Chapter 52:
- Alabama again in Cape Town -- the seizure of the Tuscaloosa, and the discussion which grew out of it -- correspondence between the author and Admiral Walker -- final action of the home Government, and release of the Tuscaloosa.
After our long absence in the East Indies, we felt like returning home when we ran into Table Bay. Familiar faces greeted us, and the same welcome was extended to us as upon our first visit. An unpleasant surprise awaited me, however, in the course the British Government had recently pursued in regard to my tender, the Tuscaloosa. The reader will recollect, that I had dispatched this vessel from Angra Pequeña, back to the coast of Brazil, to make a cruise on that coast. Having made her cruise, she returned to Simon's Town, in the latter part of December, in want of repairs and supplies. Much to the astonishment of her commander, she was seized, a few days afterward, by Admiral Sir Baldwin Walker, under orders from the Home Government. Since I had left the Cape, a correspondence had ensued between the Governor, Sir Philip Wodehouse, and the Secretary for the Colonies, the Duke of Newcastle; the latter disapproving of the conduct of the former, in the matter of the reception of the Tuscaloosa. It was insisted by the Duke, that inasmuch as the Tuscaloosa was an uncondemned prize, she was not entitled to be regarded as a ship of war; but that, on the contrary, having been brought into British waters, in violation of the Queen's orders of neutrality, she should have been detained, and handed over to her original owners. Under these instructions, the Tuscaloosa was seized upon her return to the Cape. This correspondence between the Governor and the Duke had not yet been made public,
