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Capture Clipper Ship
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a splendid big clipper ship making her way toward the port. Putting on a full head of steam and setting all sail that would draw, we started in chase of her. The stranger evidently had no doubt as to our character for she immediately set all of her kites and studding sails and made all possible haste for her haven of refuge, which lay within the charmed marine league from the shore. Some thought that she had made it, but Mr. Ingraham, our youthful navigator, announced that in his opinion she was a few inches outside of it. There was no time to be lost, so we cast loose our guns and after a few shots brought her to. The prize proved to be the clipper ship George Griswold of New York, manned by a negro crew with the exception of her captain and mates. There was great rejoicing on the Georgia over this capture, as the Griswold was the ship which had carried a cargo of flour and wheat, a gift from the people of the United States, to the starving factory operatives of Lancashire, whose means of earning a livelihood had been interfered with by our war. Some of the bread made from this cargo had been distributed at Birkenhead, opposite Liverpool, by a distinguished committee at the head of which was the celebrated preacher Henry Ward Beecher, who from a stand, on which had been placed a model of the Alabama, made a speech strongly denouncing the South in general, and the Alabama in particular. At the conclusion of his oration the loaves of bread were tossed to the crowd, who, instead of eating it, used it to pelt the unoffending effigy of the Alabama. It did not look as though they were so very hungry; but there can be no doubt that this gift of breadstuff changed the sympathies of the working classes of England and converted them into ardent adherents to the cause of the North.

The captain of the Griswold had no trouble In proving that she carried a neutral cargo, so we had reluctantly to bond her for her own value of one hundred thousand dollars and let her go. In the mean while, the booming of our guns