Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1889-05-25
A BuRLEsQuE NAVY.
Yankees Tell strange Things of the
Itaytien Fleet.


The Americans who were tempted to
take service on board Of the IIayticn man
of-war Dessnlines, have returned with an
amusing account Of their adventures, but
IL is no, likely that the IIayticn consul will
find u easy to engage any more men for
like service. They were starved and quar-.
tered among ragged and filthy colored
soldiers. Engineer John J. Graham was
sent Ia st. Marc to take charge Of the Tous-
saint rDuyerture, which lay at anchor of
the harbor. When he arrived there he
found the vessels machinery In "A wretched
state and her boiler unfit 10 carry steam.
Her ram bow had been bent six feet to one
side by collision, making it utterly inn
possible to steer n straight line under any
circumstances When her ruddcr was set
straight She would travel in circle. At
her hest, her course was like the wriggling
Of a snake. The crew were without food
aud almost max ed. Mutny was rife among
the crew, and il was all the officers could
do to prevent the men deserving In "A body.
Mates Brown and Conner were sent aboard
an old tug which had been named the
Panama She went to Port-au Prince from
New York with a wooden head in her
cylinder. Her armament, which was to
consist of one A-pound riiled Parrot gun,
was aboard Of La Defence. When they tried
To put IT aboard the Panama the chain
broke and the gun was lost in the harbor.
The men complain OF frequent arrests on
triiiing charges to prevent them from i'm
portunng the war Office for pay. Engi-
neer Hamilton is said To have gone mad
from bad treatment.
Engineer plumer says the IIaytan navy
is u grand burleSque. The DessalnCs is
armed with one tcn-inch smooth bore
mu2zle-loadcr on the forward deck, hut
the crew have no ammunition for IL. She
also has four twcnty-four-poun Farrott
muzzle- e-loading rifles, and they are short
of ammunition for them. Plumor says
also that the boilers Of the Dessalines are
utterly worthless She is liable to blow up
at any moment and is thoroughly unsoa-
worthy. La Defence is the best armed
vessel in the fleet, as she has two four inch
brooch loading rifles, mounted fore and
aft one an Armstrong and the other a
krupp. Besides those she has two TWEEN
| ty-four pound rlted PARROTS forward and
several smooth -borcs of small calihrc as
broadsidc guns. The Ilaytien government
has also enough small arms in the shape of
breech-loading Remington rifles 10 arm an
immense army. Nearly every iIayticn in
Por-nu-Prince carries n rifle, aud every
cafe and saloon has stacks of
guns left in pledge for debts.
When they went aboard la Defence Grp-
ham seized mess pot, In which was about
peek OF knives aud forks, aud stuck it
into the muzzlc of the lO-iuch gun, putting
the tampion in after II. That day the ad-
miral came aboard and as the gun was
loaded with blank cartridge, they used IT to
fire n salute. IL was pointed directly
toward, the town and point blank at the
Grand Cafe. There was rain of knives
and forks against the building, until they
stuck ont from the wall like quilts on y
porcupine
At st, Mare the forces of iIippolyte have
nten-inch smooth bore gun mounted about
! 800 feet up the mountain side. This
enables thom TO plant ball or shell about
! -four miles out in the bay. ON May ia
Defence, on which Chief Engineer Plumer
was ut that time, was sent Ia 81 Mare to
lombard the town. ON her approach she
was salutcd by a shot from the gun, which
is IN charge of an American gunner. The
ball struck her on the larboard side rail.
Fortunatelyit only carried away part of the
rail. As II was, some OF the negro sailors
aud soldiers were So frightened that they
Jumped into the sea.