The Portland daily press., 1897-10-02

Bishop Dominic Lefevre. vicar apostolic
of Cochin China. In it he stated that he
was in prison at the capital. Hue, and
presuming that we were Frenchmen,
called upon us to make a demand upon
the King of AMMAN for his release as
well as to ask for peace and quietude for
hi; compatriots, the missionaries. The
letter was dated May 10 the day we ar
rived off the harbor and postscript was
attached dated May IL in these words: i
am condemned to death without delay.
Hasten or all is finished.
Here was quandary. A subject of
a foreign nation was in the direst straits
and in need of immediate help. He was
a Christian and in the cause OF humanity
there was but one thing to do. There
was no French man -of-war nearer than
Macao 500 miles distant and before help
could be brought the Bishop would have
met his fate. The suspicious actions of
the visitors might now be accounted for
from the fact that they thought we were
after the Frenchman.
1.-THE Constitution lay about two miles
from the shore. Our four quarter boats
were manned and the ship was warped
still nearer the shore and soon afterward
a procession of the ships Doats might
have been seen slowly proceeding up the
river under the command of Mad jack
Percival himself. We landed at Touron
the Captain and First Lieutenant in ad-
vance then the officers followed by @
strong guard of marines and sailors
The column then took up the line of
march in good order to the palace here
Mr. Alden had had his interview and our
men were stationed several feet apart
from the house to the boats all armed
with muskets and pistols.
"It seemed as if the whole city were
out including the soldiery who were
armed with some muskets OF an ancient
French pattern. I imagine that the
townspeople thought we were returning
the call of the Governor. Upon reaching
the door. Mad Jack in his high pitched
voice demanded to see the Governor and
our guest of the morning then put in his
appearance. But it seemed that the beg
gars had played a trick upon us and had
sent a second-rate mandarin instead of
first-rate one to visit us there being two
Governors of whom the civil was number
one and the military second in rank.
This parsonage told Mad jack that
if he wanted to see Governor No l he
would have to state his business. In re-
ply to this the Captain said he would
wait fifteen minutes for the Governor to
come out or he would carry the entire
household on board his ship as hostages
for the Fren hman, for whom letter
had been prepared, written in French
and Chinese.
"The Governor did not appear at the
end of the time, and the six mandarins
and their attendants were accordingly
taken to the boats and dumped on board
the ship. That these personages We're
not of the cleaniiest in their personal
habits we had good reason to discover
later after they left the ship, for the cabin
which they had occupied was found to be
infested with vernin.
Letters passed to and fro for several
days, and we captured three or four of
the Kings jrnks and number of small
Ter craft. AT last we received a letter
from the King stating that Bishop
Lefevre would bo spared and would be
delivered to q French man of war if we
would only go, which latter alternative
we agreed to. But, before taking final
leave we put in day outside of the har
Dor demonstrating to the heather the
horrible possibilities of the foreign DEVILS s
warship. We afterward spoke an Eng
lish vessel, bound from Singapore to
Hong Kong, by which we learned that a
French sloop-of-war was on the way to
relieve Bishop Lefevre and that he was
delivered safe and sound to the French
warship.
''The two Governors Of Touron were
| placed upon the backs of mules, tied
with their faces coward the tails, and
driven up and down the Leach in front of
Old Ironsides. and afterward were decan-
itated for allowing us to carry off the
mandarins
"This ended the war teteen the kingdom
! of AMMAN ana the United States shin
Constitution. AT Macao we had tha
pleasure of seeing the Reverend Bishon
at the house of W. P. Pierce, our Con-
sui, and of listening to his profuse thanks