e's anchorage; an
excellent position for intercepting small craft, bound from the Gulf
into the old port of Mazatlan. We soon had the little Rosa clean and
trim; got up new spars, and on their tapering stems spread loftier
muslin than those she had been accustomed to carry, which, in the
absence of proper materials, the sailors had quickly fashioned out of
duck frocks. Then we scrubbed her bottom, re-arranged the stowage, put
on a new coat of paint, so that she worked like a top, sailed tolerably
well, and with her Yankee pennant and flag might fairly make her old
masters on the shore right proud of the little craft, and indulge, as
they did, in some yearnings to get hold of her again. Our life was not
one of quiet repose, nor were we overburthened with luxuries and
comforts, but anything is better than the insufferable monotony of a
ship of war, even though one loses in comfort by the exchange; for we
had variety and excitement, which of itself is preferable to the tame
stupidity of the quarter-deck of a big ship, or uninterrupted yawnings
in the gun-room.

We were boarded the first morning by three drunken Englishmen, in a
whale-boat, who informed us that the frigate's boats had captured a fine
schooner called the Correo. They also brought off what is consularly
termed "a distressed American," a very sombre-hued person, who, by his
own showing, gave us reason to believe him a Carolina nigger, whose
asperities of wool and color had been somewhat softened by being
engrafted on a more distinguished stock in the city of Boston. His
profession was that of cook, and the most urgent cause of bidding
farewell to a large and extensive assortment of friends in Mazatlan, was
that he became involved by some unforeseen mercantile transaction to the
amount of nine dollars, over and above his comeatable assets; for this
dereliction from the paths of honesty, he was offered a choice of being
half starved in the _carcel_ or entirely starved out of it, with a
musket in his embrace fighting the enemies of the republic. Amid so
serious an accumulation of horrors, not being troubled with heavy
baggage, he ensconced himself within the Englishman's boat, and was
exhibited to us on the memorable occasion of his presentation, attired
in a white beaver hat and trowsers of but one leg. A few words we caught
of his opening address was to the effect that,--"bress de Lord, he was
wunce more under de country's flag, and if dem Mexikers kotched him