Hoisting the English colors, we gave the Alabama all steam in chase, and came near enough to heave the stranger to, when she was still five or six miles from the land. She proved to be the Sea-Bride, of Boston, from New York, and bound, with an assorted cargo of provisions and notions, on a trading voyage along the eastern coast of Africa. I threw a prize crew on board of her, and as I could not take her into port with me, I directed the officer to stand off and on until further orders— repairing to Saldanha Bay, by the 15th of the month, in case he should be blown off by a gale. The capture of this ship caused great excitement at Cape Town, it having been made within full view of the whole population. The editor of a daily newspaper published at the Cape—the ‘Argus’—witnessed it, and we will let him describe it. The following is an extract from that paper, of the date of the 6th of August, 1863:—
Yesterday, at almost noon, a steamer from the northward was made down from the signal-post, on Lion's Hill. The Governor had, on the previous day, received a letter from Captain Semmes, informing his Excellency that the gallant captain had put his ship into Saldanha Bay for repairs. This letter had been made public in the morning, and had caused no little excitement. Cape Town, that has been more than dull—that has been dismal for months, thinking and talking of nothing but bankruptcies—bankruptcies fraudulent, and bankruptcies unavoidable—was now all astir, full of life and motion. The stoop of the Commercial Exchange was crowded with merchants, knots of citizens were collected at the corner of every street; business was almost, if not entirely suspended.
All that could be gleaned, in addition to the information of Captain Semmes' letter to the Governor, a copy of which was sent to the United States Consul, immediately it was received, was that the schooner Atlas had just; returned from Malagas Island, where she had been with water and vegetables for men collecting guano
