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obligations, and, though Stribling, the first lieutenant of the Florida, succeeded in getting on board a dozen men under the name of laborers, nothing could be done to make up the deficiencies of the battery.
After a week in Cardenas, Maffitt, still prostrated by disease, took the Florida to Havana.
Nothing could be obtained here, and he resolved, as the only course open to him, to make at once for Mobile.
Proceeding directly from Havana, the Florida sighted Fort Morgan and the blockading squadron on the 4th of September.
In view of the helpless condition of the ship, and the crippled state of her crew and battery, Stribling was in favor of a cautious line of action, and advised delaying the attempt, at least until night.
But Maffitt had studied the chances, and he decided that the boldest course was the safest.
How the Florida succeeded in her daring attempt, and how, after four months of rest in Mobile, she ran the blockade outward on the night of January 16, 1863, has been already told.
In the course of ten days after leaving Mobile she captured three small vessels, which she burned, after the example set by the Sumter.
According to Maffitt, his ‘instructions were brief and to the point, leaving much to the discretion, but more to the torch.’
On January 26, the Florida put into Nassau, where her appearance as a ship-of-war must have caused some confusion to the merchant who had sworn at the trial in July that he considered her as a merchant-vessel, and then had delivered her to Maffitt.
She was received, however, with an ovation, allowed to remain thirty-six hours, when the instructions of the Government limited the time to twenty-four, and took on board coal for three months, though the authorities had been directed to limit coal-supplies to a quantity sufficient to enable the belligerent cruiser to reach the nearest port of her
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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