Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

[255] take the kicking back, as we have just seen. It might do, doubtless thought Captain Palmer, to kick some small power, but France! there was the rub. If the Sumter were only in Bahia, where the Florida afterward was, how easily and securely the kicking might be done? A gallant captain, with a heavy ship, might run into her, cut her down to the water's edge, fire into her crew, struggling in the water, killing, and wounding, and drowning a great many of them, and bear off his prize in triumph! And then, Mr. Seward, if he should be called upon, not by Brazil alone, but by the sentiment of all mankind, to make restitution of the ship, could he not have her run into, by accident, in Hampton Roads, and sunk; and would not this be another feather in his diplomatic cap— Yankee feather though it might be? What is a diplomat fit for, unless he can be a little cunning, upon occasion? The b'hoys will shout for him, if history does not. The reader need no longer wonder at the ‘backing and filling’ of the Iroquois, around the little Sumter; or at the sleepless night passed by Captain Palmer.

The next morning, the Governor having heard of what had been done; how the neutral waters of France had been violated by manoeuvre and by menace, though the actual attack had been withheld, sent up from Fort de France the steamer-of-war Acheron, Captain Duchatel, with orders to Captain Palmer, either to anchor, if he desired to enter the harbor, or to withdraw beyond the marine league, if it was his object to blockade the Sumter; annexing to his anchoring, if he should choose this alternative, the condition imposed by the laws of nations, of giving the Sumter twenty-four hours the start, in case she should desire to proceed to sea. Soon after the Acheron came to anchor, the Iroquois herself ran in and anchored. The French boat then communicated with her, when she immediately hove up her anchor again! She had committed herself to the twenty-four hours rule the moment she dropped her anchor; but being ignorant of the rule, she had not hesitated to get her anchor again, the moment that she was informed of it, and to claim that she was not bound by her mis take. I did not insist upon the point. The Iroquois now withdrew beyond the marine league, by day, but, by night,