The timbers of her wooden hull were somewhat lighter than usual for a ship of her size, and diagonally strapped with iron.

[6] On her maiden voyage in 1854, Sunny South made a 143-day passage from New York to San Francisco under Capt.

She then sailed to Hong Kong in ballast in 51 days, with a 102-day return passage to New York City, arriving in January 1856.

[2] On April 14, 1858, Sunny South arrived in New York from Santos, transporting a portion of the crew of the clipper ship John Gilpin, which was lost off the Falkland Islands.

[1] On August 10, 1860, the British screw sloop-of-war HMS Brisk captured Emanuela with 846 slaves aboard,[5] in the Mozambique Channel.

Sir Henry Keppel, K. C. B., was running to the northward in the Mozambique Channel when she sighted a ship in the haze with many sails set, which proceeded to change course as if attempting to avoid contact.

[9] Even so, it was at least four hours later before she could draw close enough to fire a shot across Emanuela's bow, board her, and take the slaver captain and officers into custody.

[10][11] The speed of this slave ship under sail was sufficiently memorable that years later, in a 1914 novel, The Mutiny of the Elsinore, Jack London had an old sailor character exclaim,

The explorer John Hanning Speke was aboard Brisk as a passenger, and described the capture scene in The Discovery of the Source of the Nile.

[10] Speke inspected the slave ship and bore witness in his writings regarding the appalling and inhumane conditions on board.

Other slaves who had the strength were ripping open the ship's hatches and scrambling for the salted fish packed beneath.

[5] Author Charles Dickens, who paid a visit to Manuela six months after its capture, wrote that the ship still smelled horrible despite all attempts to disinfect it.

If the severest penalty of the law was inflicted on all crews of slavers, it would prove a considerable check to men engaged in that nefarious traffic.