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it was necessary to allege some excuse for it, and the excuse given was, that I had violated the neutral waters of
Cuba, and captured my three last prizes within the marine league—my sympathizing friend, the
Spanish pilot, and an English sailor, on board the tug, being vouched as the respectable witnesses to the fact!
Such was the power of Spanish gold, and Yankee unscrupulousness in the use of it. When I heard of these transactions a few months afterward, I planned a very pretty little quarrel between the
Confederate States and
Spain, in case the former should be successful in establishing their independence.
Cuba, I thought, would make us a couple of very respectable States, with her staples of sugar and tobacco, and with her similar system of labor; and if
Spain refused to foot our bill for the robbery of these vessels, we would foot it ourselves at her expense.
But poor old
Spain!
I ought perhaps to forgive thee, for thou wast afterward kicked, and cuffed by the very Power to which thou didst truckle—the
Federal steamers of war making a free use of thy coast of the ‘Ever Faithful Island of
Cuba,’ chasing vessels on shore, and burning them, in contempt of thy jurisdiction, and in spite of thy remonstrances.
And the day is not far distant, when the school-ma'am and the
carpet-bag missionary will encamp on thy plantations, and hold joint conventicles with thy freedmen, in the interests of Godliness, and the said ma'am and missionary.
Great excitement was produced, as may be supposed, by the arrival of the Sumter, with her six prizes, at the quiet little town of Cienfuegos. Lieutenant Chapman was met by a host of sympathizers, and carried to their club, and afterward to the house of one of the principal citizens, who would not hear of his spending the night at a hotel, and installed as his honored guest.
Neighbors were called in, and the night was made merry, to a late hour, by the popping of champagne-corks and the story, and the song; and when the festivities had ceased, my tempest-tossed lieutentant was laid away in the sweetest and whitest of sheets, to dream of the eyes of the houries of the household, that had beamed upon him so kindly, that he was in danger of forgetting that he was a married man. For weeks afterward, his messmates could get nothing out of him, but something
