The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 2, 1803

THE THISTLE AND THE TUSCARORA

The following has been addressed to the Scots-
man, signed "S. NI. Underhill," and dated St.
Thomas, West Indies, December, 1862 ;
"As an account of the stoppage and search of a
British merchant steamer in the Atlantic by an
American man-of-war may not be without interest
to your readers, I subjoin the particulars of such an
event which happened to the vessel in which I am
a passenger, on Saturday, the 29th November last.
"The Thistle is a screw steamer of 206 tons re-
gister. She was built on the Clyde three years ago,
for the Glasgow and Londonderry Steampacket
Company, in whose service she has acquired the
reputation of being the fastest screw steamer hailing
from the Clyde. She was bought by her present
owners in October last, and after undergoing a
thorough overhaul, left the Bramley Moor Dock,
Liverpool, on Thursday, the 20th ult. (November),
for Nassau, New Providence. She left England
with a very valuable cargo, 190 tons in weight, and
she also carried upwards of 200 tons of coals. She
was commanded by an able and experienced captain
(G. M. Maxted), and was manned by a numerous
and efficient crew (in all about 30). Notwithstand-
ing she experienced some very bad weather, she
speedily accomplished the first stage of her journey
and came to an anchor in Funchal Roads (Madeira),
about noon on Wednesday, Nov. 26. As the Thistle
stood in towai d the island, she sighted a large screw
steamer, apparently a man-of-war, whose rig cor •
responded to the description of the United States
steamer Tuscarora. This vessel was distant from
the land about six miles, and on seeing the Thistle
anchor, she went aboat and again put to sea. On
shore conjectures were rife as to whether the
stranger might not be the Confederate steamer
Alabama, expected at Madeira.
" Immediately after her arrival the Thistle com-
menced taking in the coal for which she had
stopped at the island, and the day passed with-
out further intelligence of the suspicious looking-
stranger. About nine p.m., her Britannic Majesty's
paddle-steamer Leopard, seven days from Ply-
mouth, and buund to China, came into the roads also
for coal, and anchored outside of the Thistle. The
coaling of both vessels proceeded steadily all the
succeeding day (Thursday) ; and about dusk the
strange steamer was again off the bay, but, as be-
fore, she again bore away to sea. By noon next
day (Friday) the Thistle, having taken on board
260 tons of coal, was ready to resume her voyage,
and her departure was fixed for the folio wing morn-
ing. About four in the afternoon, the Portuguese
signal station on the Loo Fort (an isolated fortified
rock in the bay) signalled that an American man-
of-war was standing in, and soon after the wonder
of the two preceding days steamed majestically into
the roads, the stars and stripes floating from her
mizen peak. She was a large three-masted wooden
screw steamer, with a square-rigged foremast, and
her main and mizen masts schooner-rigged. She
apparently carried a broadside of six or seven heavy
guns, with several large pivot guns on deck. She
was supposed by every one to be the Tuscarora, but
it was only conjecture, as no name was to be seen
on her stern or elsewhere. She did not pay the
customary salute to either Portuguese or British
flags, but steamed silently to an anchorage, a little
ahead of the Thistle, and astern of the Leopard.
Immediately after her arrival she was boarded by
the Consul, and soon after commenced to coal, her
captain giving orders that the coaling should be
finished by midnight. Considering the Thistle's
destination, it was not unnatural that she should
keep a sharp look-out on her formidable neighbour;
and several times during the night one of the

Federal vessel's boats, commanded by an officer,
after having quietly pulled alongside, was detected
attempting to engage the Thistle's look-out in con-
versation,

"With sunrise on Saturday morning, the Thistle
got up her steam and her anchor, and, passing
between the two war ships, dipped her ensign in
salute as she passed each. The American took no
notice of the compliment ; the Englishman did, and
dipped his ensign in return. The Thistle had
not steamed more than a mile from her anchor-
age, every one on board intently watching the
American (who had kept steam up all night), when
suddenly his chain cable was seen to rush through
his hawser holes, and he headed in chase of the

