I should be almost afraid of wearying my readers, were I to give a minute account of all the captures we effected and the adventures we met with, but still I do not like altogether to pass them by. Our main object, however, was to intercept the American Commodore Manley, but as he had a force much superior to ours, it was absolutely necessary for us to keep together, or we might have found ourselves very much the worse for the encounter. Had it not been for this, we should have taken many more prizes than we did; indeed, we were compelled to allow numbers of considerable value to pass by without going in chase. On the 26th we took a sloop from Philadelphia bound for Boston with rice. On the 26th we re-took a brig from Oporto, bound to London, which had been captured by a rebel privateer off Scilly. We sent her to New York, but we never heard anything more of her, so that she must either have foundered or have been taken by the enemy. In the latter case the prize-master and crew must have joined them. On the 11th we took a vessel laden with lumber, which we burnt, and on the 14th a sloop with wood, which we gave up to the owners, as they were royalists; and on the 16th we took a brig with fish and lumber from Boston to the West Indies. At length, on the 23rd at daybreak, a flush-deck ship was seen becalmed within two miles of us. We made out that she was pierced for twenty guns, and from her appearance we had no doubt that she was a rebel privateer. The boats were ordered out immediately, but before they were in the water a breeze sprang up, and setting every stitch of canvas she could carry, away she went before the wind. We at the same time made sail in chase with our consorts, which were a little astern of us, and of course we had every hopes of making an important capture. By this time the rebel government had given letters of marque, not only to Americans, but to the inhabitants of various other countries, who, under their flag, had become very troublesome to our trade, and it had become necessary to endeavour to put a stop to the system. The privateer soon showed us that she had a remarkably fast pair of heels, and it became doubtful, after a couple of hours' chase, whether we had gained much, if anything on her. Sometimes the wind increased, and then our greater size and wider spread of canvas gave us the advantage, so that our hopes of capturing her rose and fell somewhat as did the breeze. We had the whole of the day before us, and a day it was of no little excitement. We kept the lead, our consorts following, one on either quarter, to be ready to cut her off, should the breeze shift, and place her to windward. Hour after hour passed, and still we were no nearer to her. "What chance have we of getting hold of her?" said I to Grampus, who was standing with me forward, keeping a look-out on her.