We
also found that the flag-ship Brooklyn, twenty-two guns, and the
Oneida, nine guns, sailed in search of us. By their account of
the course they steered they could not fail to have seen us.
No. V.
THE ALABAMA IN TABLE BAY.
[From the _Cape Argus._]
_August 6th, 1863._
Yesterday, at almost noon, a steamer from the northward
was made down from the signal-post, Lion's-hill. The Governor
had, on the previous day, received a letter from Captain
Semmes, dated Saldanha Bay, 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 altogether suspended. All
that could be gleaned, in addition to the information in 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 guanos
there.
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