Our sealed orders were opened, and proved our destination to be the West Indies, as we expected. We touched at Madeira to take in some wine for the ship's company; but as we only remained one day, we were not permitted to go on shore. Fortunate indeed would it have been if we had never gone there; for the day after, our captain, who had dined with the consul, was taken alarmingly ill. From the symptoms, the surgeon dreaded that he had been poisoned by something which he had eaten, and which most probably had been cooked in a copper vessel not properly tinned. We were all very anxious that he should recover; but, on the contrary, he appeared to grow worse and worse every day, wasting away, and dying, as they say, by inches. At last he was put in his cot, and never rose from it again. This melancholy circumstance, added to the knowledge that we were proceeding to an unhealthy climate, caused a gloom throughout the ship; and although the trade wind carried us along bounding over the bright blue sea--although the weather was now warm, yet not too warm--although the sun rose in splendour, and all was beautiful and cheering, the state of the captain's health was a check to all mirth. Every one trod the deck softly, and spoke in a low voice, that he might not be disturbed; all were anxious to have the morning report of the surgeon, and our conversation was generally upon the sickly climate, the yellow fever, of death and the palisades where they buried us. Swinburne, the quarter-master, was in my watch, and as he had been long in the West Indies, I used to obtain all the information from him that I could.