INFERNAL MACHINES.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 235, 6 October 1886, Page 3

INFERNAL MACHINES.

A Mystery Solved,

During the last few montha of the Secession War, Nassau waa the favourite resort of many blockade runners, as it lay so near the coast of Florida. It had then become more difficult to pass the Federal blockading squadrons, even at Wilmigton ; and it was for this reason that Captain Martin decided to have Mb two schooners, late in 1864, make the longer voyage to Nassau, rather than to Eail for Bermudas, aa we had done the preceding spring.

Captain Martin, when a prominent tradesman of Baltimore, in ante bellum times, -had so often made voyages in the capacity of supercargo, that he was quite an expert sailor, and was for that reason willing to take more risks in tho hazards of blockaderunning than a more landsman would have been. Aa he was obliged to go to Nassau himself to look aftor their proper disposal, his family did everything in their power to dissuade him from risking a trip in either of the schooners, as he had dono tho previous spring. They wished him to go by steamer from Halifax, as he could readily have done, and with greater security. But in spite of all entreaties, he persisted in taking passage on one of the schooners. He placed marine insuranceon their cargoes, in which he had invested all his means, and had a handsome insurance on his life for the benefit of his family. Before sailing from Halifax he took tho precaution to leavo all his Insurance papers in the hands of a man whom he trusted as he would trust a brother, and gave him full power of attorney to act for him in hia absence, or in the evont of his elcath.

Both of his' schooners sailed about the same time.

One of them was Wrecked

near the i-liore, before it was outside of the harbour of Halifax. Vessel and cargo wero a total loss, though the crew was saved. Neither the schooner on which Captain Martin sailed nor any soul on board was ever heard of afterwards.

Thia man with whom his insurance papers were loft was Alexander Keith, a trusted agent of the Confederate Government at Halifax. When it became evident that Martin and both of his schooners were lost, Keith, under his power of attorney, drew all the insurance on Martin's life and cargoes, and left for parts unknown, appropriating also some Confederate funds entrusted to his care. By this infamous act Captain Martin's family was reduced from affluence to want.

The exact cause of the loss of these two Bchooners, aud of the tragic death of Captain Martin and one of his crews, was completely shrouded in mystery until twelve years afterwards, when the veil was in part lifted, ancl—strange aa it may seem—in connection with one of the most diabo'ical schemes for the wholesale destruction of property and human life at sea that ever curdled the blood of Christendom.

Some of our readers will remember the terrible loss of life by the premature explosion of an infernal machine, towards the close of 1875, on a wharf at Bremerhaven,;Gormany, jus. as thesteamer Moselle was on the point of sailing for America. Many passengers and their friends, while in the act of leave taking, were terribly mangled by the

Fearful Explosion.

Immediate and prolonged investigation by the German police, afterwards aided by American de tecti i-es, made known the following startling facts :— While all was in confusion in and around the steamer, immediately after the tragedy, groans were heard^ proceeding from nut of the state-rooms of the Moselle. Supposing one of the wounded victims was suffering there, policemen tried to enter tbe door, and, finding it locked, forced it open. There lay a man, writhing, and weltering in his blood, shot in the head with a pistol. He survived long enough, and remained sufficiently conscious, to acknowledge that he had shot himself from remorse, as he waa the cause of this hideous butchery. He confessed that he had arranged, a torpedo in a box to be placed in the cargo of the Moselle, and, by careless unloading, it had exploded on the wharf, before he had intended it should; It was his plan to have the torpedo exploded by clock-work— which he had placed with it in the boxbut not until several days later, after the steamer had left England, where it waa to touch on its way to the-United States, as is customary with the German lines of merchant steamers. His intention was to sail on the steamer, but to leave it at the English port. His fiendish purpose was to secure money, for which he placed insurance on part of the cargo—and this, too, in utter disregard of the lives of the many passengers.

A Thrill of Horror.

swept throughout the civilised world wherever the news of the devilish design was spread. Further investigation showed that the name by which tbe human monster had been known during his short stay in Germany was Thomasßen, which ia merely the German for Thomas, It was first stated and believed that he was an American, because he had come to Germany but a short time previous from the United States. It was learned that he had employed an innocent clockmaker—innocent, because he knew nothing of object—to make a dozen or more pieces of clock-work, which the wretch iutended to use systematically in destroying vessels, to secure insurance money on their cargoes.

I was in Berlin, Germany, a few months after this terrible occurrence-that is, in February, 1876. Investigations were then progressing, and the German Press was still discussing the horrible event, and with no little bitterness towards America. Some of thelrnewspapers declaredthatsuchmonsters as Thomassen were the natural outgrowth of American institutions. It created universal and deep interest. Wax models of Thoma.sen's head, and full length figures of him, weredisplayed in the German museums, as were some of the specimens of clock-work which he had inventedto explode his infernal machines. But what was the sequel ? and what has all this to do with our blockade-running in 1865 ? ,'■-','■'" This will now be explained. Imagine my utter astonishment, while reading a morning paper at a London hotel table soon after leaving Berlin—April, 1876—t0 find a statement substantially as follows :—The joint efforts of German and Ameriban detectives had fully traced Thomassen's antecedents, and he was

Completely Identified,

He was not an American but a Scotchman by birth. At one time, during our civil war he had lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was an agent for the Confederate Government. He had also been interested in blockade-running, being connected in 1864 with one P. C Martin in that business, and'his real name was Alexander Keith! Then followed an account of the less of Captain Martin and his schooners. It told how Keith absconded with all of Martin's insurance money and other funds, amounting in all to between 200,000 and 300,000 dollars. It told how be went to Missouri and other parts of the United States, under one or more assumed names Under the name Thomaß, he had married a lovely, innocent woman, and eventually found his way to Germany, and there ended hia career as the fiend Thomassen, of Moselle memory. Then how clear the mystery of poor Martin'sfato became Twelveyearsbefore, amid the varied and thrilling events of one war, Thomassen, or Keith, had practised his worse than brutal business of destroying vessels clandestinely, and

Stcalli-,_ aoir Insurance,

How evident it was that tho genial, whole-souled, and bravo Martin, and one of his devoted crews, had fallen victims to the same fiendish lust for gold that had planned this wholesale destruction of the Moselle and other steamers, Just how Keith secured the loss of the two schooners, with their valuable blockade goods, bound from Halifax to Nasaau, and the death of the unfortunate Captain Martin, ia a secret that will ever lie buried in the realm of the great unknown. The schooner that sank near Halifax, and from which i's crew escaped, may have had its hull so tampered with as to cause it to founder early in the voyage, that its crew might be saved, Captain Martin not being with them. Somo one in league with Keith may have been on board to secure this result. Who knows? On the other schooner Keith probably placed an infernal machine, not unlike the one prepared for the German steamer twelve years afterwards, that he might make sure of the loss, not only of the cargo, but of Martin's life.

However this may be, the loss of both schooners, coupled with subsequent events here related, is conclusive evidence of design by the consummate villain, Alexander Keith,— " Overland Monthly."