This vessel was a screw steamer of sixty feet in length, with eight feet beam. She lay, before being prepared for the important service on which she was going, with about two feet of her hull showing above the water, at each end of which, on the shoulder as it were of the cigar, was a small hatch or opening, just large enough to allow a man to pop through it: from her bows projected a long iron outrigger, at the end of which there was fixed a torpedo that would explode on coming into contact with a vessel's side. When the crew were on board, and had gone down into the vessel through one of the hatches above mentioned, the said hatches were firmly closed, and by arrangements that were made from the inside the vessel was sunk about six inches below the water, leaving merely a small portion of the funnel showing. Steam and smoke being got rid of below water, the vessel was invisible, torpedo and all being immersed. The officer having thus described his vessel, wished me good-night, and started on his perilous enterprise. I met him again next evening quietly smoking his pipe. I eagerly asked him what he had done, when he told me with the greatest _sang-froid_ that he had gone on board his vessel with a crew of seven men; that everything for a time had gone like clockwork; they were all snug below with hatches closed, the vessel was sunk to the required depth, and was steadily steaming down the harbour, apparently perfectly water-tight, when suddenly the sea broke through the foremost hatch and she went to the bottom immediately. He said he did not know how he escaped. He imagined that after the vessel had filled he had managed to escape through the aperture by which the water got in; all the rest of the poor fellows were drowned. Not that my friend seemed to think anything of that, for human life was very little thought of in those times. This vessel was afterwards got up, when the bodies of her crew were still in her hold. I imagined that the vessel contained sufficient air to enable her to remain under water two or three hours, or maybe some method was practised by which air could be introduced by the funnel; at all events, had she been successful on that night, she would undoubtedly have caused a good deal of damage and loss to the blockading squadron, who were constantly harassed by all sorts of infernal machines, torpedoes, fire-vessels, &c., which were sent out against them by ingenious Southerners, whose fertile imaginations were constantly conceiving some new invention. On the next occasion that same enterprising officer was employed on a similar enterprise, his efforts were crowned with complete success. He started one dark night, in a submerged vessel of the same kind as that above described, and exploded the torpedo against the bows of one of the blockading squadron, doing so much damage that the vessel had to be run on shore to prevent her sinking.