y bulk-heads, and removing magazine and
shell room to get at the shaft. At 1 P.M. called officially upon the
Naval-Commandant, and returned him my thanks for the handsome manner in
which he had docked my ship. I spoke of the back-down of the Yankees,
which he asserted would make them lose caste in Europe. The great fire
at Charleston was alluded to by him, whereupon I remarked that Europe
could see from this incident--(the work of incendiarism prompted and
paid for, no doubt, by the enemy)--the barbarous nature of the war waged
upon us, and told him we were in fact fighting the battles of Spain as
well as our own; for if the barbarians of the North succeeded in
overcoming the South (which, however, I pronounced an impossibility),
and destroying our slave property, in their wild fanaticism and
increasing madness, they would next make war on Cuba and Porto Rico. He
replied that this war could not continue much longer; there were people
and territory enough in North America to make two great governments, and
Europe would, no doubt united, soon interpose. I was treated with great
civility and kindness.

_Tuesday, January 14th_.--* * * Had an interview to-day with the
Naval-Commandant, who explained to me the orders he had received from
the Government in relation to my ship, which were to put upon her only
the _indispensable_ repairs, without essential alterations. I expressed
myself satisfied with this; told him I knew the solicitude of his
Government to avoid complication; and, that so far as depended upon me,
he might rely upon it that I would permit nothing to be done which might
involve it in any way. Proceeding with the necessary repairs. Some
thousand workmen, many of them convicts, are employed in this yard. They
have in dock, receiving her copper, a heavy steam frigate constructed
here, and another still larger on the stocks. Immense quantities of
timber are in the docks, and though the water is salt it is not attacked
by the worm, the ebb and flow of the tide preventing it. Timber which
has been forty years in these docks is perfectly sound. Five of my
seamen deserted yesterday--all foreigners, I am glad to say. The
Commandant has promised to put the police on the scent, but I have no
expectation I shall get them.

_Wednesday, January 15th_.--Having had the plank replaced in the bilge,
and re-coppered and overhauled the propeller, we were let out of dock at
1 P.M. These repairs were done with a very bad grace by t