People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1895 — SHOTS MEANT TO HIT. [ARTICLE]

SHOTS MEANT TO HIT.

SPANISH GUNBOAT IN EARNEST WHEN IT.FIRED. The Ship mi on the High Seas— Decision Slade by Attorney General Stanton in 1800 Hearing on the Qnes* tion Slay Decide the Case. New York. March 14. —Captain J. A. Crossman, of the Columbian line steamer Alliance, which was fired upon by a Spanish gunboat off cap Maysi, Cuba, on the morning of March 8. to-day said that he had received no reply from the state department at Washington in answer to his letter of March 12. “I have seen the statement in the morning papers,” Capt. Crossman said, “that I was to receive a reply from the state department, asking for further particulars ofAhe firing on my ship, but beyond that r have no news of such a communication. The only further detail I can give the department is to send the authorities a sketch of the chart showing the ship’s position'at the time of the incident, pricking out upon it the course we followed on our passage northward. I can tell you exactly, after a little figuring, just what the position of the Allianca was. and I know that at no time were we-'nearer t*f any headland of Cuba than four miles. This reference to outlying islands, making the marine limit farther off short, does not hpld good in the case of Cube, for the nearest land to cape Ilaysi is Hayti, which is fifty miles away across the windward passage.” It was pointed out to Capt. Crossman that there was some doubt in the'minds of the state department officials as to whether the shots from the Spanish gynboat were fired directly at the Allianca or merely across her bows. The captain said very decidedly: “Look here,” and reaching for two cigars as he spoke, and holding one in each hand, using them to illustrate the positions of the two ships; “here is the Allianca heading northeast, well to the southward and westward of cape Maysi, a good four miles off shore. The Spanish gunboat steams out from the land, broad off from us, and then followed the incidents as-1 described them the other day in my letter to the state department. It be impossible for a ship that we werq leaving astern so rapidly to fire a shot across our bows. The attempt that was made was to hit us; for the Spaniard deliberately altered his course so as to bring.one of his forward port guns to bear on us, not only once, but lie repeated the maneuver. To say that they were attempting to shoot across our bows is absurd.”