looking more closely from the mast-head of the flag-ship, I saw the masts and two funnels of a steamer very near to the burning ship.  The cruiser was somewhat in shore of the place where I was lying.  He seems to have made my squadron out about the same time I had seen him, and at once made tracks, as the Americans say, to get out to sea.  In doing so he had to near us considerably, so much so that before steam was ready in the flag-ship I could pretty well discern what the enemy was.  Some persons may be surprised to hear that the marauding vessel was no less a craft than the magnificent yacht of the Emperor of All the Russias, called the ‘Livadia,’ which had condescended to the somewhat undignified work of capturing small Turkish coasting craft.  Who can fancy the ‘Victoria and Albert’ being sent to sea, during a war between England and France, to capture and destroy small coasting craft on the French shores!  However, there was the fact; it was the ‘Livadia,’ and no mistake.  And now commenced one of the most interesting chases I have ever seen.  On our starting the yacht was about four miles ahead of us, steering a course that would take her straight to Sebastopol.  She had got through all the necessary dangerous manoeuvres of crossing our bows, from her having been inshore of us, before we moved.

The weather was lovely, not a ripple on the water, dead calm.

We commenced the chase at 4.30 p.m.  Unfortunately our decks were loaded with coal; however, we made a clean thirteen knots.  At first it seemed as if we were coming up with the chase, so much so that I felt inclined to fire the long bow gun at her.  But I always think and I say from blockade-running experience that firing more or less injures a vessel’s speed; so I refrained from doing so.  As night closed in a beautiful moon rose and made everything as clear as day.  The equality of our speed was most remarkable, inasmuch as the distance between us did not vary a hundred yards in an hour.  All night we were watching, measuring distances with nautical instruments, &c., hoping at moments that we were nearer, despairing at others that she was gaining from us.  We threw overboard fifty or sixty tons of coal, to no avail; we could not get within shot of the ‘Livadia,’ to capture which I would have given all I possessed.  As day broke we saw the crew of the ‘Livadia’ busily employed throwing overboard coal and water.  Sebastopol was in sight, and she was running for dear life to that haven of safety.  Lightening her had certainly a good effect, for it was sadly evident to me that on doing so she drew ahead a little, but very little.  Now I hoped she would burst her boiler or break down ever so little; but so it was not fated, and the Emperor’s yacht escaped by the skin of her teeth into Sebastopol, under the protection of batteries that opened a tremendous fire on my ship on my approaching, forgetful of their existence.  I was obliged to clear out of that pretty sharply or we should have been sunk.