St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-03-16
NO FISH STORY THIS
osher Officers of Allianca Corrob-
4 crate Story OF the 0Ytr

crate Story OF the Outrage
: NEW YORK, March z15.-Althoueb
senior Murugua, the Spanish minister
at washington, says that the story of
spanish man-of-war having fired
on the Alliance off the Colombian line
LOOKS IKE 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-
atoms 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.
II doesn't matter" said he, what
the Spanish minister may think but 7
can tell you this is no fish story. The
Alliance was about leagues off the
shore at $50 on the morning of March
8, and Cape Maysi was abeam. / 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 a shin
bearing out from the land. When she
was about three miles off we hoisted
our ensign and dipped it three times
and the on-coming steamer answered
with similar salute. Shortly after
wards l recognized her to be a Span
ISM man-of-war, 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
L saw no shells touch the water"
First Officer Corning warmed I'D as
he detailed the story of the firing and
said: Now mind you, we did not
slow up; not a bit. but we kept right
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 us.
Then she fired three shots at intervals
of a quarter of an hour, two of the
shells dropping some 600 yards on our
etarboard quarter and the third one a
similar distance on our port quarter
We kept going as we did not like the
Spanish skipper a clean pair of heels.
In less than an hour after the fusilIade
we lost sight of the Spaniard, and she
seemed to be sulking at not being able
to bring us to a Stand-still.
There is no truth in the statement
published in some newspapers that
on our future voyages we are going
to be armed, as there is no necessity
E,0~ I :,
from any Spanish warship afoat.
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 shutdown. 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 T. 3. w. Russell gave
the following account of the occur
renee: I'VE were coming up rapidly
With Cape Maysi, and at $50 1 discov-
sred steamer under the land appar-
emily heading out towards us. We
were then well off shore. AS we went
along noticed the oncoming steamer
kept shifting her course a trife, as if
to intercept us, and I notified Capt.
Crossman of that fact. He came up
on the bridge, and we concluded the
steamer was Spanish gunboat. Our
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
Their returned the salute by dipping
our flag three times. The Spaniard