_23d._--The night passed quietly, and so indeed did the day. Many messages have passed between us and the land, but I could not go on shore: we have excellent oranges, and tolerable vegetables from the town, and have been quite enough amused in observing the curious little boats, canoes, catamarans and jangadas, that have been sailing, and paddling, and rowing round the ship. The jangada resembles nothing I have ever seen before; six or eight logs are made fast together by two transverse beams; at one end there is a raised seat, on which a man places himself to steer, for they are furnished with a sort of rudder; sometimes the seat is large enough to admit of two sitters, another bench at the foot of a mast, immense for the size of the raft, holds clothes and provisions, or an upright pole is fixed in one of the logs, to which these things are suspended, and a large triangular sail of cotton cloth completes the jangada, in which the hardy Brazilian sailor ventures to sea, the waves constantly washing over it, and carries cargoes of cotton or other goods, or, in case of necessity, letters and despatches, hundreds of miles in safety. About three o'clock a large canoe with two patriot officers came along side, to ascertain if we were really English; if we had come, as was reported, to assist the royalists, or if we would assist them: so apt are men, under the influence of strong feeling themselves, to doubt of perfect indifference in others, that I question much whether they believed in the strict neutrality we profess. They left us, however, without betraying any particular anxiety, and made a very circuitous passage home, in order to avoid the Recife cruizer, which was looking out for straggling boats or vessels of any description belonging to the patriots. _Monday the 24th._--Col. Patronhe arrived early this morning, to request that the English packet might put into Lisbon with the Government despatches. We felt glad that the strict rules of service prevented the captain from giving any such order to the master of the packet. It would be at once a breach of that neutrality we profess to observe, and, in my opinion, an aiding of the worst cause. The colonel, adverting to the town being in a state of siege, and the uncertainty of the next attack as to time and place, advised me strongly to stay altogether on board; but I had never seen a town in a state of siege, and therefore resolved to go ashore. Accordingly, Mr. Dance, being the only officer on board who speaks either Portuguese or French, was commissioned to accompany me; and I took two midshipmen, Grey and Langford, also to call on Madame do Rego.