Rum-running is an odious business, and though decent Englishmen have
no arguments to offer in excuse for it (except the rather feeble one that America cannot expect other countries to help her to enforce an ill-advised law), international rights on the high seas are still sacred. Surely the last people in the world whom we should expect to whittle down those rights are the Americans. According to Captain Randell, the Master of the ' I'm Alone,' he was fourteen or fifteen miles. off the shore when he was approached by the American cutter ' Walcott.' The two captains conversed and Captain Randell denied that the Walcott ' had any right to interfere with him " on the high seas." The Walcott ' after a time opened fire without apparently doing the rum-runner much, if any, harm. Two days later—on March 22nd—another American cutter, the ' Dexter,' intercepted the ' I'm Alone ' when she was about 215 miles from the entrance to New Orleans. The ' Dexter' fired guns, and it seems also rifles, till the ' I'm Alone ' sank. The crew of the I'm Alone ' were probably clustered together in one part of the ship as they were not wounded. When their vessel sank they were all thrown into the sea, which was rough, and were rescued with difficulty. A negro was drowned.
