The recalcitrant sailors protested that they had no intention of deserting the ship or of drowning the negroes; they only wanted to say goodby to their feminine acquaintances ashore--and so got off with a reprimand and a night spent in irons.
The next field of the Alabama's operations was to be the great highway of commerce off the coast of Brazil, and the mid-Atlantic to the northward. Hardly a day out from Port Royal she fell in with the Golden Rule, and made a bonfire of her. This vessel had on board an outfit of masts and rigging for a United States gun boat, which had been dismantled in a gale. The flames from the bark were distinctly visible on the islands of Jamaica and San Domingo. The next night the torch was applied to the Chastelaine near the Dominican coast. The prisoners from these two vessels were landed at San Domingo.
February 2d there was an alarm of fire on board, caused by the carelessness of one of the petty officers, who had carried a lighted candle into the spirit room, producing an explosion. No great damage was done, however. The Alabama shaped her course northward from San Domingo and crossed the Tropic of Cancer with a good breeze, a rather unusual experience. Early on the morning of February 3d the Alabama gave chase to the schooner Palmetto, but the latter made good use of a favorable breeze, and was not overhauled until one o'clock in the afternoon. The cargo of the prize consisted largely of provisions, of which the Alabama appropriated a goodly supply, and then the torch was applied.
The Alabama was now working her way eastward on the thirtieth parallel of latitude, and had got well into the middle of the Atlantic. The Azores, where she had begun her adventurous career, were only a few degrees to the north and east. On February 21st a light breeze was blowing from the southeast when the lookout reported a sail in sight and then another and then a third and a fourth. The Alabama gave chase to the one first announced, but she ran away before the wind, and, fearing that the others would escape, Captain Semmes gave his attention to two which had every appearance of being Union, and which had been in close company. In order to distract the cruiser's attention, the two ships fled in opposite directions, but, the wind continuing light, the Alabama soon overhauled the one which sailed eastward; and, putting Master's Mate Fullam with a prize crew on board, with orders to follow, gave chase to the other, then some fifteen miles distant. The cruiser came up with the second ship about three o'clock p. m. She was the Olive Jane, of New York, homeward bound from Bordeaux with a cargo of French wines and brandies, sardines, olives and other delicacies. Her master was ordered on board the Alabama with his ship's papers, and soon stood in the presence of Captain Semmes. No certificates of foreign ownership were found, and the verbal assurance of the master that the French owner of certain casks of wine had pointed out his property before the ship sailed, counted for nothing. Fifth Lieutenant Sinclair was ordered with a boat's crew to proceed on board the prize and secure a quantity of the provisions, and then to set fire to her, but on no account to permit any intoxicants to be brought away. The young lieutenant assumed the task with many misgivings. To take such a susceptible boat's crew into a hold filled with wines and brandies and forbid them to touch a drop would be to invite a riot. Having reached the deck of the prize Sinclair took his coxswain aside and explained to him the nature of the cargo and the scheme which he had in mind. The boat's crew were invited to lunch at the cabin table on the viands prepared for New York's aristocracy, with sundry bottles of brandy, burgundy and claret added thereto, and then appealed to not to get their officer into trouble by becoming intoxicated. The sailors being thus put upon their honor, not a single cask of wine was broken open nor a bottle conveyed to the Alabama. As the work of securing the provisions proceeded, numerous temporary adjournments to the cabin took place, but when the time came for applying the torch, the crew returned to their ship, feeling a little gay perhaps, but amply able to clamber up the cruiser's side without assistance.