While engaged in these preliminary preparations, Walker received an injury in the foot, which kept him in his chamber until the middle of April; and, in fact, the sore was not wholly healed when he sailed from San Francisco. Thus confined to the house, he was able to do little more in the way of means than to obtain a thousand dollars from Mr. Joseph Palmer, of the firm of Palmer, Cook & Co. At this gentleman’s house he had met with Colonel Fremont and talked with him about the enterprise in Nicaragua; and the Colonel, who had passed across the Isthmus the previous year, thought well of the undertaking. It is due probably, to both Colonel Fremont and Mr. Palmer, to state that they were not fully aware of all the views Walker held on the subject of slavery; nor, indeed, was it necessary at that time for those views to be expressed. Besides the assistance given by Mr. Palmer, Walker was much aided by two friends—Mr. Edmund Randolph and Mr. A. P. Crittenden. After much difficulty, a contract was made with one Lamson for the passage of a certain number of men, aboard the brig Vesta, from San Francisco to Realejo. The agreement had been made through a ship-master, McNair, and it was considered that he would sail in command of the Vesta. But, after the cash payment on the charter party had been made to Lamson, he and McNair fell out, and the former was obliged to employ another captain for his vessel. The provisions and the passengers were all aboard the brig about the 20th of April; and when it was thought she was on the point of leaving, the Sheriff seized the vessel by attachment at the suit of an old creditor of the owner, Lamson. The evening, too, after the attachment, there were some signs of the brig getting under way for sea; and therefore the Sheriff sent down a posse of eight or ten, armed with revolvers, for the purpose of preventing an escape. A sort of scuffle, more in jest than in earnest, occurred between some of the posse and their acquaintances among the passengers; and the new captain, frightened out of his wits, jumped over the rail to the wharf, taking with him the papers of the ship. A few days afterward the United States Marshal served a writ on the brig for the price of the provisions; and the revenue cutter W. L. Marcy was hauled astern of the Vesta, with orders to keep her from going to sea with the Deputy Marshal aboard. To make assurance doubly sure, the Sheriff had the sails of the brig unbent and put in store. The owner seemed to be entirely without means to satisfy the claims against the vessel, and everybody thought the chance very small for the departure of the vessel on her proposed voyage.