it by force, if he can, but if the escape be successful, it is a valid escape. I have thus far been considering the case, as though it were an escape with, or from a ship, which had not been fatally injured, and on board which the officers and crew might have remained, if they had thought proper. If the escape be proper in such a case as this, how much more must it be proper when, as was the case with the Alabama, the officers and crew of the ship are compelled to throw themselves into the sea, and struggle for their lives? Take my own individual case. The Federal Government complained of me because I threw my sword into the sea, which, as the Federal Secretary of the Navy said, no longer belonged to me. But what was I to do with it? Where was Mr. Welles' officer, that he did not come to demand it? It had been tendered to him, and would have belonged to him, if he had had the ability, or the inclination to come and take it. But he did not come. I did not betake myself to a boat, and seek refuge in flight. I waited for him, or his boat, on the deck of my sinking ship, until the sea was ready to engulf me. I was ready and willing to complete the surrender which had been tendered, but as far as was then apparent, the enemy intended to permit me to drown. Was I, under these circumstances, to plunge into the water with my sword in my hand and endeavor to swim to the Kearsarge? Was it not more natural, that I should hurl it into the depths of the ocean in defiance, and in hatred of the Yankee and his accursed flag? When my ship went down, I was a waif upon the waters. Battles and swords, and all other things, except the attempt to save life, were at an end. I ceased from that moment to be the enemy of any brave man. A true sailor, and above all, one who had been bred to arms, when he found that he could not himself save me, as his prisoner, should have been glad to have me escape from him, with life, whether by my own exertions, or those of a neutral. I believe this was the feeling, which, at that moment, was in the heart of Captain Winslow. It was reserved for William H. Seward to utter the atrocious sentiment which has been recorded against him, in these pages. Mr. Seward is now an old man, and he has the satisfaction of reflecting that he is responsible for more of the woes which have fallen upon the American people, than

any other citizen of the once proud republic. He has worked, from first to last, for self, and he has met with the usual reward of the selfish-the contempt and neglect of all parties. He has need to utter the prayer of Cardinal Wolsey, and to add thereto, "Forgive, O Lord! him who never did forgive."

With the permission of the reader, I will make another brief reference to Naval History, to show how gallant men regard the saving of life, from such disasters during battle, as befell the Alabama; how, in other words, they cease to be the enemies of disarmed men, struggling against the elements for their lives. DESTRUCTION OF L'ORIENT AT THE BATTLE OF THE NILE.

At the battle of the Nile, fought by Lord Nelson, in 1798, with Admiral Brueyes, the flag-ship of the French fleet, L'Orient, took fire and blew up, after having surrendered. Admiral Ganteaume, the third in command of the fleet, was on board the ill-fated ship, and being blown into the water by the explosion of the magazine, was picked up by one of his boats and conveyed to a French brig of war, in which he escaped to Alexandria. This escape, after surrender, was regarded as valid by Lord Nelson. The disaster is thus described by the historian. After giving the position of the French fleet, at anchor in the Bay of Aboukir, and describing the mode of attack by the English fleet, the narrator proceeds:

"It was at nine P. M., or a few minutes after, that the Swiftsure's people discovered a fire on board of the Orient, and which, as it increased, presently bore the appearance of being in the ship's mizzen chains. It was, in fact, on the poop-deck, and in the admiral's cabin, and its cause we shall hereafter endeavor to explain. As many of the Swiftsure's guns as could be brought to bear were quickly directed to the inflamed spot, with, as was soon evident, dreadful precision. After spreading along the decks, and ascending the rigging with terrific and uncontrollable rapidity, the flames reached the fatal spot, and at about ten P. M., the Orient blew up with a most tremendous explosion."

The historian then describes the terrible night-scene that followed; how it put an end, for the time, to the action, and the efforts which were made by the English boats to save life. We have only to do, however, with Admiral Ganteaume. This gentleman describes his escape as follows:

"It was by an accident, [he is writing to the Minister of Marine,] which I cannot yet comprehend, that I escaped from the midst of the flames of the Orient, and was taken into a yawl, lying under the ship's counter. Not being able to reach the vessel of General Villeneuve, [the second in command,] I made for Alexandria. At the beginning of the action, Admiral Brueyes, all the superior officers, the first commissary, and about twenty pilots, and masters of transports, were on the poop of the Orient, employed in serving musketry. After the action had lasted about an hour, the admiral was wounded in the body, and in the hand; he then came down from the poop, and a short time after was killed on the quarterdeck. The English having utterly destroyed our van, suffered their ships to drift forward, still ranging along our line, and taking their different stations around us. One, however, which attacked, and nearly touched us, on the starboard side, being totally dismasted, ceased her fire, and cut her cable to get out of reach of our guns; but obliged to defend ourselves against two others, who were furiously thundering upon us on the larboard quarter, and on the starboard bow, we were again compelled to heave in our cable. The 36 and 24-pounders were still firing briskly, when some flames, accompanied with an explosion, appeared on the after-part of the quarter-deck," &c.

