Our distress about Gibbes has been somewhat relieved by good
news from Jimmy. The jolliest sailor letter from him came this morning, dated
only the 4th instant from Cherbourg, detailing his cruise on the Georgia from
leaving England, to Bahia, Trinidad, Cape of Good Hope, to France again. Such a
bright, dashing letter! We laughed extravagantly over it when he told how they
readily evaded the Vanderbilt, knowing she would knock them into “pie”; how he
and the French Captain quarreled when he ordered him to show his papers, and
how he did not know French abuse enough to enter into competition with him, so
went back a first and second time to Maury when the man would not let him come
aboard, whereupon Maury brought the ship to with two or three shots and Jimmy
made a third attempt, and forced the Frenchman to show his papers. He tells it
in such a matter-of-fact way! No extravagance, no idea of having been in a
dangerous situation, he a boy of eighteen, on a French ship in spite of the
Captain's rage. What a jolly life it must be! Now dashing in storms and danger,
now floating in sunshine and fun! Wish I was a midshipman! Then how he changes,
in describing the prize with an assorted cargo that they took, which contained
all things from a needle to pianos, from the reckless spurt in which he speaks
of the plundering, to where he tells of how the Captain, having died several
days before, was brought on the Georgia while Maury read the service over the
body and consigned it to the deep by the flames of the dead man's own vessel.
What noble, tender, manly hearts it shows, those rough seamen stopping in their
work of destruction to perform the last rites over their dead enemy. One can
fancy their bare heads and sunburned faces standing in solemn silence around
the poor dead man when he dropped into his immense grave. God bless the “pirates”!
SOURCE: Sarah Morgan Dawson, A Confederate Girl's
Diary, p. 422-3
