As the pilot left the _Sumter_ at the bar he said to Semmes: “Now, Captain, you are all clear; give her h-ll and let her go,” and that is just what Semmes did after “this bold and dashing adventure,” as Porter calls it. Going to the south coast of Cuba, he fell in with his first prize, a ship called the _Golden Rocket_, “from the Black Republican State of Maine.” A gun--the first fired by any Confederate naval officer afloat--brought her to, with the American flag flying. She was found to be in ballast, and was, of course, burned. Her flag was marked with her name and the date of capture, and stowed in a bag, where many others came to keep it company, for Semmes saved all the flags he captured, and when the _Alabama_ was at last shot from under his feet he says: “I committed to the keeping of the guardian spirits of that famous battle ground a great many bags full of ‘old flags,’ to be stowed away in the caves of the sea as mementoes that a nation once lived whose naval officers loved liberty more than the false memorial of it, and who were capable, when it became ‘Hate’s polluted rag,’ of tearing it down.” Within three days Semmes captured five American vessels, three of which he determined to carry into a Cuban port. On the fourth day, being then off Cienfuegos, he saw three more come out, and by hoisting false colors he disguised his ship so that they all proceeded on their courses until a marine league or more from the coast, when they were captured, and all taken into port. Semmes hoped that he should be able to sell them as prizes, but the Cuban authorities, after proper consideration, refused to allow this to be done.