Thistle. He had slipped his cable, attaching
thereto a buoy, that he might save the time neces-
sary to weigh anchor. The Thistle held on her
course, and going at full speed, gained rapidly on
her pursuer, getting almost beyond range. The
Thistle would now be distant about five miles from
Funchal, the American about three miles, though
in the fine clear atmosphere the distance did not
seem so great. The American, now seeing that he
was much inferior to the English steamer in speed,
fired a bow gun as a signal for the latter to stop,
and Captain blasted (of the Thistle), wishing to be
overhauled while he could still claim the protection
of the Leopard, obeyed the summons, and hove to.
The Yankee bore down at full speed, his ports open,
and guns run out, while his ports and hammock
nettings, were one mass of faces, as his crew crowded
to look at their chase, and possibly to gloat over
their prospective prize. When a very short dis-
tance from the Thistle the American stopped, and a
boat containing an armed boarding party of two
officers and eleven men shoved off. As they neared
the Thistle the word ' Tuscarora' was discernible on
their cap bands, and doubt became a certainty when
the first lieutenant of the American boarded the
Thistle, and announced that Captain Craven, com-
manding the U.S. steam sloop-of-war Tuscarora had
desired him to board and search the Thistle, having
learned that she carried ammunition and other
articles contraband of war for the use of the rebels
in the Southern States. The English red
ensign now flew, as it had all morning flown,
from the Thistle's flagstaff; and Captain blasted
having told the lieutenant that his information
was erroneous, pointed to the ensign, and said

that, as she was a British vessel and had a British

clearance from one British port to another, he
would if necessary claim the protection of
H.B.M.S. Leopard. The lieutenant (who was
apparently a German), with more emphasis than
courtesy, expressed his contempt for the flag
and protection so invoked, and demanded a

sight of the ship's papers, pointing to his crew, and
threatening to employ force if necessary ; and he
declared if he found there was anything contraband
of war on board, he would seizo the vessel as a
United States prize. A set of bills of lading being
handed him, he stepped into the cabin to inspect
them, though he seemed to understand nothing
about such documents, and he very speedily got
quite confused amongst the invoices of coffee, tea,
brandy, &c., with which he was so accommodat-
ingly plied. Giving up the perusal in despair, he
said he would have a look at the cargo, when he
was reminded that upwards of 260 tons of coal
would first have to be removed. He professed not
to care for this labour, and was proceeding to order
' the search, when he was advised to be quick, as the
Leopard was approaching, Signals were now rapidly
exchanged between the lieutenant on the Thistle
and the officers on the Tuscarora's poop, and the
lieutenant's notebook was sent back to the Tusca-
rora by the boat of the latter vessel.
" During the lieutenant's inspection of the
Thistle's papers, the American boat's crew had com-
menced to chaff the crew of the Thistle, who nothing
loth, kept up the wordy war. Ono of the Thistle's
mates, the late boatswain of the Confederate steamer
290, asked if the Tuscarora's crew had made much
prize money this fall. A Yankee in the boat
' reckoned they hadn't turned a cent." Oh,' re-
sponded the mate, 'you're not half chaps. The Ala-
bama's men
have each made a little fortune off the
New York blockade. ' Oh,' said the officer in the
boat, 4 we should like to fall
he
iins
nweiatrhththisa?t,pi,raNtoe
Do you
Semmes.
ehance of his being
in these latitudes,' replied the
mate, ' or the Tuscarora daren't have ventured
wishotfo l bi
vei
n'
gi n
and the
dl ay ni
ndgo
,f
down.' Some of the Britishers expressed their
hadn't ' maybe
to get there first,' and so
man in the boat suggested that they
stilomwelythreounFdedaenrdal r
os tuena
dm et All this
incoDttioxni,e';,and their inten-
tion
while:: an Irish-
moving
rhe hTandistlbee, been
minNuvtleiischafhtaed
remained stationary. In a fewr
, the boat had been sent back to the Tuscarora, it

