I accordingly proceeded in discharging my cargo, & in receiving on board wine & fruit in return, & in 8 days was ready to sail--in order to succeed in escaping an investigation, & probably, a capture, by the English, I tho^{t} to wait for a strong easterly wind, and to improve the night, to make a run through the _Gut of Gibraltar_, where lay the greatest danger of capture, or detention,--I accordingly waited the first Easterly wind & left Melaga, calculating to reach the rock of Gibralter, about Dark, the same Eve”, which I did, but unfortunally as I approach’d it, the wind died away, & by time I had pass’d it, it was nearly calm--knowing that if it remained so thro the night, that daylight would expose me to Fort & their cruizers, & that I should surely be exposed to examination, & detention, I thought it advisable, to proceed to Anchorage with what wind I had--and I immediately haw[l]ed into the Bay, for the neutrial ground, but the wind being a head, I had to make a tack under the Spanish shore, & while standing over for the rock, was boarded by the boat of an English Fregate, under the command of a midshipman, who took charge of me, under pretence that I was bound into Algaziras--after we had come to anchor, altho 12 ^{o}Clock at night, he insisted upon taken me on board the Frigate with my papers--well I was conducted on board & before an officer, who questioned me, I told him the truth, that I was from Malago, bound to Boston, that I had come in there to evail myself of a clearence from a British port, & a convoy thro the gut--well ‘said he, a convoy will sail, the day after to morrow, & ordered the officer to carry me on board my vessell again immediately. I went on shore the next morn” & call^{d.} upon the American consel, to whom, I made know my true situation--he told me, he thought there was but little chance for me, as I was compleatly under the _Orders in Council_.--I left the consul & in the street, fell in with an old acquaintan[ce], to him also, I told my greivance--he advised me, as a last resort, & as my situation was not generally known, to endevour to effect a clerance by bribery; & he gave other advice & information upon that subject.