She was not a very valuable prize, being merely a small brigantine, called the Joseph Park, of Boston, six days out from Pernambuco, in ballast.  But she was the first fruits of a fresh cruise, and right joyously did the boat’s crew pull on board her to haul down the enemy’s flag, and replace it with the saucy stars and bars.[3]

[Footnote 3:  The author of the “Notes” in the Index writes:—­

“The officer who boarded the Joseph Park asked the captain if he had cargo.  ‘No.’—­’Have you any specie?’ ’Not a dollar.’—­’Then, captain, you must get into the boat, and go with me on board the Sumter.’  ’What are you going to do with me when I get on board?’ The officer told him it would depend entirely upon circumstances; that if he behaved himself, and did not try to conceal anything, he would receive kind treatment; that it all depended upon himself ‘Well,’ said he, ‘captain’ (he called the officer who had boarded him captain) ’I have got a thousand dollars down below, and I guess I had better give it to you.’  So he went below, and from out of some little hole took the bag containing the gold.  The officer asked him why he had hidden the money, as we had the United States colours up.  He said he thought it was the Sumter, and wanted to be on the safe side.  The whole scene between the officer and the captain of the Joseph Park was ludicrous in the extreme.  The answers to questions with that Yankee nasal twang and Yankee cunning, the officer seeing through it and enjoying it all the while, made many jokes in our mess afterwards.”]

This done, the crew were transferred to the captain’s vessel, and a prize crew passed on board of the Joseph Park, with instructions to keep within sight of the Sumter, and signal her immediately on perceiving any suspicious sail.  So the two cruised for some days in company, the Joseph Park keeping to windward during the day, and at night running down under cover of the Sumter’s guns.  This capture was none the less welcome for the news she brought in a file of recent papers from Pernambuco, of the first victory of the South at Manassas, or Bull Run, as well as of the successes achieved in Missouri over the troops of General Lyon.  Poor Joseph Park! she had little anticipated her fate, and not a little amusement was created among her captors by an entry in her log of the day after leaving Pernambuco:—­“We have a tight, fast vessel, and we don’t care for Jeff.  Davis!” “My unfortunate prisoner,” remarks Captain Semmes, “had holloa’d before he was out of the wood.”

The journal continues:—­

Friday, September 27th.—­This is my fifty-second birthday, and so the years roll on, one by one, and I am getting to be an old man!  Thank God, that I am still able to render service to my country in her glorious struggle for the right of self-government, and in defence of her institutions, her property, and everything a people hold sacred.  We have thus far beaten the Vandal hordes that have