le enough, and
the man was found guilty, and sentenced to lose all pay, prize money,
etc., already due to him, and to fulfil his original term of service,
forfeiting all pay and allowances, except such as should be sufficient
to provide necessary clothing and liberty money.
That same afternoon another sail was descried and chased, and just
before sunset the Alabama came up with and brought to, the fine packet
ship Tonawanda, of Philadelphia, belonging to Cope's Liverpool line, and
bound from Philadelphia to Liverpool with a full cargo of grain, and
some seventy-five passengers. Here was a serious matter of
embarrassment; of the seventy-five passengers, some thirty or more were
women, and what to do with such a prize it was hard to know. It was, of
course, impossible to take the prisoners on board; yet Captain Semmes
was, not unnaturally, reluctant to release so fine a vessel if he could
by any possibility so arrange matters as to be able to destroy her. It
was therefore determined to place a prize crew on board, and keep the
ship in company for a time, in hopes that ere long some other vessel of
less value to the enemy, or guarded from destruction by a neutral cargo
might, by good luck, be captured, and thus afford an opportunity of
sending the prisoners away upon cartel.
Accordingly, a bond was taken of the captain for eighty thousand
dollars, as a measure of precaution, in case it should be found
necessary to let the ship go without further parley, and a prize master
having been put on board the Tonawanda, was ordered to keep company, and
her captor started off on a chase after a brig, which on being
overhauled proved to be English. One transfer, however, was made from
the prize, being nothing less than a well-grown and intelligent negro
lad, named David White, the slave of one of the passengers, who was
transferred to the Alabama as waiter to the wardroom mess, where he
remained until the closing scene off Cherbourg, by no means disposed, so
far as his own word may be taken for it, to regret the change of
masters.
The following day, as an additional security, the master of the
Tonawanda was brought as a hostage on board the Confederate steamer, the
prisoners from the last two ships burned being at the same time
transferred to the prize. In this manner the two vessels cruised in
company for two or three days--an anxious time enough for the crew and
passengers of the unlucky Tonawanda, who spent most of their tim
|