During her first cruise under the orders of Lieut. Payne (or Paine?) an enemy’s vessel passed close to her without noticing her; the swill raised by her paddles sunk the _David_, and Payne alone of all the crew saved himself. When the boat was recovered from the bottom, Lieut. Payne persuaded eight sailors to embark with him; a squall of wind caused the boat to fill with water, Lieut. Payne and two bluejackets alone escaping by leaping out of her as she went down. No sooner was the boat recovered from the bottom than her gallant commander offered to try again. A new crew volunteered, and all went well for a time. But one night, off Fort Sumter, she capsized, and only four (of whom Lieut. Payne was one) escaped. A third time she was raised, and the next essay was made in the Cooper River, under the lead of Mr. Aunley, one of the men who had constructed the boat. Alas! She sank for the fourth time, having caught her nose in the bottom, and all hands were drowned. Once more she was recovered only to foul the cable of a schooner at anchor in the harbour, and to sink for a fifth time. Up to this time five crews of eight each had volunteered for service in the ill-starred _David_, and of these forty men, no less than thirty-five had perished. The brave Southern sailors, instead of fighting shy of the submarine, were as ready as ever to face death again. The _David_ was recovered, and Lieut. Dixon, with Captain Carlson, both officers in the Confederate army, volunteered with five others to take her out against the Northern fleet. The Federal corvette _Housatonic_ lay outside the bar in Charleston harbour, and it was on this vessel that on the evening of February 17, 1864, the attack was made, an attack which is thus vividly described by Admiral David Porter, U.S. Navy, in his book, “The Naval History of the Civil War”:—