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Updated: May 7, 2025
Later in the day the Morrill captured the Spanish schooner Espana, bound for Havana, and towed the prize to Key West. The Newport added to the list of captures by bringing in the Spanish schooner Padre de Dios. May 7. The United States despatch-boat McCulloch arrived at Hongkong from Manila, with details of Commodore Dewey’s victory.
The commander of the battle-ship, however, had a great advantage over the correspondent on the despatch-boat, for the reason that he always knew exactly where he was going and where he could recoal; while the unfortunate newspaper man was ignorant of his own destination, was compelled to follow the fleet blindly, and did not know whether his limited supply of coal would last to the end of the cruise or not.
Just before we went over the side of the ship on our return to the "Record's" despatch-boat, Mr. Chamberlain said to Admiral Sampson: "Can you give me any directions or instructions, admiral, with regard to approaching your fleet in hostile waters? I don't want to be in your way or to do anything that would imperil my own vessel or inconvenience yours."
Chamberlain could get from the admiral; but the officer of the deck, whose name I did not learn, had no hesitation in explaining fully to us the nature of the "trouble" that would ensue if, through design or inadvertence, a newspaper despatch-boat should get within five miles of the fleet at night. "We can't afford to take any chances," he said, "of torpedo-boats.
Some coal-barges were there, she remembered, lading with pitch-pine and destined as fire-ships, by that naval lieutenant of the despatch-boat whom we know, against the Federal fleet lying at the head of the passes. The coachman named the steamer to Constance: "Yass, 'm, de ole Genl al Quitman; dass her." "From Vicksburg and the Bends!" cried the inquirer. "Why, who knows but Charlie Val ?"
Except on Morro Castle at Havana there were no lights on the northern coast of Cuba; if it was cloudy and there happened to be no moon, the darkness was impenetrable; the war-ships did not allow even so much as the glimmer of a binnacle lamp to escape from their lead-colored, almost invisible hulls, as they cruised noiselessly back and forth; and the correspondent on the despatch-boat not only did not know where they were, but had no means whatever of ascertaining where he himself was.
The Marques del Duero, despatch-boat, 500 tons. Battery: one smooth bore, six 6.2-inch calibre, two 4.7-inch and one machine gun. The Isla de Cuba and the Isla de Luzon were both small gunboats, 1,030 tons. Battery: four 4.7-inch hontorias, two small guns, and two machine guns. The Isla de Mindanao, auxiliary cruiser, 4,195 tons, speed, 13.5 knots. Two torpedo-boats and two transports.
Two of the prizes had to be blown up, but the "Champion," a fast river boat, which had run between Richmond and Norfolk, was taken out and afterward usefully employed as a despatch-boat. In this expedition there was considerable fighting and also some losses both of officers and men.
The moment came at last when our presence at Algiers became incompatible with the existence of a revolutionary government in Paris, and we had to rejoin our family in their foreign exile. We decided, Aumale and I, to embark for England on board the despatch-boat Solon, Commander Jaures.
On the contrary, people all over the United States, at their breakfast-tables, read the despatches from the far-off Sudan dated from "On board the New York Herald's dahabeah Rameses" or "The New York American's despatch-boat Abbas Hilmi," or "The Chicago Tribune's special steamer General Gordon," and never dreamed that the young men in sun-helmets and white linen who were writing those despatches were comfortably seated under the awnings of the same decrepit stern-wheeler, which they had chartered jointly, but on which, in order to lend importance and dignity to his despatches, each correspondent had bestowed a particular name.
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