returned with instructions to the Tuscarora to re-
pair on board his own. vessel, and as no orders to the
contrary had been given the Thistle resumed her
journey. No countenance ever displayed disap-
pointed rage more strongly than did those of the
ill-looking and motley crew (apparently of every
nation) of the Tuscarora's boat as they pulled back
to their own ship, amidst cheers for Old England,'
hurrahs for the Leopard, and so on.
" The Leopard had now approached to within a
short distance from the Tuscarora, which latter
vessel steamed slowly back towards Funchal ; the
Leopard as slowly followed in her wake. AstheTus-
carora neared the town, she lay to and fired a gun,
the Thistle continuing her course for St. Thomas.
Towards afternoon, and when land could no longer
be seen, the lookout at the Thistle masthead re-
ported the Tuscarora again in chase. Glasses were
at once levelled astern, and sure enough there she
came, her lofty spars crowded with canvas and
rapidly gaining on the Thistle, which could not
carry a tithe of the sail spread by her pursuer.
Captain INlaxted, seeing she would be overtaken,
turned the Thistle's head to wind, and went ahead
fullspeed,the success of the manoauvresoon becoming
apparent, as the American, on changing his course,
had to take in all sail, and trust to his engines alone.
He fired gun after gun, but with no effect; and at
sunset his topmast was barely discernible on the
horizon. At nightfall the Thistle's course was
again changed, and she headed away for the north-
east trades, having now thoroughly baffled her pur-
suer, of whom she saw no more during the period
that intervened ere she completed the second stage
of her journey, by anchoring in St. Thomas to pro-
cure coal to carry her on to Nassau.
"I do not dilate on the feeling of those on board
the Thistle during the search, nor the joy with
which the Leopard's arrival was hailed by them. I
merely state the facts as they occurred."

of a delicate lady of the highest refinement, the
mother of nine children.

" In his first interview with the authorities of the
city Butler had declared he would take no cognis-
ance of any acts committed before he occupied the
city, and established martial law therein. This
solemn and oft-repeated pledge he has violated in a
thousand instances.

"Of the other prisoners there are three captains
in the Confederate service, who have copies of their
parole as prisoners of war, and who are sent here
upon no specific charge, but as suspicious persons,
who might break the lines and go into the Confe-
derate service. They are Capt. M'Lean, late of the
M'Culloch Rangers ; Capt. Losberg, who com-
manded the De Feriet Guards of the Chalmette
Regiment, captured and paroled by Commodore
Farragut in the attack upon the forts below the city ;
and Captain Batchilders, of the 3d Regiment of
Lousiana Regulars. There is also a young creole,
the sole protector of his family, his father having
recently died, who is sentenced to an indefinite
punishment, on the charge, supported by the testi-
mony of his own slave, a negro boy, of having
thrown a revolver into the river after Butler's order
requiring the citizens to give up their arms had
been published. This is the case of Mr. Le Beau,
belonging to one of the oldest and most respectable
creole families in the State. The other prisoners
here are imprisoned upon like frivolous charges;
some eight or ten of them for the publication of
cards denying that they had taken the oath of alle-
giance to the United States, their names having
been published in Butler's journal among those who
had taken that oath.

" In the case of Mr. Davidson, a gallant young
lawyer, who has not yet recovered from a severe
wound received at Shiloh, the offence consisted in
his publishing a card stating that he was not the
person of the same name was published as
having taken the oath.
" So much for the prisoners at Ship Island, with
the facts of whose cases I am personally acquainted.
I refrain from any reference to my own case, hard
as my doom is, closely confined on this island, with
all my property appropriated by the enemy, and my
family placed under strict espionage, and subjected
to many annoyances, insults, and discomforts.
With all its trials and hardships, the condition of
the prisoners here is quite easy and endurable com-
pared with that of those who are confined in the
damp and unwholesome casemates of Forts Jack-
son and St Phillip, on the Mississippi, and in Fort
Pickens, on Santa Rosa Island.

"Among the latter is the mayor of the city, who
has been imprisoned for foar months for the offence
of writing a letter to Butler, protesting against his
order relative to the treatment of the ladies of the
city, and declaring his inability to maintain the
peace of the city if the Federal soldiers were not
authorised to insult and outrage our women at their
own pleasure and will.
" The secretary of the mayor, who wrote the let-
ter signed by the mayor, was included in the same
committal and imprisonment. Several members of
the council, for like or smaller offences, suffer the
same punishment.
"Dr. Porter, a wealthy dentist and citizen, is im-
prisoned for requiring the Citizens' Bank, the
pet bank and place of deposit of Butler and his
agents, in his vast scheme of corruption and extor-
tion, to pay cheques in the currency which Butler
alone allowed the banks to pay.
" George Laurason, formerly collector of the port
of New Orleans, suffers a like penalty for applying
for a passport to go to Europe, whore his family
now is.

