Several sail in sight, but I cannot yet leave my station
to overhaul them, lest my principal object should be defeated.
At noon, a schooner would insist on stumbling right into my path,
without the necessity of a chase. I brought her to, and she proved
to be United States property. She was the Mina, of and from
Baltimore, for Port Maria, on the north side of Jamaica. Her
cargo being English, I released her on a ransom bond for 15,000
dollars. She was of ninety tons, and thirteen years old. Kept her
by me until sunset, and then permitted her to depart, having
sent on board her the prisoners from the barque Parker Cook.
Our hopes of capturing a Californian steamer were considerably
damped by the intelligence given us by the mate of this schooner,
that these steamers no longer ran this route, but that the outward
bound took the Mona Passage (?), and the homeward bound the
Florida gulf passage. Still, I will wait a day or two longer to
make sure that I have not been deceived.
_Saturday, December 6th._--... At 9 A.M. hoisted
the propeller, and made sail to the northward and eastward. The
outward-bound Californian steamer is due off the Cape to-day, if
she takes this route at all; I will therefore keep the Cape in sight
all day. I glean the following paragraph from a New York letter,
published in a file of the _Baltimore Sun, _received from the
schooner Mina:--
"The shipments of grain from this port during the past week
have been almost entirely in foreign bottoms, the American flag
being for the moment in disfavour in consequence of the raid of
the rebel steamer Alabama!"
CHAPTER XXI.
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