_October 11th._--Morning clear and calm, after a couple of days of tempestuous weather, during which the barometer settled a little. Toward noon it clouded up again, and there were squally appearances in the south-east. The phenomenon of the tide-rips has reappeared. Malay John was in luck, again, this morning, a covey of flying-fish having fallen on the deck, last night, during the storm. He has served me a plate full of them for breakfast. The largest of them are about the size of a half-grown Potomac herring, and they are somewhat similar in taste--being a delicate, but not highly flavored fish.
_October 14th._--At noon, to-day, we plotted precisely upon the diagonal between St. Roque and New York; our latitude being 8° 31', and longitude 45° 56'. We now made more sail, and on the 17th of October we had reached the latitude of 11° 37'. From this time, until the 22d, we had a constant series of bad weather, the barometer settling to 29.80, and the wind blowing half a gale, most of the time. Sometimes the wind would go all around the compass, and the weather would change half a dozen times, in twenty-four hours. On the last-mentioned day, the weather became again settled, and being now in latitude 14°, we had passed out of the calm belt, and began to receive the first breathings of the north-east trade-wind.
On the 24th, we chased and hove to a French brig, called _La Mouche Noire_, from Nantes, bound for Martinique. She had been out forty-two days, had no newspapers on board, and had no news to communicate. We boarded her under the United States flag, and when the boarding-officer apologized to the master for the trouble we had given him, in heaving him to, in the exercise of our belligerent right of search, he said, with an admirable _naiveté_, he had _heard_ the United States were at war, but he did not recollect with whom! Admirable Frenchman! wonderful simplicity, to care nothing about newspapers, and to know nothing about wars!
On the 25th, we overhauled that _rara avis in mare_, a Prussian ship. The 27th was Sunday; we had a gentle breeze from the north-east, with a smooth sea, and were enjoying the fine morning, with our awnings spread, scarcely expecting to be disturbed, when the cry of "Sail ho!" again rang from the mast-head. We had been making preparations for Sunday muster; Jack having already taken down from its hiding-place his Sunday hat, and adjusted its ribbons, and now being in the act of "overhauling" his bag, for the "mustering-shirt and trousers." All these preparations were at once suspended, the firemen were ordered below, there was a passing to and fro of engineers, and in a few minutes more the welcome black smoke came pouring out of the _Sumter's_ chimney. Bounding away over the sea, we soon began to raise the strange sail from the deck. She was a fore-and-aft schooner of that peculiar model and rig already described as belonging to the New Englander, and nobody else, and we felt certain, at once, that we had flushed the enemy. The little craft was "close-hauled," or, may be, she had the wind a point free, which was her best point of sailing, had the whitest kind of cotton canvas, and carried very taunt gaff-topsails. We found her exceedingly fast, and came up with her very slowly. The chase commenced at nine A. M., and it was three P. M. before we were near enough to heave her to with the accustomed blank cartridge. At the report of our gun--the Confederate States flag being at our peak--the little craft, which had probably been in an agony of apprehension, for some hours past, saw that her fate was sealed, and without further ado, put her helm down, lowered her foresail, hauled down her flying-jib, drew her jib-sheet over to windward--and was hove to; the stars and stripes streaming out from her main-topmast head. Upon being boarded, she proved to be the _Daniel Trowbridge_, of New Haven, Connecticut, last from New York, and bound to Demerara, in British Guiana.