On Sunday morning it was foggy and disagreeable, and we were in the dreaded Bay of Biscay: however, I was still well enough to do Service on board…. All the ship’s crew attended except the steersman and the stokers, _i.e._, the fellows that feed the fire of the engine. The commander had them all upon deck in the morning and gave them a practical discourse on good behaviour, which amused [Newman] and me by being so much to the point: he is a nice fellow, I think. After Service I was fairly done up, and lost my character…. Next day we were in the middle of the Bay: still cloudy and damp, and a long gentle swell: but we had served our time, and were all alive and merry…. In the evening we found that the commander was a musician and a painter; he had a very elegant miniature of his wife that he had finished up for his amusement at sea; and he sang us several songs, accompanying himself on the Spanish guitar, in very good taste, as [Newman] said: we the ἀμύητοι liked it much; and we have not had any qualms since: and now I have got on to where the rest begins. We live splendidly on board, have a cabin each, capital dinners, and good company: the three midshipmen, gentlemanlike obliging fellows as can be: yesterday they went out of the vessel’s course, to show us the coast to advantage. ‘_Saturday._――On getting up, found ourselves in Cadiz harbour; the convent bells put us in mind that we are in a religious country: it sounded just like Oxford before Morning Chapel. We found ourselves in quarantine and unable to land. The Consul’s boat came off for the letters, rowed by eight Spaniards, such odd-looking fellows! they row without rullocks, having a strap and a τροπωτήρ…. We saw the unfinished Cathedral very distinctly through a glass: it had not at all an ecclesiastical look, but was large and picturesque. It will never be finished now, I suppose, as the day of apostasy seems at hand in Spain. ‘_Sunday morning._――Here we are at Gibraltar.’ Newman’s letters, enthusiastic over sky and sea, are full of the horrors of the ship (which he says was not properly cleaned before being sent down from Woolwich), and of the little stuffy rooms which are enough to kill a valetudinarian; but valetudinarian Hurrell seems to have enjoyed it all. To the Rev. ISAAC WILLIAMS, Dec. 27, 1832.