_August 15th._--During the past night, we made the "Great Constable," a small island, off the coast, and one of the landmarks for Cayenne. The night was fine, and moonlit, and we ran in, and anchored about midnight, in fourteen fathoms of water. At daylight, the next morning, after waiting for the passage of a rain-squall, we got under way, and proceeding along the coast, came up with the Remize Islands, in the course of the afternoon, where we found a French pilot-lugger lying to, waiting for us. We were off Cayenne, and the lugger had come out to show us the way into the anchorage. A pilot jumping on board, we ran in, and anchored to the north-west of the "Child"--a small island--in three and a quarter fathoms of water. I could scarcely realize, that this was the famous penal settlement of Cayenne, painted in French history, as the very abode of death, and fraught with all other human horrors, so beautiful, and picturesque did it appear. The outlying islands are high, rising, generally, in a conical form, and are densely wooded, to their very summits. Sweet little nooks and coves, overhung by the waving foliage of strange-looking tropical trees, indent their shores, and invite the fisherman, or pleasure-seeker to explore their recesses. The main land is equally rich in vegetation, and though the sea-coast is low, distant ranges of mountains, inland, break in, agreeably, upon the monotony. A perennial summer prevails, and storms, and hurricanes are unknown. It was here that some of the most desperate and bloodthirsty of the French revolutionists of 1790, were banished. Many of them died of yellow fever; others escaped, and wandered off to find inhospitable graves, in other countries; few of them ever returned to France. Shortly after we came to anchor, the batteries of the town, and some small French steamers of war, that lay in the harbor, fired salutes in honor of the birthday of Louis Napoleon--this being the 15th of August.
The next morning, at daylight, I dispatched Lieutenant Evans, and Paymaster Myers, to the town--the former to call on the Governor, and the latter to see if any coal could be had. Their errand was fruitless. Not only was there no coal to be purchased, but my officers thought that they had been received rather ungraciously. The fact is, we found here, as in Curaçoa, that the enemy was in possession of the neutral territory. There was a Federal Consul resident in the place, who was the principal contractor, for supplying the French garrison with fresh beef! and there were three, or four Yankee schooners in the harbor, whose skippers had a monopoly of the trade in flour and notions. What could the _Sumter_ effect against such odds?