ed was a Dutch barque, clipper-looking, on board which we sent a
boat; and we afterwards overhauled, and caused to show their papers,
fifteen others of the fleet, every one of which was European!--Viz.
Dutch (ships), 4; English (2 barques and 5 brigs), 7; French (1 ship and
1 brig), 2; Swedish (brig), 1; Prussian (barque), 1; Hamburg (brig), 1.
One of the results of the war is, that in this whole fleet, as far as we
could ascertain, there was not a single Yankee! So many ships at the
same time so far out at sea, is a sight not often seen. The weather was
very thick and rainy, and from the S. to E., a real dirty day; and in
such a state of weather, with so many ships running down our track, we
had serious apprehensions of collisions as the night set in. To guard
against which we set out masthead as well as side lights. At 4.30 P.M.,
let the steam go down and made sail. No observations. Lat. 35 deg. 39';
Long. 17 deg. 33' D.R.

We first showed the United States colours to all these vessels, and the
only one which saluted it was the Prussian. We afterwards showed our own
flag to a number of them, and they all, with one or two exceptions,
saluted it. The stream of vessels still continued after nightfall--two
having passed us showing lights, one ahead and the other astern. At 6.15
P.M., or about one hour after dark, the wind was blowing fresh from the
E., and they came down upon us with fearful rapidity.

_Friday, January 3rd_, 1862.--Ugly looking morning, with a falling
barometer. Several sail were reported from the masthead during the
morning watch. We shortened sail to permit one of them, which was
steering the same course with ourselves, to come up with us. She proved
to be a Spaniard. We then gave chase to another ahead of us, running
before the wind for the Strait of Gibraltar. We chased her some two
hours, when it began to blow a fierce gale from the west, which obliged
us to give over the chase and to haul up to prevent running to leeward
of our port, and to put the ship under short sail and steam. It blew
very fiercely until near sunset, and raised a heavy, short, abrupt sea,
in which the ship rolled more heavily than I had ever seen her before.
This shook our propeller so as to cause the ship to increase her
quantity of water considerably--so much so that the engineer reported
that under short steam he was just keeping her free with his
bilge-pumps, and that if anything happened to these, he feared the other
pumps