By this time the sea-breeze had set in, and I could see the vessel I had been watching, though still a considerable distance from the shore, was trimming her sails to the sea-breeze, and steering straight in for the very spot where I had been concealed.  Signal after signal was made to her by her friends on the shore, in the shape of lighted fires (not much avail in the daytime) and the hoisting of flags, &c., but she seemed utterly to disregard the action of her friends.  Satisfied, I imagine, that she had all but finished her voyage, seeing no cruiser and unsuspicious of boats, on she came.[1]

We got almost alongside of her before the people on board seemed to see us.  When she did, evidently taken by surprise, she put her helm down, and throwing all her sails aback, snapped some of her lighter spars, thus throwing everything into confusion—­confusion made worse by the fact that, with the view of immediate landing, two hundred or three hundred of the niggers had been freed from their confinement and were crowded on the deck.  Taking advantage of this state of things we made our capture without a shot being fired.

In fact everything was done, as sailors say, ’before you could look round you,’ the man at the helm replaced by one of my men, the crew bundled down into the slave-hold to give them a taste of its horrors, and the sails trimmed for seaward instead of towards the land.  The captain, who seemed a decent fellow, cried like a child.  He said:  ’If I had seen you five minutes before you would never have taken me.  Now I am ruined.’  I consoled him as well as I could and treated him well, as he really seemed half a gentleman, if not entirely one.  I found about six hundred slaves, men and women and children, on board this vessel, who as they had made a very rapid and prosperous voyage, were in a somewhat better state than those on board the last capture.  Still goodness knows their state was disgusting enough.  Ophthalmia had got a terrible hold of the poor wretches.  In many of the cases the patient was stone blind.  I caught this painful disease myself, and for several days couldn’t see a yard.

Shortly after, having despatched our prize into Rio in charge of a brother midshipman, we were joined by another man-of-war cruiser, which had been sent to assist us in our work.  As the officer in command of this vessel was of senior rank to my commander, he naturally took upon himself to organise another boat expedition, placing one of his own officers in command.  With this expedition I was allowed to go, taking with me my old boats and their crews, with orders to place myself under the direction of Lieutenant A.C., the officer chosen by the senior in command.