Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session Thirty-eighth Congress, Part I
Earl Russell to Lord Lyons.
My Lord: I transmit to you herewith a statement made to the solicitor of the treasury by Horace Carrew, late a seaman on board the Saxon, respecting the murder of the chief mate of that vessel by an officer of the United States steamer Vanderbilt.
This statement, in the opinion of the law officers of the crown, bears on the face of it evident signs of truthfulness, and throws more light upon this unhappy transaction than any of the statements previously in the possession of her Majesty’s government, and your lordship will make it known to Mr. Seward.
Steps will be immediately taken with the view of sending Carrew to the United States in order that his evidence may be taken on the inquiry which, as stated in your lordship’s despatch of the 5th instant, is to be held at Boston for the purpose of investigating this unhappy occurrence; and I have reason to expect that Aitcheson, the second mate of the Saxon, whose deposition was taken by Mr. Consul Archibald, will be forthcoming, so as to admit of his proceeding to New York by the middle of next week.
I am, &c.,
[Enclosure in No. 28.]
Deposition of Horace Carrew.
Horace Carrew, native of St. Helena, aged 21. Nearly all my life at sea. Was a sailor five years ago. In 1862 I was a seaman before the mast in the Pioneer, of London, bound to Natal. We were there wrecked, and I worked my way to Cape Town. At Cape Town I shipped in the Saxon, on the 17th of January, 1863. We were to take cattle and sheep from the cape to Ascension for her Majesty’s government. Shortly after that day we sailed, fully laden with cattle and sheep, and forage for their support on the voyage and at Ascension. We had no other cargo. We went to Ascension, returned to the cape, took a similar cargo for Ascension, and the same again; It was on the third trip (backward from Ascension) that the Saxon was taken. We were coming back in ballast. We got as far south as the cape, and were bound there, (as far as the crew thought,) and then we turned across the southeast trades. We knew then that we were not bound to the cape, but we didn’t know where. The first land we sighted was Possession island, just above (i. e. to south of) Angra Pequena. We went into the bay and anchored. Two or three days after we went up another little bay, at the head of this big bay. We stayed eleven or twelve days painting the ship. Then we began to take in a lot of bales of skin and bales of wool from shore. They were on the rocks; there are no houses there. A small schooner (an Englishman—the Atlas, of Cape Town—I knew the vessel) had come down when we had finished painting, and put three or four men ashore with provisions and a boat, and these men rolled the bales down to the beach and put them in our boats, and we shipped them. On the 30th or 31st October we had finished loading the vessel, and the boat was coming off with the planks and ropes that we had taken, (to make a sort of stage on shore,) when we saw a large steamer rounding the point at the bottom of the large bay, and she anchored. She lowered two boats with armed crews. One she sent to Penguin island, a little island in this bay, (where there was a lot of coals,) and the other boat she sent to us. She was lying about two miles from us. The crew came up alongside and two officers boarded us. The senior officer went down into the cabin with our captain, (Captain Shepherd.) I was on deck; they remained about five minutes below. I won’t be certain whether the other officer remained on deck or went below with the other. I saw the senior officer with our captain coming from the companion with a number of papers in his hand, and they walked together to the after-hatch. The officer ordered our captain to have it opened. (I heard this.) It was opened by myself and another. The officer said, “What do you call that, captain?” (pointing to a portion of the cargo.) The captain said, “Well, I don’t know—a mixture of cotton and wool, or something. All I know is that I have come here to take it in.” The officer said, “That will do. I’ll take these papers, captain, on board the Vanderbilt, and I’ll leave this officer” (pointing to the junior officer, Mr. Donaghan) “in charge.” He then turned to Mr. Donaghan himself, and said, “Don’t allow that anchor to be weighed.” Our captain said to him, “My ship is quite ready for sea; and I intend to go this afternoon.” The officer said, “You can’t; I’ve got your papers.” Our captain said he would go, papers or not, as he was quite ready for sea. The captain said to us, “Go to dinner, men;” and the officer got into the boat, which was lying on the port side, about midships, and went aboard the Vanderbilt, leaving Donaghan on board. We had begun weighing before the officers came on board, so as to have less chain to take in when we did start. We went to dinner, and after dinner—say an hour—we went to work, securing spars and water-casks and making everything fast. In less than half an hour after we had begun this, another boat came from the Vanderbilt. Another officer came on board with the boat’s crew, about a dozen, and they began battering [Page 306] about the deck, apparently taking charge of the ship. Our captain told us not to interfere. (Our crew consisted of twelve altogether—captain, mate, second mate, cook, boy, who acted as steward, carpenter, and six men.) We knocked off work when the captain told us. We did not interfere with them in any way. Some of us were on deck and others in the forecastle, when the men on shore (who had been helping us to load) came off to us in their boat, bringing fish. They asked our captain if they could have any meat. The captain asked the senior American officer if they could have any. The officer said, “Yes.” The men from the boat went forward to where the meat was kept, (in tubs between the forecastle and the galley.) One of the Vanderbilt men came and told the senior officer that these men were taking all the meat out of the ship. They were taking too much, I suspect. The officer said, “I’ll be damned if they shall have any, then.” Our captain was standing by, and said, “I’ll be damned if they shan’t, then.” Our captain went to where the men were trying to pass the meat over the ship’s side into the boat, and the men said to him, “What shall we do here? they won’t let us take it.” The captain said, “Heave it into the boat; if they stop you, I can’t help it.” The American officer had followed Captain Shepherd. He said to Captain Shepherd, patting him on the shoulder, “You go aft, my fine fellow; you are giving too many orders here; or I’ll soon put you where the dogs won’t bark at you;” (tapping with