" Thomas Murray, as president of that benevolen t
institution known as the Free Market, which sup-
plied the families of the soldiers with the means of
subsistence; Charles Heidseich, a French citizen,
the owner of the celebrated wine manufactory in
France ; Mr. Dacres, and other British citizens ;
Mr. Mir, a wealthy and highly respectable Spanish
citizen, the owner of extensive saw-mills in Florida,
and the contractor to supply the French navy with
timber, are all imprisoned at Fort Pickens, for en-
deavouring to pass the lines without taking the
oath prescribed by B atler for foreigners, which oath
requires them to reveal to the United States all in-
formation they may have respecting the acts and
deeigns of the Confederate States on pain of being

regarded and treated as enemies and spies. There
are, too, many prisoners who are confined on the
information of political and personal enemies as
dangerous characters, for offences alleged to have
been committed by them months and years before
Butler's arrival in the city. Dr. M'Pherson, an
elderly and most respectable citizen, was condemned
to the casemates of Fort Jackson for speaking in a
circle of his friends of Butler's proclamation No.
28, that relative to the ladies of New Orleans, as
infamous'—the very epithet which Lord Palmer-
ston in the House of Commons declared to be the
only appropriate one.
" Dr. Warren Stone, the distinguished surgeon
and philanthropist, was consigned to a like punish-
ment for refusing to recognise an individual who
had been announced as president of a Union Asso-
ciation, and yet who a few months before had made
in public a most violent speech against the Yankees,
and had advised our people to cut the throats of all
invaders.

" Several ladies of the highest social position have
been imprisoned for the expression of sympathy with
the Confederates, and the wearing ribbons of cer

tain colours.

" Mrs. Dubois, an elderly lady, long engaged in
the business of teaching our children, was impri-
soned on the charge of not being able to account for
certain keys and books belonging to the schools,
which were never in her possession.
" All the members of the finance committee of the
city councils are imprisoned for authorising the sub-
scription of the city to the fund fur its defence, and
several hundreds of our citizens who subscribed to
this fund have been compelled to pay 25 per cent.
of their subscription to Butler, under a threat of
imprisonment at hard labour. To swell this exac-
tion to the sum of 300,000 dols., all the cotton
factors of the city who had united in a circular ad-
dress to the planters advising them not to send
their cotton to New Orleans, were assessed fines of
500 dols. and 250 dole,, which they had to pay or
go to prison.
" The treatment of a venerable citizen named
Roberts, a farmer, living a short distance from
Baton Rouge, is one of peculiar atrocity. A son of
Mr. Roberts, a soldier of the Confederate army,
having come on sick leave to see his parents, a de-
tachment of the 21st Indiana Regiment was sent to
arrest him. The young man hearing the approach of
armed men, went out to meet them, when several
shots were fired by the Indians, one of which killed
young Roberts. The father, seeing the clanger of his
son, seized a gun and fired through the door,
slightly wounding Col. M‘Millan, the commandant
of the detachment. He was then arrested, and
charged with having killed his own son, and was
taken with the rest of his family from his home ;
the body of his son being brought out and laid on
the ground, the building, all the outhouses, barns,
and stables, were burnt to the ground, and his mules,
horses, and cattle were driven off to the Federal
camp. Old IVIr. Roberts was condemned to close
imprisonment for 20 years, and this imprisonment
he is now undergoing at Fort Pickens.
" There are many other cases of equal atrocity
and hardship of citizens of the highest respecta-
bility, who, upon the most frivolous charges, have
been dragged from their homes by a brutal soldiery
and immured in cells or the casemates of forts, and
condemned to hard labour.
" I have not the time nor the exact information to
state these cases fully. The prisons of New Orleans
are crowded with citizens, whose highest offence
consists in the expression of opinions and of hopes
for the success of the Confederate cause. Not a few
are confined for repeating reports of Confederate
victories, or for having in their possession news.
papers containing such reports.
"A Mr. Levy, a respectable merchant, was im-
prisoned for one month for stating to a Federal that
he heard that Baton Rouge had been evacuated when
it really had been evacuated.
"Another citizen was arrested in the cars, and
imprisoned for saying that the distress for cotton
in England would seen increase; and another for
repeating what had been published in the Delta,
that 'Richmond had fallen,' such a remark being

regarded as ironical, after the Confederate victories
in the first days of July.
" A great many have been imprisoned on the in-
formation of their slaves that they had concealed or
destroyed arms, and the informers emancipated.
" Mr. Lathrop, a respectable lawyer, is now un-
dergoing in the parish prison a sentence of two
years imprisonment for kidnapping his own slave,
who had been appropriated by a Federal officer.
This sentence Butler declared was intended as a
warning to the people not to interfere with the ser-
vants of his officers, meaning the slaves of our citi-
zens appropriated by them.

