nths out, without having once put into port! Three whole months before
the launching of the Alabama, had that patient little vessel been
ploughing the seas, gathering, as it turned out, only additional fuel
for her own funeral pyre. A weary voyage to have so sad a termination!

Among her crew, transferred as prisoners to her captor, was a
Lieutenant of Marines from the Quaker State, serving on board the
whaler in the capacity of steward!

Next came the Dorcas Prince, of and from New York, for Shanghai. Cargo
chiefly coal, probably intended for United States ships of war in the
East Indies--a supposition that undoubtedly gave additional zest to the
bonfire, which--no claim to neutrality being found among her papers--in
due course followed on her capture.

_Saturday, May 2nd._--An anniversary with me--writes Captain Semmes--my
marriage-day. Alas! this is the third anniversary since I was separated
from my family by this Yankee war! And the destruction of fifty of their
ships has been but a small revenge for this great privation.

On that day two more were added to the long list, and the barque Union
Jack, of Boston, and ship Sea Lark, of New York, shared the fate of
their fifty predecessors. The former of these two vessels added three
women and two infants to the already far too numerous colony of the
weaker sex, by which the Alabama was now encumbered.

There was no claim of neutral property among the papers of either of
these ships, except in the case of one Allen Hay, who was the shipper of
five cases of crackers, and ten barrels of butter, on board the Union
Jack. In this case, a Thomas W. Lielie made oath before the British
Consul at New York, that the said articles were shipped "for and on
account of Her Britannic Majesty." This certificate was of no force or
effect, for its _indefiniteness_, as decided in other cases. A claim of
property must point out the owner or owners, and not aver that it
belongs to the subjects of a nation generally. There must be some one
designated who has a right to the possession of the property under the
bill of lading. The certificate was accordingly set aside, and the ship
and cargo condemned.

Besides the women and children, the Union Jack furnished also another
prisoner of a somewhat unusual character, in the person of the Rev.
Franklin Wright, late editor of a religious paper, and newly-appointed
consul at Foo Chow. The worthy clergyman's entry, however, upon his new
duties wa