1864 CSA Blockade Runner Agent Letter, Steamship Donegal Captured by Union Navy & Plans to build new Blockade Runner

1865 CSA Scott#11 on Folded Letter with Content: Blockade Runner Donegal Captured; Investor Plans to build a new Blockade Runner Ship 

Blockade Runner Donegal Captured Investor Report and Blockade Ship construction planning letter from Miguel De Siderio Eslava to Montgomery Attorney and Investor Edward Hanrick. Cover has Mobile Circular date stamp over CSA Scott# 11-Keatinge & Ball, Type I, 10c blue Jefferson Davis stamp, front panel is addressed to Mr. Edward. Hanrick, Montgomery, Alabama.

Edward Hanrick’s Docketing on side of this folded letter
“Mr. M. D. Eslava* 
June 10th 1864  
Received – 11th June, Answered 12th June  
Respecting the Building of a schooner in Mobile to run the blockade to Havana about the  terms &etc”

Text of Letter from Eslava to Hanrick:
“Mobile, June 10th, 1864  

Mr. Edward C. Hanrick**
Montgomery. Ala.  

Dear Sir,  

Yours of the 5th Inst. was duly received. Unfortunately, it is but too true that the Donegal*** was captured, this fact has been confirmed through various channels. Whenever I can remit the proceeds of the Quinine (payment, of which is due on the 20th instant) the second dividend will then be declared at Havana and soon after being advised of it I shall then be prepared to draw for the same; of which fact you will be timely informed.  I think that it will be about 80 to 90 per ct., perhaps more.       

By next week you will be informed of the progress I have made in the contemplated project of getting a schooner built here that will carry from 280 to 300 Bales of Cotton.  This will cost from $75,000 to $85,000, ready to take in cargo; then stocked for the benefit of the 10 or 16 parties for whose account She was built & whatever profit is realized by so doing will be distributed among them pro-rata, according to the amount prescribed by each of them, each one, retaining in the new venture (after being stocked) – the amount of his original Stock therein. I have you down as one of the original subscribers for $10,000, let me know whether this meets your approbation. 

What commission do you charge for effecting the sale of the Quinine to Doctor Anderson?  

Yours Truly,  
M. D. Eslava*

The Partial Dividend paid already was 69 55/100 (This last line appears to be in hand of Edward Hanrick)”

*Letter writer is Miguel De Siderio Eslava,1797-1880 was a partner at "Murrell and Company," as well as the agent for most Confederate Blockade Runners that entered and left Mobile, Ala. during the Civil War.
**Letter is addressed to Edward C. Hanrick, a Montgomery, AL based attorney & builder and speculator, who already had invested $10,000 into this project for a new blockade runner, Before the Civil War Hanrick platted the Cottage Hill area of Montgomery. Originally known as the Hanrick Plat, the area was incorporated into Montgomery in 1839. He also was involved with the Office of Indian Affairs and had an interest in the Texas Land Company that moved Alabama colonists into Texas lands.
***Union Capture of the Donegal Blockade Runner: The Donegal was a Confederate Sidewheel Steamship Captured off Mobile Bay by the U.S. Navy's Metacomet on June 6, 1864.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Donegal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Metacomet_(1863)