y in chasing
her from one end of the world to the other, and inflicted on American
commerce an almost irreparable injury.

Although the "Alabama" was by all means the most noted and the most
successful of all the Confederate cruisers, there were others that
entered upon the career of privateering, and followed it for a while
with varying degrees of success. Some were captured revenue-cutters,
which the Confederates armed with a single heavy gun, and turned loose
on the ocean in search of Yankee schooners. Others were merely tugs
or pilot-boats. Generally their careers were short. In one instance a
fine privateer, from which the Confederates expected great things,
attempted to capture a United States man-of-war, under the delusion
that it was a merchant-vessel. The captain of the man-of-war saw the
mistake under which the Confederate labored, and allowed the privateer
to come up within short range, when, with a sudden broadside, he sent
her to the bottom, abruptly terminating her career as a commerce
destroyer. Some quite formidable iron-clad cruisers were built abroad;
but in most cases all the diplomacy of the Confederate agents proved
unavailing to prevent the confiscation of the ships by the neutral
governments in whose territory they were built. Two iron-clad rams
built at Liverpool, ostensibly for private parties, but really for the
Confederate Government, were seized by the British authorities. Six
splendid vessels were built in France, but only one succeeded in
getting away to join the Confederate service. This one was a ram with
armored sides, and was named the "Stonewall." The war was nearly over
when she was put in commission, and her services for the Confederacy
amounted to nothing. She made one short cruise, during which she fell
in with two United States men-of-war, that avoided a fight with her on
account of her superior strength. At the end of her cruise the war was
over, and she was sold to the Mikado of Japan, whose flag she now
carries.

[Illustration: The End of a Privateer.]

The "Nashville" was an old side-wheel passenger-steamer, of which the
Confederates had made a privateer. Her career was a short one. She
made one trip to England as a blockade-runner, and on her return
voyage she burned three or four United States merchantmen. She then
put into the Great Ogeechee River, where she was blockaded by three
Union men-of-war. The Confederates protected her by filling the river
with torpedoes, and