Vermont Phœnix

The Piracies of the Alabama-
It will not, we are sure, be uninteresting at this time to give a few additional facts connected with the late Alabama and the victorious Kearsarge; some of which we give below:
The British pirate steamer Alabama, alias "290," alias "Eurica," has at last been met in a fair sea fight by a Yankee gunboat, whipped, crippled and then sunk. This pirate craft was built at Birkenhead, opposite Liverpool, England, by Messrs. Laird, under a contract made by Capt. Bullock, and said to be in behalf of the rebel government. She cost, when complete for sea, $255,000. She was launched in April, 1862. She was fitted with shot racks, pivot gun sockets and breeching bolts before she left Liverpool. She sailed from Liverpool on the 29th of July, 1862, having gone down the river ostensibly on a trial trip; but in ten days thereafter she arrived at the Azores. Here she took on board her armament, which was furnished by the English house of Fawcett, Preston & Co., of Liverpool. From the time of her departure from Liverpool she was under the command of Capt. M. J. Butcher of the Cunard service. The rest of her officers were as follows: Chief Officer, John Low, England; Second Officer, C. S. Tullam, Hull, England; Surgeon, D. H. Llewellyn, Easton, Wilts, England; Paymaster, C. R. Yonge, Savannah, Ga.; Chief Engineer, J. McNair, England. She had a crew of 70 men and boys, two-thirds being English.
On the 24th of August, (Sunday,) Captain Raphael Semmes took command of the vessel, and in a formal manner hoisted the rebel flag at the peak and the English flag at the fore, and fired a gun. She then started on a cruise, with a commander, 26 officers and 85 men. For nearly two years she has been employed in sinking, burning and destroying American commerce and shipping: and on the 11th of January, 1863, she sunk the little gunboat Hatteras and suffered herself considerably. Semmes has always tried to avoid meeting an armed vessel of his own weight of metal, fearing the result to be just such as has been proven in her late contest. As to his personal character, it was pretty clearly proved that he was a coward and afraid to meet the Kearsarge. After he surrendered he threw away his sword—an un-officerlike act—and supplicatingly begged to be taken into the Deerhound's boat and covered up, to prevent falling into the hands of the captors of his pet corsair ship. He skulked away like an overgrown cur which had been chastised, seeking protection under the flag which for so long had protected him. He fought only because he was obliged to do so to save his honor in the face of his crew. Had he met a Yankee single-handed, he would have run like a scared cat.
The list of vessels destroyed by the Alabama numbers 55, which we trust Her Majesty's Government will be called upon to pay for. This record brings the Alabama's career up to her arrival at Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope, in September, 1863. There is no complete record yet of her subsequent proceedings. She sailed for the East Indies, and, in the Straits of Malacca, near Singapore she burned two ships. Off the Burmese coast, India, she burned the bark Texan Star, from Moulmein for Singapore. Sweeping around Cape Comorin, and up the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal, she burned the ship Emma Jane of New York, and landed her crew near Ojeoya, in the southern part of India. Her next appearance was at Cape Good Hope in March last, from whence she cruised about until she entered Cherbourg, early in the month of June, having just previously burned two more American ships—the Rockingham and Tycoon. These were her last depredations.—New York Herald.