The _Sunny South_, of 703 tons register, was one of the prettiest clippers ever launched at New York, and was the only sailing ship built by George Steers, the designer of the yacht _America_, steam frigate _Niagara_, and Collins Line steamship _Adriatic_. She was built for the China trade, was launched at Williamsburg, September 7, 1854; was owned by Napier, Johnson & Co., and was commanded by Captain Michael Gregory. It is a singular fact that while this ship was well known to possess great speed when in company with other clippers, yet she never made a passage worthy of being recorded, and was not a very successful ship financially; although the product of the skill of a designer, who, dying in early manhood, left a name so interwoven with his country’s triumphs upon the sea that it can never be forgotten. In 1859, the _Sunny South_ was sold at Havana, her name being changed to _Emanuela_. At that time her royal studdingsail booms and skysail masts and yards were removed. On August 10, 1860, she was seized in the Mozambique Channel flying the Chilian flag, with a cargo of slaves on board, by the British man-of-war _Brisk_, and the following particulars of her capture are given by one of the officers of that vessel: “At 11:30 A.M. on the 10th of August last, as Her Majesty’s ship _Brisk_, Captain De Horsey, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral the Hon. Sir Henry Keppel, K. C. B., was running to the northward in the Mozambique Channel, a sail was reported as seen from the masthead. Steam was got up without delay, and sail made in chase. It being hazy, the stranger was shortly lost sight of. When the weather had partially cleared the stranger was reported four points on our starboard bow, and the ship’s course was altered in that direction. We were now going eleven knots and a half, and the Captain, feeling that it must be something out of the common that would alter bearings at that distance in so short a time, proceeded himself with his glass to the foretopmast head, officers mounting the rigging. “That a general excitement prevailed was evident from the manner in which our sails were trimmed, taken in, and set again. Hottentots and landsmen, who on other occasions only looked at ropes, now laid hold of them with a will. The Captain’s order from the masthead to keep away two points showed that he had observed something suspicious--in fact, he had noticed a sudden alteration in the course of the chase, and pronounced her to be a long, rakish-looking ship, too large to be a slaver, but thought there was something very suspicious in the sudden alteration of her course, her crowd of sail, and the unusual number of staysails.