Sumter had finished all her preparations, she weighed anchor and stood out. Arrangements had been made for signalling her movements from one of the American schooners in port; and Semmes, with his quick perception and ready resource, took advantage of the fact to throw his enemy off the scent. Heading for the southern point of the roads, he held his course until he was sure that the Iroquois was following the signal lights; then doubling suddenly, he returned under cover of the land, and stopping from time to time, he succeeded in giving Palmer the slip. A fortunate rain-squall concealed his movements, and in half an hour he was running under a full head of steam for the northern end of the island, while the Iroquois was chasing furiously to the southward. In a little while she discovered the ruse, and retraced her course; but the Sumter was not to be seen,