"Captain Harding, of the Schooner Aspray, who arrived at Boston last Monday, from Havanna, in twelve days, informs that he was chased out of the Bay of Matanzas by two piratical boats, and running down for Havanna threw off her deck load to get clear of a piratical schooner. Brig Alert, of Portsmouth, from New Orleans, had just arrived off the Moro with a deck load of hogs. She was boarded in the night by two piratical boats, with six men each, and Captain Charles Blunt was murdered and thrown overboard; the cook was stabbed, thrown among the hogs and partly devoured by them. The crew were maltreated, and the vessel plundered. Captain Harding states, that when she sailed from Havanna it was hourly expected that orders would be issued for the detention of French vessels in port." CHAPTER XXV. Schooner Frances. On the sixteenth day of July, 1824, I made a contract with one Captain Oliver C. Murray, master of the Schooner Frances, of New-York, to proceed with him on a trading voyage to the Musquitto Shore, Chagres, Porto Bello, St. Blas, &c. as a pilot and assistant trader. We took on board an assorted cargo, and sailed from New-York about the last of July. After being at sea some three days Captain Murray was taken sick, when he called the mate and crew into the cabin and told them that he had given up the charge of the schooner to me, that they must obey me accordingly. This was unsolicited by me. We then proceeded direct to Porto Bello, where we opened a trade with the inhabitants, remaining there about three weeks, experiencing heavy showers of rain every day we tarried there, it then being the rainy season on that coast. We proceeded from that port to Carthagena, a distance of about two hundred and sixty miles, where we were informed by the inhabitants that there had not fallen a drop of rain in that place during the last ten months. Carthagena is the strongest fortified city I ever visited, being enclosed with a wall some fifteen feet high, which is approached by a slope of easy assent. The wall appears to be from fifteen to twenty feet thick, having embrasures with heavy cannon mounted on it, about one hundred feet from one to another, all around the city, with a good road on the top of the wall. On the outside of the wall there is a deep trench, where water can be let in five or six feet deep if the city should be invaded by an enemy. Vessels bound into the harbor are obliged to keep close to the main land, which brings them near a long tier of forts. The greatest part of the channel is filled in with large stones, which appears to have been the work of ages.