We received a hearty welcome from all our friends. I am glad to say we found everybody well; and those whom we had left as boys and girls were mostly grown to be men and women. My parents told how they had missed me greatly, and longed to see me back again. My mother was so surprised when I walked unannounced into the house that she came near fainting. Tears came into my father's eyes, and he greeted me with a choking voice; but very quickly the voice cleared up, and he said he felt like capering about the room. Everybody complimented us on our healthy appearance, our bronzed faces, and our well-developed figures, which had been hardened and toughened by our sea-faring life. We were the heroes of the time and place, and were kept busy narrating our adventures to all our old friends. We remained at home about two weeks, and then, fearful lest we might miss a good opportunity of going to sea again, we returned to Boston in the same way as we had come from that city, and with the same wagoner. We went straight to our former boarding-house, and as we approached saw, just outside the door, the familiar forms and faces of our old friends, Bill and Joe. There was a hearty greeting all around; and you may be sure that the evening and the next day were spent in telling the adventures which each had passed through since we were last together. The most interesting of all the stories was that of my old friend, Bill Haines, which I will endeavor to give as nearly as possible in his own words. "You remember that affair of the Chesapeake, don't you?" said Haines. "Of course I do," I replied; "and pretty nearly everybody in the country knows about it." "Well, I was in that little brush," said Haines, "and I can probably tell you a good deal more than you know about it. "I went down the coast from New York to the Potomac River along in the early part of February, 1807. When we got to Washington the crew of the coaster was paid off and discharged; the captain said he was going to lie up there, he didn't know for how long. I went to looking around for something, but there wasn't a craft I could ship on, leastways, not a merchant craft. I heard that the Chesapeake, thirty-eight guns, which was then lying at Washington, was going to be sent out to the Mediterranean to fight the Barbary coast pirates, and sure enough, she was put into commission on the 22d day of February.