At the end of three days we had run into a position about sixty miles from Wilmington without any incident happening worth mentioning.  On our nearing the blockading squadron at nightfall we heard a great deal of firing going on inshore, which we conjectured (rightly as it afterwards appeared) was caused by the American ships, who were chasing and severely handling a blockade-runner.  An idea at once struck me, which I quickly put into execution.  We steamed in as fast as we could, and soon made out a vessel ahead that was hurrying in to help her consorts to capture or destroy the contraband.  We kept close astern of her, and in this position followed the cruiser several miles.  She made signals continually by flashing different coloured lights rapidly from the paddle-boxes, the meaning of which I tried my best to make out, so that I might be able to avail myself of the knowledge of the blockade signals at some future time; but I could not manage to make head or tail of them.

Suddenly the firing ceased, and our pioneer turned out to sea again.  As we were by this time very near inshore, we stopped the engines and remained quite still, but unluckily could not make out our exact position.

The blockading cruisers were evidently very close in, so we did not like moving about; besides, the pilot was confident that we were close enough to the entrance of the river to enable us to run in when day broke, without being in any danger from the enemy.

Thus for the remainder of the night we lay quite close to the beach.  Unfortunately, however, about an hour before daylight we struck the shore, and all our efforts to free the vessel were of no avail.

As the day dawned we found that we were about a mile from Fort Fisher, and that two of the American vessels nearest the shore were about a mile from us when we first made them out, and were steaming to seaward, having probably been lying pretty near to the river’s mouth during the darkness of the night.  They were not slow to make us out in our unhappy position.  I ordered the boats to be lowered, and gave every one on board the option of leaving the vessel, as it seemed evident that we were doomed to be a bone of contention between the fort and the blockaders.  All hands, however, stuck to the ship, and we set to work to lighten her as much as possible.  Steam being got up to the highest pressure, the engines worked famously, but she would not move, and I feared the sand would get into the bilges.  And now a confounded vessel deliberately tried the range with her Parrot gun, and the shot splashed alongside of us.  Her fire, however, was promptly replied to by Fort Fisher.  The shot from the fort’s heavy artillery passed right over and close to the cruiser, and made her move further out, and thus spoiled the accuracy of the range of our devoted little craft, which the man-of-war had so correctly obtained.  We made a frantic effort to get off our sandy bed, and on all hands running from one extremity of the vessel to the other, to our delight she slipped off into deep water.