Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

[594] During the morning watch, the dense clouds lifted for a while, and showed us a fine, tall ship, steering, like ourselves, to the southward. We immediately made sail in chase. The wind was blowing quite fresh from the south-west, at the time, and we gained very rapidly upon the stranger. At twelve o'clock the wind died away, and the heavy rains being renewed, she was entirely shut out from view. We continued the chase all day; now being sure of her, and now being baffled by the ever-shifting clouds, and changing wind and weather. At length, at five P. M., it being no longer safe to trust to contingencies, as night would set in, in another hour, I sent a whaleboat to board, and halt her, although she was still two miles distant. The boarding was successfully accomplished, and just before dark, we could see the stranger's head turned in our direction. We knew from this circumstance that she was a prize, and hoisting a light, as night set in, to guide the boarding-officer, in an hour or two more she was alongside of us.

The prize proved to be the Louisa Hatch, of Rockland, Maine, from Cardiff, with a cargo of the best Welsh coal, for Point-deGalle, in the island of Ceylon. The bill of lading required the cargo to be delivered to the ‘Messageries Imperiales,’ steamship company, and there was a certificate on the back of the bill of lading to the effect that the coal belonged to that company, but the certificate was not sworn to by the subscriber. This was tantamount to no evidence at all, and I condemned both ship and cargo as prize of war. Here was quite a windfall—a thousand tons of coal, near the coast of Brazil, where it was worth $17 per ton. But what was I to do with the prize? It would be an interminable job to attempt to supply myself from her, by means of my boats, and hauling the two ships alongside of each other, at sea, was not to be thought of. I was bound to the island of Fernando de Noronha, that being the second rendezvous which I had assigned to my old Scotch collier, the Agrippina, and I resolved to take the Hatch in, with me, to abide contingencies. If the Agrippina should arrive in due time, I could burn the Hatch; if not, the Hatch would supply her place.

This being determined upon, I sent a prize crew on board the captured ship, and directed the prize-master to keep company with me. We overhauled an English bark, the next