A PACIFIC ROVER.

Northland Age, Volume 2, Issue 49, 10 July 1906, Page 2

A PACIFIC ROVER.

CAPTURE OF M’LEAN, THE PIRATE KING OF THE SMOKY SEAS. * The American mail brings details of the chase after Captain Alexander M'Lean, scaler, smuggler, and pirate, who has dodged and defied the armed . cruisers of England, America, Russia, and Japan on both sides of the Pacific for the last 20 years. THE DASH OF THE CARMENCITA. In his phantom ship, the Carmencita, he has darted across the Behring Straits and the coasts of Kamchatka and Alaska, at one moment posing as an innocent sealer, at* aftr other raiding the seal rookeries' at the close time, or breaking into the Russian sealing stores, where the skins are awaiting transport to the world's markets. He has a crew of cutthroats, who have most them , good reason for leaving* \tfeir native Country, and when they land there are fierce fights. LAST OF YOKOHAMA PIRATES. M'Letrn is the last survivor of the ships which 20 years ago were,known as the Yokohama pirates. Englishbuilt ships with German owners, American or Canadian captains, and Japanese ports of registry hud many such fights as that which Kipling tills of the “Baltic” and the “Northern Light.” Captain M'Lean in those days fought a Russian revenue gunboat, and beat her off. But he was once captured by the Russians and sent to'work in the mines. M'Lean got out, and renewed his old life. He is said to be the original of Wolf liar.sen in Jack London's novel, “The Sea Wolf,” and he certainly lias always lived up to Kipling’s line : There’s never a law of God or man Runs north of Fifty Three. The Carmoncita has no home port, and when the pursuit gets too hot she disappears among the remoter islands of the foggy ocean that Captain M'Lean knows so well. HOW M'LEAN WAS CAUGHT. An American grand jury not long ago returned an indictment against M'Lean and all of his crew, whose names were known for sea-poaching. A United States revenue cutter, crammed with armed men, sailed from Seattle in chase of him, but. they could not find him. The next thing that happened was that M’Lean, relying on his Mexican papers, sailed into Victoria, British Columbia, with a full cago of sealskin!? taken in the prohibited zone. The British authorities, knowing of the American indictment, promptly arrested him and extradited him to San Francisco.