It has been denied that the captain of the Kearsarge sent a challenge to the Alabama. Captain Semmes, indeed, says nothing of it himself. What the Kearsarge did--and with a particular object, there cannot be a doubt--was, as recorded, to enter the breakwater at the east end, and "at about 11 A.M., on Tuesday, she _passed through the west end without anchoring_." These are the words of a French naval captain, who speaks of what he saw. Few will deny that among brave men this would be considered something equivalent to a challenge. It was more than a challenge--it was a defiance. The officer we have quoted adds, that "anyone could then see her outside protection." It is easy to see everything after the event. The Kearsarge looked bulky in her middle section to an inspecting eye; but she was very low in the water, and that she was _armed_ to resist shot and shell it was impossible to discern. It is distinctly averred by the officers of the Alabama that from their vessel the armour of the Kearsarge could not be distinguished. There were many reports abroad that she was protected on her sides in some peculiar way; but all were various and indistinct, and to a practical judgment untrustworthy. Moreover, a year previous to this meeting, the Kearsarge had lain at anchor close under the critical eye of Captain Semmes. He had on that occasion seen that his enemy was not artificially defended. He believes now that the reports of her plating and armour were so much harbour-gossip, of which during his cruises he had experienced enough.
Now the Kearsarge was an old enemy, constantly in pursuit, and her appearance produced, as Captain Semmes has written, great excitement on board the Alabama. And let us here call attention to what the officers and men of the illustrious Confederate ship had been enduring for the space of two years. During all this time they had been homeless, and without a prospect of reaching home. They had been constantly crowded with prisoners, who devoured their provender--of which they never had any but a precarious supply. Their stay in any neutral harbour was necessarily short as the perching of a hawk on a bough. Like the hawk's in upper air, the Alabama's safety as well as her business was on the high seas. Miserably fed, hunted, eluding, preying, destroying--is this a life that brave men would willingly have to be continuous? They were fortified by the assurance of a mighty service done to their country. They knew that they inflicted tremendous damage upon their giant foe. They were, perhaps, supported by the sense that their captain's unrivalled audacity had done more harm to the United States than the operations of many thousand men. But their days were wretched; their task was sickening; it demands an imagination that can fix its eye upon stern, barren duty as a planet never darkened, always visible, for such a life as this to be carried on uncomplainingly and without a passionate longing for the bare exercise of hard blows. In addition, they read of the reproaches heaped upon them by comfortable shore-men. They were called pirates, and other gloomy titles. The execrations of certain of the French and English, and of all the United States press, sounded in their ears across the ocean; but from their own country they heard little. The South was a sealed land in comparison with the rest of the world. Opinion spoke loudest in Europe, and though they knew that they were faithfully, gallantly, and marvellously serving their country in her sore need, the absence of any immediate comfort, either physical or moral, helped to make them keenly sensitive to virulent criticism, even to that of avowed and clamorous enemies.