The little Sumter’s days as a cruiser were numbered.  By no means a new boat when first converted by Captain Semmes into a vessel of war, the hard work and rough usage she had experienced in her seven months at sea, had been too much for her already enfeebled constitution, and she was now little better than a wreck.  At last she fairly broke down altogether, was surveyed by a board of her officers, pronounced unseaworthy, and on the 24th of February Captain Semmes makes the following entry in his journal:—­

“And so the poor old Sumter is to be laid up.  Well! we have done the country some service, having cost the United States at least a million of dollars, one way or another!”

And so she unquestionably bad.  Eighteen vessels captured; seven burned, with all their cargo on board; and two released on heavy ransom bonds, represent in themselves no inconsiderable amount of damage.  Add to this the amount really expended in pursuit of her; the enormously increased rates of insurance; the heavy losses from reluctance to entrust goods in United States bottoms, or to send ships themselves to sea under the United States colours, and we have an aggregate of loss that a million of dollars can hardly cover.

Her career was now over; but she was ere long to find a successor under the same command, beside whose exploits her own were to sink almost into insignificance.  The events of the few months that elapsed between the final abandonment of the Sumter and the Alabama’s start on her adventurous career, may best be gathered from Captain Semmes’ own official report to the Secretary of the Navy at Richmond.

Nassau, New Providence, June 15 to 20, 1862.

SIR,—­I have the honour to inform you of my arrival at this place, on the 8th instant, in twenty days, from London.  I found here Lieutenants Maffit and Sinclair, and received from the former your letter of May 29th, enclosing a copy of your despatch to me of May 2d.  As you might conclude from the fact of my being here, the original of the latter communication had not reached me; nor, indeed, had any communication whatever from the department.  As you anticipated, it became necessary for me to abandon the Sumter, in consequence of my being hemmed in by the enemy in a place where it was impossible to put the necessary repairs upon her-to make her fit to take the sea.  For some days after my arrival at Gibraltar, I had hopes of being able to reach another English or a French port, where I might find the requisite facilities for repair, and I patched my boilers, and otherwise prepared my ship for departure.  In consequence of a combination of the coal merchants against me, however, I was prevented from coaling; and, in the meantime, the enemy’s steamers, Tuscarora and Kearsarge, and the sailing sloop Ino, too, arrived and blockaded me.  Notwithstanding the arrival of these vessels, I should have made an effort to go to sea, but for the timely discovery of further defects in my boilers, which took place