THE CAPTURE OF THE ARIEL BY THE ALABAMA.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 47, 21 April 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE CAPTURE OF THE ARIEL BY THE ALABAMA.

{'From the New York Times.) Panama, Dec. 16, 1862. The principal topic of interest amo«%«s for the past few days, as you may well imagine, has been the boarding and robbery of the Alabama. It is probable before this you have had the main facts, so what I may write can be placed under the head of "further particulars." My facts I get from Captain Sortori and Captain Jones. On Sunday, the 7th inst., at 2 p.m., just as the passengers in the first cabin had sat down to dinner, a report was brought to captain Jones of " steam war-ship in $ight." No alarm was created by this announcement, Captain Jones, excusing himself to his dinner companions, said he would see what she was like. On ascending to the deck, the vessel was about four miles off, under Cape Maize, aad was just coming out of the sun glare. She had an American flag flying, but Capt. Jones exclaimed, "If that isn't an English rig you may shoot me." He ordered his engineer to put on all steam j thinking to run away from the suspected vessel. He soon saw that the bark was rapidly overhauling him, and in a few minutes she fired a blank shot. Captain Jones paid no attention but kept on his way. A moment after the bark hoisted the Confederate flag, and bang ! bang 1 two shells passed over the Ariel. One was a hundredpound steel -pointed missile, which exploded immediately on striking the object, but this shell fortunately passed over the vessel without touching her. The other, a round common fuse shell struck the foremast above the hurricane deck, cutting nearly its size from the mast. In the meantime the 140 officers and marines on board, under Major Garland, had been drawn up on the deck of the Ariel, with their arms prepared for resistance. But the character of the craft having been fully ascertained, and the futility of defence being clearly apparent, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Captain Jones, who wanted to fight, and who declared he would never lower his flag so long as he could fight, the marines were disarmed and ordered below. Then the and stars and stripes came down, and the Ariel surrendered. At this time the Ariel was going about eight and a-half knots, fast for her, and the Alabama eleven knots, without sail, and only under eleven pounds of steam — so says Capt. Jones. Her fires had been banked, and less than an hour before the Ariel hauled down her flag she had started them up. Captain Semmes told Captain Jones that under seventeen pounds of steam he had made thirteen and a half knots, but had never worked her steam up any higher, as he never had occasion to do so. He said he could make fifteen knots under steam. By three p.m. a boat from theAJa- : bama, with twelve men, under the command of Lieutenant Low, a young Georgian — the men armed with pistols and cutlasses — were alongside. At this time the consternation and fright among the passengers, particularly among the women, was indiscribable. The least many of them expected was to be robbed, and then have their throats cut. The more prudent had hidden away their money, watches, and jewellery, the best way they could, and the more cunning bad passed their personal articles' of value into the hands of British and French passengers. Many who had sworn allegiance to Uncle Samuel, and who had eaten his salt for twenty years, suddenly forgot to aspirate their h's and not one of the " Jems "could speak English. As Lieut, i Low, in his neat uniform, and bland, smiling face, stepped on deck, and politely lifted his cap, the fears began to slightly subside. The first thing be did was to assure the passengers that not a hair of their head should be plucked out, and not a dollar of personal property taken. Observing that there were United States officers and marines on board, Lieutenant Low communicated with Capt. Semmes, and the latter ordered that Capt. Jones should come on board the Alabama. When Lieutenant Low returned he paroled all the officers and marines, the conditions being that they " should not serve the United States in any manner during the war/' To a question of Capt. Sartori, as to whether this prevented the marines and soldiers from serving in the forts of California, to which most of them were destined, he replied, " Yes ; you are to do no service of any kind for your government.'' Lieutenant Low called for the manifests, and finding some money on them took possession of 8000 in treasury notes, belonging to Messrs, Wells, Fargo and Co., and 1500 dollars in silver for Nicaragua, belonging to Mr. Payton, Middleton, late United States Special Inspector of Customs in Panama, and to his American partner in Kicaragua, Mr E. S. Lane. Being assured by Purser Wheeler that the Ariel lad no letter mail, he did not overhaul the sacks, and in fact nothing in that line was disturbed. Wells, Fargo and Co.'s sacks, the private sacks of the Panama Kailroad Company, the South and Central American and Panama mails, and even the State Department sacks for the United States' consul at Aspinwall, containing his own correspondence, and that for other consuls, ministers, and naval officers, came eafely to hand. Lieutenant Low ordered all tine officers to give up their swords, and all the soldiers and marines their arms, and these were taken on board the Alabama. He compelled Captain Jones to bond the ship for 125,000 dollars, the cargo for 123,000 dollars, and freight- for 12,000 dollars, to be paid within thirty d,ays after the establishment of the independence of the Confederate States. The Lieutenant before he left, ordered all the sails of

