A CELEBRATED PRIVATEER.

Marlborough Express, Volume I, Issue 66, 20 March 1880, Page 3

A CELEBRATED PRIVATEER.

A famous cruiser, which put into Melbourne towards the end of the year 18G4, and by so doing caused the Geneva Government to add £3,100,000 to the Alabama award, has foundered off the Island of Socotra in the Indian ocean, with most of her crew. This vessel, the Shenandoah of former days, belonged, at the time of the disaster, to the Saltan of Zanzibar. She was built at Glasgow, and launched under the name of the Sea King. She was purchased on September 20, 1864, for the Confe iterates, and cleared out for Matamoroa. She took her arnament and stores on board at Maderia, where Captain Waddell and his officers and crow embarked in her from the steamer Laurel, which had been fitted out at Liverpool. Thence the Shenandoah came on to Melbourne, and remained in Hobson’s Bay until February, 1865. Subsequently she destroyed eight whaling ships in the Artie Seas, who placed their crews on board the barque Milo, which conveyed the intelligence to San Francisco. Other vessels shared a similar fate, even after the determination of civil war; for Captain Waddell refused to believe the report that Richmond had fallen, and that General Lee had surrendered himself and the remains of his army to General Grant. On November 6, 1865, the Shenandoah ran into the Mersey, and the Captain gave her up to the British an thorites by whom she was aanded over to the consul of the United States ; her officers ar.d men, to the number of 133, being allowed to disband and depart. As a cruiser, she was scarcely less redoubtable than the celebrated Alabama, and her fine qualities, as regards build and speed, will be remembered by numbers who visited her while lying in Auatralion waters.