Friday, March 27th.  The captain having given up all hope of finding Foster, and being unwilling to delay any longer, gave orders for unmooring ship, and we made sail, dropping slowly down with the tide and light wind.  We left letters with Captain Bradshaw to take to Boston, and were made miserable by hearing him say that he should be back again before we left the coast.  The wind, which was very light, died away soon after we doubled the point, and we lay becalmed for two days, not moving three miles the whole time, and a part of the second day were almost within sight of the vessels.  On the third day, about noon, a cool sea-breeze came rippling and darkening the surface of the water, and by sundown we were off San Juan, which is about forty miles from San Diego, and is called half-way to San Pedro, where we were bound.  Our crew was now considerably weakened.  One man we had lost overboard, another had been taken aft as clerk, and a third had run away; so that, beside Stimson and myself, there were only three able seamen and one boy of twelve years of age.  With this diminished and discontented crew, and in a small vessel, we were now to battle the watch through a couple of years of hard service; yet there was not one who was not glad that Foster had escaped; for, shiftless and good for nothing as he was, no one could wish to see him dragging on a miserable life, cowed down and disheartened; and we were all rejoiced to hear, upon our return to San Diego, about two months afterwards, that he had been immediately taken aboard the Lagoda, and had gone home in her, on regular seaman’s wages.

After a slow passage of five days, we arrived on Wednesday, the first of April, at our old anchoring-ground at San Pedro.  The bay was as deserted and looked as dreary as before, and formed no pleasing contrast with the security and snugness of San Diego, and the activity and interest which the loading and unloading of four vessels gave to that scene.  In a few days the hides began to come slowly down, and we got into the old business of rolling goods up the hill, pitching hides down, and pulling our long league off and on.  Nothing of note occurred while we were lying here, except that an attempt was made to repair the small Mexican brig which had been cast away in a southeaster, and which now lay up, high and dry, over one reef of rocks and two sand-banks.  Our carpenter surveyed her, and pronounced her capable of being refitted, and in a few days the owners came down from the Pueblo, and having waited for the high spring tides, with the help of our cables, kedges, and crew, hauled her off after several trials.  The three men at the house on shore, who had formerly been a part of her crew, now joined her, and seemed glad enough at the prospect of getting off the coast.