It became necessary to adopt precautions, and one-half the prisoners were now kept constantly in single irons, taking it turn and turn about to submit to the necessary but disagreeable infliction.  The wind, too, hung perseveringly in the east, and things were getting uncomfortable.  They were destined, as the following extracts will show, to be yet more so.

Wednesday, December 11th.—­As ugly-looking a morning as one could well conceive.  Thick, dark, gloomy weather, with the wind blowing fresh from the east, and threatening a gale (bar. 29.70 and falling) and a steady but moderate rain falling.  Put the ship under short sail.  Our large number of prisoners renders the crew very uncomfortable during this bad weather.  At meridian, gale blowing, with thick, driving rain.  Lat. 32 deg. 48’ N., Long. 49 deg. 32’ W.D.R.  At 2 P.M., dense clouds hanging very low all around the horizon in every direction.  Wind about E.S.E., inclined to haul to the southward.  Bar. 29.59.  The pall of clouds is not so dense as at noon, and the rain comes only occasionally in squalls.  The clouds are rifted, and appear to be on the point of rapid motion.  Wore ship to the northward and eastward.  The wind soon after backed to the northward and eastward, and we had to run the ship off N.W. for a while.  Towards night, however, the wind went back to E., and blew very fiercely, raising very heavy and irregular sea-squalls of rain.  The lightning was very vivid.  It blew very heavily until about 1 A.M., when it abated for more than two hours, blowing only in puffs, and then not very hard.  Near the centre of the cyclone, lowest barometer.  A little past midnight a quartermaster entered with the report that the starboard-bow port had been stove in!  It was then blowing furiously.  I immediately despatched the first lieutenant to barricade the port and stop out the water as effectually as possible, in which he succeeded pretty well.  This report gave me considerable anxiety, as the ports in the gun-deck and the uppermost works of the ship are her weak points at which the gale would assault her with most effect.  In the meantime the barometer has been gradually settling, settling, settling—­sometimes remaining stationary for several hours and then going down as before.  At 8 P.M. it was 29.53.  We had an awful night—­no one able to sleep.

Thursday, December 12th.—­Thick, gloomy weather, with the gale raging as fiercely as ever.  It blew very heavily all the morning.  The barometer continued to sink until it reached 29.32—­at 6 A.M. its lowest point.  The wind has hauled to the south.  We are evidently in a cyclone, having taken it in its northern quarter, the gale travelling north.  On the starboard tack, its centre has passed to the west of us.  Ordered the donkey engine to be got ready for use last night, in case the ship should make more water than the small bilge pumps could throw out.  Carried away the flying jibboom at 7.30 A.M.—­saved the sail.  As the gale progressed the wind hauled to the south and west; and at 4 P.M., judging that the strength of the gale had passed us, I kept the ship on her course, E. by S., which gave a quartering wind and sea; and although the sea was heavy, and the wind yet blowing a gale, she made beautiful weather of it, scudding as well as she had lain to.  The wind blew fresh all night, with a slowly rising barometer.