St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-03-16
NO FISH STORY THIS.
Other Officers of Allfanca Corrob-
crate Story Of the Outro~o


crate Story OF the Outrage.
NEW. YORK March 15.@Aithough
Senor Murugua, the Spanish minister
at Washington, says that the story of
a Spanish man-of-war having fired
on the Allianca off the Colombian line
looks like sea serpent story, the Of
hcers OF the ship when seen this after
noon by the Associated Press reporter
were very emphatic in their denunci-
ations of the attack.
First Officer Benjamin Corning who
was in charge of the ship described
the attack made on the American
steamer by the Spanish man-of-war.
1t doesn't NATTER said he, what
the Spanish minister may think. but I
can tell you this is no fish story. The
Allianca was about leagues off the
shore at $50 on the morning of March
8, and Cape Maysi was abeam. 1 was
not the officer of the deck, as Mr. Rus
sell was on the bridge and the captain
was looking around. l was attending
to the cleaning up of the ship and the
men were swabbing the decks when
my attention was attracted to ship
bearing out from the land. When she
was about three miles off we hoisted
our ensign and dipped 1t three times
and the on-coming steamer answered
with a similar salute. Shortly after
wards I recognized her to be a Span
ish man-ofwar, as she was flying the
national colors. We kept on our
course, however, which was a little
further off than usual, being fully
three leagues from the shore. 1 was
standing aft when we signaled and
was very much surprised when the
warship opened fire on us. The first
three shots were evidently blanks, as
1 saw no shells touch the water
First Officer Corning warmed up as
he detailed the story of the firing and
said: Now mind you, we did not
on our way. After firing the three
blank shots the Spanish boat was In
our wake, about three miles off and
she hauled her head to the eastward
so as to get her guns to bear on u.s.
Then she fired three shots at intervals
of a quarter of an hour, two of the
shells dropping some 600 yards on our
fsstarboard quarter and the third one a
similar distance on our port quarter.
We kept going as we did not like the
missiles and we soon showed the
Spanish skipper clean pair of heels.
In less than an hour after the fusillade
we lost sight of the Spaniard, and she
seemed to be sulking at not being able
to bring us to stand-still.
There is 10 truth in the stateme ent
published in some newspapers that
on our future voyages we are going
to be armed, as there is no necessity
for our doing SO, for we can run away
from any Spanish warship afioat.
An officer of the Atlas Steamship Ailsa
has made an assertion that that
steamer had us in sight from early
morning on the very day of the out
rage until sundown. This is errone-
GUS, for after we had outstripped the
Spanish warship we could only see the
smoke of the Ailsa, as she was hull
down, not even a spar to be seen.
This was $50 a. M, and we only dis
cerned her identity as we passed her
at $50 o'clock in the evening when
we were going into Fortune island"
Second Officer r. B. w. Russell gave
ithe following account of the occur
renee: 1--WE were coming up rapidly
vith Cape Maysi, and at $3.50 I discov-
Fxred a steamer under the land, appar-
| entity heading out towards US. We
were then well off shore. AS we went
along 1 noticed the oncoming steamer
kept shifting her course trifie, as II
to intercept us, and I notified Capt
| Crossman of that fact. He came ur
on the bridge, and we concluded the
| steamer was a Spanish gunboat. oul
1 course at that time was ne. The
Spaniard kept standing DIP toward the
ship, but We paid no furthef attention
| to her until she hoisted her flag. We
! then returned the salute by dipping
our flag three times. The Spaniart