" A number of our citizens, enrolled as Partisan
Rangers, or in the State Militia, have been closely
imprisoned, and threatened with death as guerillas
or pirates.
" W. E. Seymour, late a captain in one of the
regiments in the defence of the State, and honour-
ably paroled, is a close prisoner at Fort St. Philip,
and his property all confiscated on account of an
obituary notice which appeared in his own paper,
the Bulletin, of his father, the late gallant Colonel
J. G. Seymour, of the 6th Louisiana, who fell in
the battle of Gaines Mill. The writer of the article,
Mr. Dennis, an old and infirm citizen, was sub-
jected to a like punishment, and is now a prisoner
at Fort Pickens.

" Besides these instances, there are a great many
citizens who have only escaped imprisonment by
the payment of large prices, and in many cases by
bribing Federal officers of influence. To enumerate
the cases of confiscation by order of Butler, and in
many eases even by the order of his subordinates,
would exceed the bounds I have affixed to this re-
port. I have, however, kept a record of these cases,
and will communicate them at some other time.
Suffice it to say that nearly all the large and com-
modious houses of our citizens, especially those of
absentees and officers in our army and Government,
have been thus appropriated. Officers of no
higher grade than lieutenants occupy houses which
have cost our citizens 30,000 dollars. Where
furniture has been removed, or when deficient
in any articles which the appropriators may
deem necessary to their comfort, they are purchased
at the expense of the owners of the property. The
wives and families of our citizens are frequently
ejected from these houses to make way for coarse
Federal officers and the negro women whom they
appropriate as their wives and concubines. Ships
have been loaded with costly articles of furniture
stolen—they say confiscated—from our citizens, and
transmitted north to the families of Federal officers.
May a house in New England is even now re-
soundiug with tones of pianos thus stolen from the
parlours of our citizens. A vast amount of silver has
been appropriated in like manner. The example
set by Butler in appropriating the house of General
Twigg's minor heir, and furnishing it in a most
lavish and luxurious style at the expense of the
estate, and in transmitting the plate and swords of
the deceased veteran to Lowell—the seizure and re-

moval to the North of the statue of Washington by
Powers, and of the State library from the eapital of
Baton Rouge—have been extensively followed by
Butler's subordinates.
" Nor have I here space to expose the extortions
of Butler through the agency of his brother, an
abandoned gambler and speculator, who has com-
pelled our citizens, by all kinds of threats, to sell
their property to him at rates fixed by him ; who
has monopolised all the shipping employed by the
United States to transport the produce thus forced
from our people, and has acted as broker to obtain
remissions of penalties, and the restoratior. of fugi-
tive slaves, in many cases on condition of the pay-
ment of half their value, and on pledges of half the
growing crops. In this manner have the planta-
tions within 50 miles of New Orleans been taxed.
Many of them, unable to secure even these terms,
have been depopulated.
" You have, doubtless, been made acquainted
with the proceedings of Butler to compel our citi-
zens to take the oath of allegiance to the Union
States, the prohibition of all trade to those who
have not taken the oath, and the seizure of their funds
in the bank. The last device will be to compel all
those who do not take that oath to register them-
selves as enemies of the United States, when they
will be either imprisoned or driven from the city,
and their pi operty confiscated. These orders, espe-
cialiy the oath requirement, are appl:cable as well
to women as to men. Indeed, the malice of Butler

against females is more bitter and insatiable than
that against males. A placard in his office in large
letters—' The venom of the she-adder is as dange-
rous as that of the he-adder.'

" And this is but a feeble and deficient present-
ment of the enormities and brutalities of this
cowardly and brutal monster. It is in vain that
some of his subordinates remonstrate and protest
against many of his acts. He will permit no one to
thwart his two great objects—to bid highest for
the favour of the Northern mob, and to accumulate
a vast fortune by extortion and plunder. The ex-
tent to which this latter purpose is carried will sur-
pass all similar efforts of great robbers, from Verres
down.
" I content myself with this mere epitome of
Butler's crimes. At some other more favourable oc-
casion I will present them in greater detail and
with the authentic proof which I cannot now com-
mand. It would not be becoming in me to solicit
or to suggest that some steps be taken by the Pre-
sident and Government of the Confederate States
to arrest and to avenge these wrongs done our
people. I have full confidence that all will be done
in that behalf which can be done.
" I beg to subscribe myself faithfully and respect-
fully yours, "