We had our usual good luck in getting our anchor without letting go another, and were all snug, with our boats at the boom-ends, in half an hour.  In about two hours more the whaler came in, and made a clumsy piece of work in getting her anchor, being obliged to let go her best bower, and, finally, to get out a kedge and a hawser.  They were heave-ho-ing, stopping and unstopping, pawling, catting, and fishing for three hours; and the sails hung from the yards all the afternoon, and were not furled until sundown.  The Loriotte came in just after dark, and let go her anchor, making no attempt to pick up the other until the next day.

This affair led to a dispute as to the sailing of our ship and the Ayacucho.  Bets were made between the captains, and the crews took it up in their own way; but as she was bound to leeward and we to windward, and merchant captains cannot deviate, a trial never took place; and perhaps it was well for us that it did not, for the Ayacucho had been eight years in the Pacific, in every part of it,—­ Valparaiso, Sandwich Islands, Canton, California, and all,—­ and was called the fastest merchant-man that traded in the Pacific, unless it was the brig John Gilpin, and perhaps the ship Ann McKim, of Baltimore.

Saturday, November 14th.  This day we got under way, with the agent and several Mexicans of note, as passengers, bound up to Monterey.  We went ashore in the gig to bring them off with their baggage, and found them waiting on the beach, and a little afraid about going off, as the surf was running very high.  This was nuts to us, for we liked to have a Mexican wet with salt water; and then the agent was very much disliked by the crew, one and all; and we hoped, as there was no officer in the boat, to have a chance to duck them, for we knew that they were such ``marines’’ that they would not know whether it was our fault or not.  Accordingly, we kept the boat so far from shore as to oblige them to wet their feet in getting into her; and then waited for a good high comber, and, letting the head slue a little round, sent the whole force of the sea into the stern-sheets, drenching them from head to feet.  The Mexicans sprang out of the boat, swore, and shook themselves, and protested against trying it again; and it was with the greatest difficulty that the agent could prevail upon them to make another attempt.  The next time we took care, and went off easily enough, and pulled aboard.  The crew came to the side to hoist in their baggage, and heartily enjoyed the half-drowned looks of the company.

Everything being now ready, and the passengers aboard, we ran up the ensign and broad pennant (for there was no man-of-war, and we were the largest vessel on the coast), and the other vessels ran up their ensigns.  Having hove short, cast off the gaskets, and made the bunt of each sail fast by the jigger, with a man on each yard, at the word the whole canvas of the ship was loosed, and with the greatest rapidity