The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1902-08-22
THE LATTER AT R0CKPORT
Declines to Leave for Fear Of
Defeat.
Sky Overcast with Heavy Clouds
But the White Squadron Has
Not Succeeded in Gain
ing an Anchorage.

Rockport, Mass, Aug. 21.-At midnight
thirty-six hours had passed of the pos
sible 100, for the naval conflict between
the attacking squadron. in charge OF
Commander Pillsbury. and the defending
squadron, commanded by Rear Admiral
Higginson. The coming of another day
was recorded. but the anticipated meet
ing between the hostile fleets had not
come to pass.
After a day which had been on the
whole devoid of sensations, the night
thick and cloudy as it was, with the
moon quite obscured, developed so many
confusing situations and so many extra
ordinary reports that the Higginson
squadron had just cause for uneasiness.
Somehow the feeling grew that it would
not be such difficult attainment after
all for the three auxiliary cruisers of
tho white squadron to slip in and an
Choir at some harbor, protected as they
would be, by the inviting darkness which
prevailed.
The Greatest Danger.
Perhaps the greatest danger which came
to Admiral Higginson was that of yield
ing to the temptation to withdraw the
Kearsarge and leave only the Alabama
and the Massachusetts, to go in search
of the eremy reported on apparently re-
liable authority to have been sighted at
either this point or that point along the
coast. Such reports We're In fact made.
IT the carly part of the night the sta
ton on the Isles of Shoals notified the
nearest rainland point by the use Of
an1 n
that a large, strange. two-masted craft
had been sighted outside the shoals. Ad-
miral Iiigginson's wonderful system of
signals worked to perfection. Almost in
a moment it seemed, the destroyer De-
catur was rocketed from Portsmouth to
pursue the mysterious conner. and In an
other moment the Decatur. with the
smoke belching from her four great
stacks, was blowing furiously through
the heavy seas.
The stranger turned and fed at full
speed, and this fact led to the decision
that she may have been one of the at
lacking fleet passing on scout duty At
late hour the Decatur had made no re-
port.
Strange Ship Sighted.
At II o'clock came another report of
strange ship sighted south of Eastern
Point Light, Gloucester. Admiral Higgin-
son at once ordered the torpedo boat
Bagley to investigate, but the Bagley
found to her surprise that 1t was the
cruiser Brooklyn, which had come down
from her northern station pursuant to the
privilege extended by Admiral Higginson
The reason that the Admiral steadfastly
refused to leave his anchorage in the
harbor here was that he dared not leave
Rockport exposed to the enemy, which
taking advantage OF needless passage OF
the defending battleships to another port
might easily creep in and drop anchor.
The complications which developed to-
day in the shape of undoubted news that
Commander Pillsbury had secretly landed
some of his officers ashore to spy upon
the movements of the blue squadron,
served only to increase the perplexity of
Admiral Higginson's position. and this
shore system of spying was one
OF the things which led the Admiral to
establish the new signal station off Straits
Mouth Point and also to remove his ships
early in the evening to a point just in
side Thatcher's Island.