About the first of November, 1813, having added a little to my small capital by my late adventure in the Rover, and feeling eager to add more, again trusting to the smiles of fickle fortune, I purchased a small sloop called the New-York, of 28 tons burden. Soon after I sold one-fourth of her to Messrs. T. B. & A. Cook, merchants in Catskill, and one-half of her to two merchants in the city of New-York. They considered it a kind of lottery adventure. One of the new owners in New-York had correspondents in Norfolk, Virginia, who informed us of the high prices of Northern produce in that city, and the situation of the English squadron in Lynhaven Bay, and advised us to procure a small vessel of light draught of water, and that by sailing in over a shoal called the Horse-shoe, in a dark night, we might avoid coming in contact with the enemy's fleet. The American coast was closely blockaded by the English vessels, but heavy gales of wind frequently drove them off the coast for a short time, which offered some chance of making passages by keeping near the land. The high prices of Northern produce in Southern markets held out great inducements to shippers to engage in exporting it. Our correspondents at Norfolk, stated potatoes to be worth one dollar and fifty cents per bushel; onions, sixteen dollars per hundred ropes; salt, two dollars and fifty cents per bushel, and cheese twenty-five dollars per cwt. We loaded the sloop with four hundred bushels potatoes, two hundred bushels salt, three thousand four hundred and fifty ropes onions, and eight thousand six hundred pounds of cheese; all shipped on the joint account of the owners. I was to purchase and sell the cargo, and when I arrived at Norfolk was to buy three or four old brigs or schooners, load them with coal, and when a favorable opportunity occurred by the enemy being driven to sea by the wind, send them to New-York. Vessels could be purchased in Norfolk at that time for one-third of their real value in time of peace; and the price of coal in New-York was three or four times as much as in Norfolk. My wages, as master, was one hundred dollars per month, and I drew one-fourth of the profits of the whole concern. On the 14th of November I sailed from New-York and proceeded to Sandy Hook, where I discovered an English frigate close in with the land, in chase of an American schooner, which she compelled to run ashore near Shrewsbury. I sailed into Mosquitto Cove, and took shelter among some thirty American gun-boats, the crews of which went as volunteers to protect the wreck of the schooner from being plundered by the English frigate, which they accomplished. After tarrying two days at Mosquitto Cove, we weighed anchor and proceeded to sea, keeping as near the land as we could without being in danger of running aground, until we were some distance south of Cape Henlopen, when a violent gale of south-east wind commenced, and with our utmost exertions we succeeded in running into the bay.