his other hand on his revolver in his belt.) The captain went aft, (I believe he was confined to his cabin, but I didn’t hear the order given myself; I was told that a sentry was put over him with a cutlass.) The chief mate, Mr. James Gray, was for’ard at this time. I suppose that somebody had told him that the captain was confined to his cabin, for he was coming aft to speak to the captain (as far as I could see.) There is a low poop, and a short ladder of three steps going up from the deck to the poop on each side of the raised top of the cabin, and from the poop you go down the companion into the captain’s cabin. Mr. Gray had got two steps up the ladder, on the port side; his head was turned on one side looking towards the shore, (which was about two hundred yards off.) The American senior officer was standing on the raised top of the cabin, having a look-out over the whole of the deck. Donaghan was standing on the poop, just above the three steps, on the port side, where Mr. Gray was coming up. When he had got up these two steps, Donaghan called out, “Go down !” When Gray heard this, he turned his head and looked up at Donaghan, and Donaghan repeated the words, “Go down!” “Go down, or I’ll shoot you!” He didn’t give the mate time to go down or do anything; he spoke so quick, it was all done in a moment; there was no attempt to resist, or go on; there wasn’t time. When he spoke the third time, “Go down,” he put his left hand on Gray and pushed him. Mr. Gray fell back, wheeling round to save himself as he fell, and turning his face towards Donaghan, when Donaghan lifted his revolver and shot him, and the poor man fell back dead, and never moved an eye. The bullet had entered above and a little behind the left ear, and went downward. He lay right on his back. I was seven or eight yards from him. I stepped for’ard with two of our men to pick him up, and the senior officer, who stood on the top of the cabin, sung out “Draw swords.” His men drew their swords. They were all gathered about aft—a good lot of men. I am not quite sure whether another boat’s crew had come by this time from the Vanderbilt. When the men had drawn their cutlasses they surrounded us, and presented their pistols at our breasts. They blackguarded us awfully, and asked one of the men whether we wanted to take the ship back. They drove us for’ard when they found that we didn’t make any resistance. About five minutes afterwards I went aft with another man (W. Murray) to pick Mr. Gray up, who was still lying where he fell, with his head supported by our captainand our second mate. The captain (who I heard afterwards had rushed by the man at his cabin, when he heard the shot fire) held the mate’s head in his lap, and looked up and said, “What did [Page 307] you shoot my mate for?” Donaghan said, “I’m sorry for the man, but he should obey orders.” Donaghan continued, “There’s some damned humbug about that boat—five men came off, and there’s seven going ashore,” (pointing with his revolver towards the boat of the men who had come for the meat and were returning.) “We ought to go ashore and do for the bloody lot of ’em; they are all Alabama men; that’s one of the Alabama’s men, too, (pointing to the body of Mr. Gray.) He was very much excited at the time; he had his revolver cocked, flourishing it about every way. Mr. Gray’s body was put down the after-hatch. The crew were told not to come aft, unless we spoke to one of the sentries, whom they placed all over the ship. It was nearly 2 p. m., perhaps, when Mr. Gray was shot. At 8 o’clock we were all sent below, and told not to come on deck, if we didn,t want to be shot, without hailing the sentry first. They kept us below all night. In the forenoon next day our captain sent forward a slip of paper asking me (in pencil) to take account of everything that went on, as he was not allowed to write, and was closely watched. I made memorandums on papers (in pencil.) I don’t know what became of the papers—left on board the ship, I suppose, but I think I must have destroyed them,—no, I must have taken them away with me, for in the vessel in which I went up to the Cape I copied the statements down from these papers. The copy that I made was given to one of the reporters of the paper when he came on board at Cape Town. I never saw it afterwards. I also signed, on board the Lord of the Isles, a combined statement which I drew up, and which was signed by myself, and Murray, and Cable. It was given up, I believe, to the governor or other authority at the Cape. The captain had it from us, and delivered it with his own to the port boat at the Cape. They kept us on board all that day, (the day after the murder.) In the afternoon, about dusk, they buried Mr. Gray. They brought a coffin from the Vanderbilt, put it into a boat, and took the captain, but none of us, and went ashore and buried the mate. We remained on board that night too. Next day we landed on the main land, all but the second mate (David Atcheson, of Dundee) and the cook; they were to go to New York. They landed us with fourteen or fifteen pounds of small biscuit and about five gallons of water. That day the Saxon went to sea. The Vanderbilt had weighed anchor, and had gone out in chase of a vessel, but she returned and went inside Penguin island and took the coals. The captain knew that there was a guano island about ten miles off. We walked across and waved to the people there, and they sent a boat and took us off. The island is close to the shore. The men that had come for the meat had gone there. We stayed on the island about two days, when the Isabel (an English schooner) came in and took us down to Ichaboe, another guano island. We partly loaded a brig there called the Lord of the Isles, and went further down in the schooner, with the brig, to Hottentots’ bay, to fill up the brig, and then went in the brig to Cape Town. There was an investigation at the magistrates’ court. I gave evidence, and the captain and the two men who were close to Mr. Gray when he was shot, William Murray and Richard Cable. We were sixteen days in Cape Town. Murray and Cable came home with me in the Cambal, but I don’t know where they are—shipped in another vessel, I suppose; but I don’t know. We came to London on the 6th February. I have been living since at my mother’s, 3 New Terrace, Turner street, Stepney. I am looking for a vessel every day. I have told my story as a yarn. One day I was telling the story to a friend. A gentleman was present. He was a perfect stranger to me. I said that I was thinking of giving my evidence, as I heard that there was to be an investigation. He said, “You had better go to the secretary of the treasury.” So I came here yesterday morning, and left my address.