THE CAPTURE OF THE ARIEL BY THE ALABAMA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1091, 25 April 1863, Page 3

THE CAPTURE OF THE ARIEL BY THE ALABAMA.

(From the ' New York Times.')

Panama, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 1862. The principal topic of interest among us for the past few days, as you may well imagine, has been the boarding and robbery of the Ariel by the Confederate steamer " 290 "or Alabama. It is probable before this you have had the main facts, so what I write can be placed under the head of " further particulars." My facts I get from Captain Sartori 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 "a steam war-ship in sight." 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, and was just coming out of the sun glare. She had an American flag flying, but Captain Jones exclaimed,

" If that isn't ail English rig you may shoot me." He ordered his engineer to put on all steam, 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 ! two shells passed over the Ariel. One was an hundred-pound steel pointed missile, which explodes 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 011 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 stars and stripes came down, and the Ariel surrendered. At this time the Ariel was going about knots, fast for her, and the Alabama 11 knots, without sail, and only under 1 litis of steam—so says Captain 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 17113s of steam he had made knots, but had never worked his steam up any higher, as he never had occasion to do so. He said he could make 15 knots under steam. By 3 p.m. a boat from the Alabama, with 12 men, under the command of Lieutenant Low, a young Georgian, the men armed with pistols and cutlasses, was alongside. At this time, the consternation and fright among the passengers, particularly among the women, was indescribable. 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 jewelry the best way they could, and the more cunning had 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 20 years, suddenly forgot to aspirate their h's, and not one of the " Jems could speak English. As Lieutenant Low, in his neat uniform ami bland smiling face, stepped on deck, and politely lifted his cap, the fears began to slightly subside. The first thing he did was to assure the passenger s that not a hair of their heads 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 Captain Jones should come on board the Alabama. When Lieut. 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 Captain 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 tlie manifests, and finding some money on them, took possession of $8000 in Treasury notes belonging to Messrs. Wells, Eargo and Co., and $1500 in silver for Nicaragua, belonging to Mr. Peyton Middleton, late United States' Special Inspector of Customs in Panama, and to his American partner in Nicaragua, Mr. E. S. Lane. Being assured by Purser Wheeler that the Ariel had no letter mail, he did not overhaul the sacks, and in fact nothing in that line was disturbed. W ells, largo Co s sacks, the private sacks of the Panama Uailroad 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 safely to hand. Lieut. Low ordered all the officers to give up their swords, and all the soldiers and marines their arms, and these were taken aboard the Alabama, He compelled Capt. .loncs to bond the ship for $125,000, the cargo for $12:5,000, and freight for $12,000 to be paid within thirty days 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 no other property was damaged or destroyed, save the liquors 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 con--1 fusion, and become unmanageable, now that their , officers were disarmed. The heads of the whiskey • barrels were broken in, and the liquors in the bar thrown overboard. In this connexion it may not be 1 amiss to say that Captain Semmes complained bits tei'ly 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 tiling the officers and sailors demanded, on

hoarding him was Jiquor. 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 toward Jamaica. At night lie again visited the Ariel, and took away with him one of her steamvalves, 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 at 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 Seinmes, 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 ?" 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 seeing a sail, give chase to her, and finding she was not American return to her game, which she was enabled to do, from the fact 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 cruize after Yankee craft till half past 10 at night, when they made a light on Jamaica. Captain Semmes then informed Captain Jones that he would not put his passengers ashore at Port Royal, as the yellow fever was raging there, but that he might proceed on his voyagp. At 6in the morning on Wednesday Captain Jones, having kept close in to 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 dispatched at once, and he had no doubt the consul got the paper by 12 o'clock the same day. Neither the pilot or the mayor were informed of the contents of the letter, or of the occurrences here detailed. If the consul is not afraid of taking responsibilities as he should not be, in such important matters, he chartered a vessel, and 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 warsteamers. 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 facinated and enchanted by Lieutenant Low. He soothed the ladies, patted the children on the head, kissed the ugliest-looking as well as the prettiest babies, 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 favourite fowling piece he had with him, and did many other gracious things. All great villains, 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 Semmes, in his conversation with Captain Jones, talked a good deal about the Pacific, and knew all about our ships of war there. Captain Jones thinks that when the West Indies gets 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 he could not land them in Kingston, or in the port of any powerful nation. Captain Semmes told Captain Jones that he coaled last at Martinique, and that when he left the 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 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 passec" through the Islands on the 9th.—New York Times.