Sea Adventure: The recapture of the "Elmira" (colour litho)

The recapture of the "Elmira." In the old days, the practice of carrying valuable cargoes in small sailing ships with poor and often mutinous crews was inviting piracy, and the case of the British brig Elmira in 1847 was one of many. Bound from Mazatlan for China carrying specie with a foreign crew, a mutiny occured, and only the carpenter and two boys were left alive by the mutineers. The carpenter, however, was a Scotch giant in whose hands and axe was a terrible weapon, and the boys were heroes. Falling on the murderers while they were carousing, they killed every one of them, and contrived to get the ship and her treasure safely to Honolulu. Illustration for one of a set of 50 cigarette cards on the subject of Sea Adventure, issued by Hignett Brothers in 1939.