I must mention that it was the custom of the cruisers on the coast of Brazil to send their boats on detached service, they (the boats) going in one direction while the vessels they belonged to went in another, only communicating every two or three days. Proud indeed for me was the moment when, arriving near to the spot on the coast where the 'Lightning' was daily expected with her live cargo, I left my ship in command of three boats, viz., a ten-oared cutter and two four-oared whale boats. I had with me in all nineteen men, well armed and prepared, as I imagined, for every emergency. The night we left our ship we anchored late under the shelter of a small island, and all hands being tired from a long row in a hot sun, I let my men go to sleep during the short tropical darkness. As soon as the day was breaking all hands were alert, and we saw with delight a beautiful rakish-looking brig, crammed with slaves, close to the island behind which we had taken shelter, steering for a creek on the mainland a short distance from us. I ought to mention that the island in question was within four miles of this creek. We immediately prepared for action, and while serving out to each man his store of cartridges, I found to my horror that the percussion tubes and caps for the boat's gun, the muskets and pistols, had been left on board the ship. What was to be done? no use swearing at anybody. However, we pulled boldly out from under the shelter of the island, thinking to intimidate the slaver into heaving to. In this we were grievously mistaken.