On Sunday morning, July 17, at daybreak, we lifted anchor, and the Susquehanna with the Saratoga in tow, and the Mississippi towing the Plymouth, we proceeded down the outer bay, and left for a time the waters of Japan, numbers on shore and the troops on the parapets of the forts of Kami Saki looking at us, and apparently much pleased with the movement. This time we kept down the opposite side of the bay from the one by which we had arrived, and by eleven o’clock we were abreast of Misaki Awa, or the southernmost point of the bay on the east, off which we noticed swimming a number of seals. The natives in the small boats, having gotten more confidence, on our approach, pulled as near to us as the revolving-wheel would permit them. We ran in sight of the large volcanic island, named on the Dutch charts as Vries, but called Oho Sima, or Bird island, by the Japanese. Evening saw us threading our way through a group of islands, whose barren surfaces presented a desolate sight. One of them was Fatisisio, the penal settlement or Botany Bay of Japan. On the 18th a man fell overboard from the Plymouth, but by cutting away, promptly, a life-buoy which he struck out for and reached, and promptly lowering away a boat, he was saved. I could not but recollect that there was a man overboard from the same ship the day before, but under different circumstances, as was told by the half-raised ensigns at the peaks of the four ships. Poor Jack had died after we had gotten to sea, and the ocean which had been his home during life, before nightfall was to cover him with its waves. The boatswain’s call was not “Heave-to,” as to-day, but piped, which was echoed through the ship by each of his mates, “All hands bury the dead” and as the sun went down, with two of the iron messengers, which he had been proud to have hurled at the enemies of the star-flag, tied to his feet, and wrapped in the hammock in which with stormy lullaby he had often swung, and swinging, dreamed of home and its endearments, poor Jack was launched into the sea, and soon sank “deeper than ever plummet sounded.” The next day we encountered a heavy swell and a stiff breeze, it then became squally, and there was every indication about the horizon of bad weather approaching. As it was getting quite rough, and there being danger of parting the towing-hawsers, the sloops-of-war were cast off from the steamers, the Saratoga being signaled to make the best of her way to Shanghae, and the Plymouth to proceed to our next place of rendezvous—Loo-Choo. By meridian of the 20th we had a strong gale of wind on us; top-gallant masts were sent down, top-masts housed, and storm-sails bent. At three o’clock the ship pitched away her head-sounding spars, springing the bowsprit in the cap; but the wreck of the spars was gotten on board, so as to give us no trouble by becoming entangled in our wheels. The Susquehanna lost her sounding-spars also, or cut them away.