the Ariel to be cut away, and thrown overboard, but do other property wa s damaged or destroyed, save the liquor s of the ship, and not a dollar's worth was taken out of her except the money. The liquors were destroyed by request of Captain. Sartori and Major Garland, as a precaution against their own men, who they feared might get at them in the confusion, and become unmanageable, now that the officers were disarmed. The heads of the whisky barrels were broken in, and the liquors in the bar thrown overboard. In this connexion it may not be amiss to say that Captain Semmes complained bitterly to Captain Jones of the false reports he averred had been made by the commanders of some of the sailing vessels he had taken, particularly of the master of the Lamplighter, who reported that the first thing the officers and sailors demanded on boarding him was liquor. He said that not a drop of liquor was used by his men on that ship, but that it was destroyed immediately she was boarded, for fear his men might get at it, and make brutes of themselves. Lieutenant Low ordered the Ariel to keep company with the Alabama, and both ships steamed towards Jamaica, At night he again visited the Ariel, and took away with him one of her steam -valves, so as to temporarily disable the engine. Of course the Ariel drifted about (it was calm weather), and the Alabama left her to look for other prey. Captain Jones was informed by Captain Semmes that his passengers would be landed on a point on San Domingo, which has only a few huts, and is at a great distance from supplies- To this Captain Jones earnestly remonstrated. "For God's sake, Captain Semmes, don't leave us there !" exclaimed Captain Jones. "What, in heaven's name are 850 persons — a third of them women and children — to live on there V He then said he would land them in Jamaica, for he was determined to burn the ship. He said Vanderbilt had given one of the finest steamers in the world to the Government with which to run him down, and he would destroy everything of his he fell in with. The next day (Monday) the valve was restored, and the Ariel ordered to keep company as before. Every little while the Alabama would dart off, leaving the Ariel on perreiving a sail, give chase to her, and on finding she was not American, returned to her game, which she was enabled to do from the fact that she could steam two miles to the Ariel's one. At night the valve was again taken out. On Tuesday the ships kept company, the Alabama occasionally going on a little cruise after Yankee craft, till half-past ten at night, when they made a light on Jamaica. Captain Semmes then informed Captain Jones that he would not put his passengers on shore at Port Eoyal, as the yellow fever was prevailing there, but that he might proceed on his voyage. At six in the morning on Wednesday, Captain Jones having kept close into land, spoke a branch pilot in Morant Bay, who agreed to take a letter to the mayor of Morant, for the United States' consul at Kingston. Captain Sartori wrote to the mayor, telling him it was very important the letter should be despatched at once, and he has no doubt the consul got the paper by twelve o'clock same day. Neither the pilot nor the mayor were informed of the contents of the letter, or of the occurrences here detailed. If the consul is not afraid of taking lesponsibilities, as he should not be, in such important matters, he should charter a vessel (a steam one if possible) to take the news to Santiago de Cuba, a short distance from which there is a telegraph to Havana, and where there may have been some United States' war steamers. All the officers and passengers I have talked with say that Lieutenant Low acted in the most gentlemanly and even courteous manner, and Captain Jones says the same of Captain Semmes. In fact, all the Ariel's folks appear to have been perfectly fascinated and enchanted by Lieutenant Low. He soothed the ladies, patted the children on the head, kissed the ugliest looking as well as the prettiest ladies, and made himself generally agreeable. He told Captain Sartori he did only his duty in molesting the Ariel, and remarked, " You, Captain Sartori, would do the same thing were your country treated so outrageously as mine has been." He allowed Captain Sartori to keep a favorite fowling-piece he had with him, and did many other gracious things. All great villians, if they are smart, are courteous. Had the hundred-pound shell gone through the Ariel, the passengers, what there would have been left of them, would have thought differently of their captor. Captain Pemmes, in his conversation with Captain Jones, talked a "great deal about the Pacific, and knew all about our ships of war there, Captain Jones thinks that when the West Indies get too hot for him, he will turn up in our waters here, but I think not." He might make a raid upon our whalers, and he says he is particularly anxious to cripple New England men — but the facilities for such business as his are much less on the Pacific than on the Atlantic. The thing that seemed to trouble him most was the impossibility of his burning Vanderbilt's ship, which he could not do on account of her passengers. The fact is he had won an elephant in a raffle. He could not drop them down in any desert place, and he knew be could not land them in Kingston, or in the port of any powerful nation. Capt. Semmes told Captain Jones that he coaled last at Martinique, and that when he left port the San Jacinto trained a gun upon him, when the fort immediately trained her guns upon the San Jacinto, and she desisted from the attack. I wouldn't like to say that Captain Semmes is a fool, in the face of

many evidences to the contrary ; but, in scaring his bird before she got fat, he has lost the chance of a good dinner a little later ; had he waited till the Ariel returned he might have got a million or so of dollars from her. Now she will not give him a chance ; and while he was fiddling with the Ariel he lost the Champion, which passed through the islands on the 9th.