Admiral Ganteaume does not mention the striking of the colors of this ship, and the fact has been disputed. But Lord Nelson believed that she had struck, and that is all we need for our purpose, which is to show that, with the belief of this fact, he did not pretend to regard Admiral Ganteaume as a prisoner. In 2 Clarke's "Life of Lord Nelson," p. 135, occurs the following passage:

"In a letter to his Excellency, Hon. W. Wyndham, at Florence, dated the 21st of August, 1798, Sir Horatio had said, that on account of his indifferent health and his wound, he thought of going down the Mediterranean as soon as he arrived at Naples, unless he should find anything very extraordinary to detain him; and this determination had been strongly impressed on his mind by some of his friends, who doubted the effect of his going into winter-quarters at Naples [where the modern Anthony would find his Cleopatra, in the person of the then charming Lady Hamilton] might have on a mind by no means adapted to cope with the flattery of the Sicilian Court. He also informed Mr. Wyndham, that L'Orient certainly struck her colors, and had not fired a shot for a quarter of an hour before she took fire."

Admiral Ganteaume resumed his duties as a naval officer immediately after his escape, repairing to Cairo, where Napoleon then was, to put himself under the orders of the Great Captain. He returned with his distinguished chief to France,

in the frigate Le Muiron. The British Government did not demand him of the French Government as a prisoner of war. This case was almost precisely similar with my own. Both ships struck their colors; both ships were destroyed before the enemy could take possession of them, and both commanders escaped; the only difference being that Admiral Ganteaume escaped in one of his own boats, to one of his own brigs of war, and thence to Alexandria, and I escaped by swimming to a neutral ship, and to the cover of a neutral flag; which, as before remarked, was the same thing as if I had swum to neutral territory. Mr. Lancaster could no more have thrust me back into the sea, or handed me over to the Kearsarge, than could the keeper of the Needles light, if I had landed on the Isle of Wight.

I have presented several contrasts in these pages; I desire to present another. The reader has seen how Mr. Seward, a civilian, insisted that beaten enemies, who were struggling for their lives in the water, should be permitted to drown, rather than be rescued from the grasp of his naval commander by a neutral. I desire to show how a Christian admiral forbade his enemies to be fired upon, when they were engaged in rescuing their people from drowning; even though the consequence of such rescue should be the escape of the prisoners. I allude to Lord Collingwood, a name almost as well known to American as to English readers; the same Lord Collingwood, who was second in command to Nelson at the famous battle of Trafalgar. This Admiral, from his flag-ship, the Ocean, issued the following general order to the commanders of his ships:

"OCEAN, September 19, 1807.

"In the event of an action with the enemy, in which it shall happen that any of their ships shall be in distress, by taking fire, or otherwise, and the brigs and tenders, or boats which are attached to their fleet, shall be employed in saving the lives of the crews of such distressed ships, they shall not be fired on, or interrupted in such duty. But as long as the battle shall continue, his Majesty's ships are not to give up the pursuit of such, as have not surrendered, to attend to any other occasion, except it be to give their aid tò his Majesty's ships which may want it."-Collingwood's Letters, 235

But the American war developed "grand moral ideas,” and Mr. Seward's, about the drowning of prisoners, was one of them.

CHAPTER LV.

66

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND THE BRITISH STEAMYACHT DEERHOUND MR. SEWARD'S DESPATCH, AND MR. LANCASTER'S LETTER TO THE DAILY NEWS' LORD RUSSELL'S REPLY TO MR. ADAMS ON THE SUBJECT OF HIS COMPLAINT AGAINST MR. LANCASTER - PRESENTATION OF A SWORD TO THE AUTHOR, BY THE CLUBS IN ENGLAND · - PRESENTATION OF A FLAG BY A LADY.

TH

HE howl that went up against Mr. Lancaster, the owner of the Deerhound, for his humane exertions in saving my crew and myself from drowning, was almost as rabid as that which had been raised against myself. Statesmen, or those who should have been such, descended into the arena of coarse and vulgar abuse of a private English citizen, who had no connection with them or their war, and no sympathies that I know of, on the one side or the other. Mr. Welles, in one of those patriotic effusions, by which he sought to recommend himself to the extreme party of the North, declared among other things, that he was "not a gentleman!" Poor Mr. Lancaster, to have thy gentility questioned by so competent a judge, as Mr. Gideon Welles! If these gentlemen had confined themselves to mere abuse, the thing would not have been so bad, but they gave currency to malicious falsehoods concerning Mr. Lancaster, as truths. Paid spies in England reported these falsehoods at Washington, and the too eager Secretary of State embodied them in his despatches. Mr. Adams and Mr. Seward have, both, since ascertained that they were imposed upon, and yet no honorable retraxit has ever been made. The following is a portion of one of Mr. Seward's characteristic despatches on this subject. It is addressed to Mr. Adams: