Our rig was a curious one. One day on our return, we saw a brig coming down with a fair wind across our bow. We backed our sails and lay by for her, as the captain wished to speak her. He ran down quite near us, showing no colors. Capt. Downes hailed him, to which he returned no answer, evidently intending to run by us. " Bound to, sir," said Capt. Downes. He paid no attention to this order, neither had he shown any colors. " Clear away the bow gun, and give him a shot across the bow, sir," which was no sooner said than done. This brought him to his bearings; he came round under our quarter, and yet showed no colors.
Wre had none hoisted ourselves, because we had no place yet prepared for them. " Why don't you hoist your colors? " said Capt. Downes. " Why don't you hoist yours? " said the stranger. " You scoundrel, if you donH show your colors, Til give you a slwt" He then caught up his ensign, and gave it a shake, (it was English,) and then threw it down. " Hoist your flag at your peak, sir." By this time he was close under our stern. The Englishman looked up, and said: " I don't know who and what you are; such a devil of a rig," and at the same time run his colors up to his peak.
Capt. Downes told him of our disaster, and wished him to report us on his arrival, which he promised to do, and appeared to be a clever fellow, after all. An incident occurred the night after the sale, which I should have mentioned before. At about 10 o'clock, a man on the forecastle sung out, " Some one is hailing the ship, sir! " I happened to be on deck at the time. The officer d o w d to Kj > GO H CO W o d u H o» c to o of the deck came forward and ordered silence. Not a breath was heard from any one, when directly we heard, from apparently a short distance on the weather how, " Hoa! hoa!
' We fired a gun, and hove the ship to; sent men aloft tj look about in every direction, and lay by all night. As soon as day dawned, the captain, and every officer with spy-glasses, distributed about the ship, commenced searching for what we supposed to be a boat, with the survivors of some unfortunate vessel; but we could see nothing, nor did we ever know anything more about it. Many suppositions and opinions were given, but here the matter ended. There can b.1 no doubt but that in this dreadful gale, some poor fellows found a watery grave. In sixteen days we arrived at Norfolk, which I think was about the 17th of October; anchored off Gosport, near the Navy Yard.
I had previously prepared a list of spars, with their dimensions, and as soon as our anchors were down, bv order of Capt. Downes, went on shore to the Navy Yard; found Mr. Grice, naval architect, gave him the list of spars, and fortunately there were three masts, already put together, and only required hooping; they were of the right dimensions. Preparations were now made for hoisting out the broken masts. I took the fishes off, determined to keep them for the good they had done; the mainmast hardly held together long enough to be hoisted out; and when they were lowering it over the side, it fell to pieces. Carpenters and calkcrs went to work on the ship, and the spars all commenced upon, and in eleven days our pretty frigate was all ready for bending sails, (which had also been made since our arrival,) and on the 1st of November, we were ready for sea.
When we sailed from Boston, there were several gentlemen that joined the ship as botanists, and naturalists, and sciencoists; and as they had got their bellies full of sea, concluded not to try it again. During the night of the gale, two of these half-and-half fellows were drowned out of the cockpit, where they lived, and crawled up to the gun-deck. They were hanging on to;t stanchion with the parson, a tall slab of a fellow. I had several old salts assisting me in getting the wedges clear of the mainmast. Occasionally they would rip out an oath, which completely shocked these poor useless beings. '; Oh," said one, " don't use profanity at this time." There they were, hanging like a sick monkey to a lee-backstay; of no more use to the ship than a spare pump.