Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/68

 own charges, a vessel, which it was intended should hoist the Polish flag, and, like another "Alabama," sweep Russian commerce off the seas. She escaped from the Tyne without much difficulty, and reached Barcelona in safety. Her next destination was the coast of the little island of Elba, where a Polish commodore of experience, who had come all the way from the Russian naval station at Kamtchatka,—on French leave, of course,—was waiting with a full complement of marines to take possession in the name of the Provisional Government at Warsaw. They waited in vain. The drunken ravings and cowardice of the English crew brought about the seizure and confiscation of the vessel by the Spanish authorities almost in spite of themselves. The chief naval authority of the port was at that time a brother of General Prim, himself a revolutionary. He winked hard; and it so happened, curiously enough, that the only Spanish man-of-war available for seizing her was under the command of an Englishman, formerly a Newcastle engineer, who, on being sent to inspect the ship and her papers, winked harder still. With reasonable promptitude she might have got clear off, but did not, to the great grief of Mr. Cowen and the Provisional Government of Poland.

The above is but one out of scores of daring enterprises with a similar object in which Mr. Cowen has been engaged. Once he had a wonderful box constructed, and well lined with notes suitable for issue by the Secret Committee of Government over which Langiewicz presided. It was given in charge to a faithful messenger, with instructions to seek the headquarters of the insurgents by a somewhat devious route. No sooner did he set foot on the continent,