The Alabama, leaving her prize outside, anchored in
the bay 3.30 P.M., when Captain Semmes wrote to me that he wanted
supplies and repairs, as well as permission to land thirty-three
prisoners. After communicating with the United States Consul, I
authorized the latter, and called upon him to state the nature and
extent of his wants, that I might be enabled to judge of the time he
ought to remain in the port. The same afternoon he promised to send the
next morning a list of the stores needed, and announced his intention of
proceeding with all despatch to Simon's Bay to effect his repairs there.
The next morning (August 6th) the Paymaster called on me with the
merchant who was to furnish the supplies, and I granted him leave to
stay till noon of the 7th.
On the night of the 5th, Her Majesty's ship Valorous had come round from
Simon's Bay. During the night of the 6th the weather became
unfavourable; a vessel was wrecked in the bay, and a heavy sea prevented
the Alabama from receiving her supplies by the time arranged. On the
morning of the 8th, Captain Forsyth, of the Valorous, and the Port
Captain, by my desire, pressed on Captain Semmes the necessity for his
leaving the port without any unnecessary delay; when he pleaded the
continued heavy sea and the absence of his cooking apparatus, which had
been sent on shore for repairs, and had not been returned by the
tradesman at the time appointed, and intimated his own anxiety to get
away.
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