"Captain Gale had been very sick the day before, and was too feeble to leave the ship, so remained on board and was captured and taken to Fort Warren. The U.S.S. _James Adger_, commanded by Capt. James Foster of Bloomington, Ind., had the good fortune to capture our ship, and hauled her off as a prize. "After reaching Wilmington and supplying myself with clothing and a hat, I immediately went on board the steamer _Flora_ with Captain Horner and made a successful run to Bermuda. The _Flora_ was considered too slow and sent back to England. I then joined the _Index_, commanded by Captain Marshall, and made several successful voyages on her, but she too was condemned as too slow and was returned to Glasgow. "I had a thrilling adventure on this ship on a homeward voyage, when, for the first time in all my experience, we made land opposite Bald Head Light on Frying Pan Shoals. As we were coming around to New Inlet we fell in with a Federal cruiser, so close when we discovered her that we could easily discern the maneuvers of the men on deck. She seemed to have anchors weighed, and was moving about and could easily have captured us, and we were at a loss to understand why she did not fire into us. Some of our people decided that she wished to secure us as a prize without injury, as she steamed alongside of us for miles and all at once put her helm hard down and went close under our stern and attempted to go between us and the shoals. I remember the remark of our pilot, Tom Grissom, to Captain Marshall: 'If she follows us on that course I will wreck her before we reach the inlet.' "The cruiser had only steamed half a mile or so, when she suddenly passed from view, and in a few moments a rocket went up near where we last saw her, which was repeated at short intervals. After a few minutes, rockets could be seen going up from the whole squadron and there was evidently a great commotion among them on account of our pursuer, who seemed suddenly to have got into serious trouble. We passed through the inlet without further molestation, as the entire fleet had centered their attention upon the unfortunate cruiser which had suddenly gone down. When morning dawned, it revealed the Federal cruiser hard and fast on the reef, with the other vessels of the squadron working manfully to relieve her. Colonel Lamb went down to the extreme point with his Whitworth guns and opened fire on her. A month or so afterwards, while in Bermuda, I saw a spirited sketch of the whole affair in _Frank Leslie's Illustrated News_, giving an account of the wreck, and of an investigation of the conduct of the officers in charge. I think the vessel was the gun-boat _Petrel_.