Wednesday, April 15th.—­Weather clear, and light wind from the eastward.  Finished coaling ship this morning.  At about 11 A.M. a couple of whale-boats from two vessels in the offing pulled into the harbour; went on board our prize, and thence to the shore.  Although the two masters were told that we were the Iroquois, they seemed at once to have comprehended the true state of the case, and to make haste to put themselves out of harm’s way.  We were an hour and more getting up steam and weighing our anchor for the chase; and if in the meantime these whaling captains had pulled out to their ships, and run into shore so as to get within the league, they might have saved them.  We gave chase, and came up with both of them on the south side of the island, about half-past 3 P.M., and captured them—­both of them being without the league.  One the hermaphrodite brig Kate Cory, of Westport, and the other the barque Lafayette, of New Bedford; the barque we burned, and the brig we brought into the anchorage, arriving after dark, about 7 A.M.  We sounded in thirteen fathoms on a bank on the south side, on the southern extremity of which there is a breaker lying out from two and a half to three miles.  There is also a reef off Tobacco Point running out half a mile.  We saw no other dangers.

* * * * *

With reference to these captures, the following amusing account is extracted from the private journal of the officer of the Alabama who was prize-master on board the Louisa Hatch:—­

’At noon, on the 15th of April, two vessels were descried to the south, standing off and on, under reduced sail.  At 12:30 two boats were observed pulling towards us, asking my ship’s name, the port I hailed from, &c.  I answered correctly.  The person in charge of the other boat then inquired if the war-steamer was the Alabama.  I replied, ’Certainly not, she was the Iroquois U.S. steamer.’  ’Have you any news of the Alabama?’ ’Yes, we had heard of her being in the West Indies, at Jamaica or Costa Rica, &c.’  A conversation ensued, by which I learned that the boats belonged to the two vessels in the distance, that they were both whalers put in for supplies, and that seeing the steamer they were rather dubious as to her nationality, and had therefore spoke me, to gain the required information.  A brisk conversation was then kept up; my object in engaging them in it was to enable the Alabama to get under way ere the whalers took the alarm, feeling certain that the preparations were being made to go after them.

’I then invited the masters to come on board my ship, which they cheerfully consented to do, and were within a boat’s length, when a cry of alarm broke from the steersman in the foremost boat.  Shouting to his crew to ‘Give way, men; give way for your lives!’ he with a few well-directed, vigorous strokes, turned his boat’s head round, and made for the shore, the other boat following, blank astonishment being depicted on the face of each