le her to cruise a few days on the other side, and, if
possible, not go quite "empty-handed" into port.

Still the days were not altogether uneventful, and before the week was
out, a fine prize ran, as it were, into her very arms. Of this capture
the journal gives the following account:--

_Tuesday, December 3rd_.--At 6.30 A.M. Sail, ho! a point on the
starboard bow. At 7.30 the sail, which was standing in nearly the
opposite direction from ourselves, approached us within a couple of
miles. We hoisted French colours, when she showed United States'. Took
in all the studding sails, hauled by the wind, tacked, and fired a
shotted gun. The stranger immediately hove to. Lowered a boat, and sent
a lieutenant on board of him. Stood on and tacked, and having brought
the stranger under my guns, I began to feel sure of him (our smoke stack
was down, and we could not have raised steam in less than two hours and
a half). He proved to be the ship Vigilant, of Bath, Maine, bound from
New York to the guano island of Sombrero, in ballast. Captured him. Took
from on board chronometer, charts, &c., and a nine pounder rifled gun,
with ammunition, &c. Set him on fire, and at 3 P.M. made sail. This was
a fine new ship, being only two years old, and worth about 40,000
dollars.

Lat. 29.10 N., Long. 57.2-2 W. Steering E. by N. We received a large
supply of New York papers to the 21st November. We learned from these
papers that the San Jacinto was in search of us when she took Messrs.
Mason and Slidell from on board the Trent. The enemy has thus done us
the honour to send in pursuit of us the Powhattan, the Niagara, the
Iroquois, the Keystone State, and the San Jacinto.

* * * * *

Dirty weather now for several days, the little vessel rolling and
straining, and withal beginning to leak to an extent which caused no
small anxiety to those in command. Still, however, she was quite up to
mischief, and on the 8th December, the Ebenezer Dodge, twelve days from
New Bedford, bound to the Pacific on a whaling voyage, was added to the
fatal list. Forty-three prisoners were now on board, cooped up with the
crew in the narrow berth deck, when the weather forbade their appearance
on deck, and the little Sumter was beginning to feel herself
overcrowded.

It became necessary to adopt precautions, and one-half the prisoners
were now kept constantly in single irons, taking it turn and turn about
to submit to the necessary