estroying--is this
a life that brave men would willingly have to be continuous? They were
fortified by the assurance of a mighty service done to their country.
They knew that they inflicted tremendous damage upon their giant foe.
They were, perhaps, supported by the sense that their captain's
unrivalled audacity had done more harm to the United States than the
operations of many thousand men. But their days were wretched; their
task was sickening; it demands an imagination that can fix its eye upon
stern, barren duty as a planet never darkened, always visible, for such
a life as this to be carried on uncomplainingly and without a passionate
longing for the bare exercise of hard blows. In addition, they read of
the reproaches heaped upon them by comfortable shore-men. They were
called pirates, and other gloomy titles. The execrations of certain of
the French and English, and of all the United States press, sounded in
their ears across the ocean; but from their own country they heard
little. The South was a sealed land in comparison with the rest of the
world. Opinion spoke loudest in Europe, and though they knew that they
were faithfully, gallantly, and marvellously serving their country in
her sore need, the absence of any immediate comfort, either physical or
moral, helped to make them keenly sensitive to virulent criticism, even
to that of avowed and clamorous enemies.

It was this state of mind through the whole crew which caused the
excitement on board the Alabama when the Kearsarge steamed in and out of
the breakwater. Now, and at last, our day of action has come! was the
thought of every man on board. The chivalrous give and take of battle
was glorious to men who had alternately hunted and fled for so dreary a
term. They trusted for victory; but defeat itself was to be a
vindication of their whole career, and they welcomed the chances gladly.

The application for coal at a neutral port was in itself a renunciation
of any further hospitality from the harbour, as Captain Semmes was
aware. The Port-admiral contented himself with pointing it out to him. A
duel is not an unpopular thing in France. The prospective combat of two
apparently equally-matched ships of war would have been sufficient to
have melted any scruples entertained by Frenchmen in authority; they
were only too happy to assist towards an engagement between Federals and
Confederates, the latter being as popular in France as in England, to
say nothing fo