as smooth as glass, no air
stirring except in "cat's-paws" and coming from different directions. As
soon as the little ripples would be seen on the water, the back yards
would have to be braced in the proper direction to take advantage of
what little wind was coming. Day after day it was the same. At last we
got a steady wind and were soon on the American coast. Being in north
latitude, the days were rapidly becoming shorter and the weather very
cold and stormy. I suffered very much from the want of warm clothing. A
shirt and pair of drawers had been given me by a shipmate. Those and the
suits I had changed for with the Brazilians were all that I then
possessed. The latter part of December we arrived at Richmond. I was
paid off, seven dollars and fifty cents being the amount due me. A cheap
suit of clothes was bought with that money, and I was again in a strange
city "dead broke." I had one consolation, however, in knowing that I
had quit being proxy for Mike Murray.

The large schooner Onrust was in the canal at Richmond loaded with
cement for Fort Taylor at Key West and the fort on the Dry Tortugas
Island. My late shipmates and myself shipped on her by the month, she
being a coasting vessel. It was a novel experience for us all to be on a
schooner. Everything was so different from a square-rigged ship. The
captain was also the owner. Economy was his motto. Instead of eating in
the forecastle, we had our meals in the cabin, the captain acting as
host. None of the crew felt as comfortable as if feeding in sailor style
and all etiquette dispensed with. In the forecastle was a small box
stove, and that was a nuisance. The watch below would make a wood fire
and go to sleep. It would only be a short time before the fire would be
out and then we would wake up shivering with the cold atmosphere. As yet
I did not enjoy the luxury of a bed or blankets. My finances, since
leaving the frigate, had been at a low point. Besides the trouble below,
we felt the cold more severely when on deck. All hands agreed on one
point--that the stove was a nuisance. That was my only experience with a
fire in the forecastle during my life on the sea. No matter how cold the
weather, clothing wet or dry, a sailor never catches cold on the ocean
if he will keep away from a stove. We sailed, instead of being towed,
down the James River. When near Fortress Monroe, the main boom snapped
short off near the jaws. Then there was trouble. We put into Norfolk