“Why, Captain, your new coat of paint isn’t dry yet,” said the marshal. “That ship was the ‘Edgar Stuart’ when you left New York, all right enough.” I protested that I was sailing under the British flag but he only smiled and, naturally, I did not appeal to the British consul for protection. There were fraternal reasons why the marshal and I could talk confidentially, and, though he had no right to do it, he told me that he expected to have a warrant for my arrest in the morning. That made it serious business for me, as I had no desire to become entangled with the authorities even though I had full confidence in Fisk’s ability to get me out of trouble, and I determined to get away, and take my ship with me. The marshal left three watchmen on the ship to guarantee her continued presence. Edward Coffee, my steward, was a man who knew every angle of his business. Soon after dark he served the watchers with a lunch and followed it with a bottle of wine which had been carefully prepared, though no one could have told it had been tampered with. In ten minutes they were asleep and in twice that time we were out in the stream and headed south. We cleared the Virginia capes at daylight, aroused the surprised guards and loaned them a boat in which they rowed ashore. There was no government ship in those waters that could catch us so we proceeded on our course without any misgivings, leaving it to Fisk to straighten matters out. We delivered the cargo about sixty miles west of Cape Maysi and then went to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I wired to Fisk to ascertain the lay of the land. He replied that he had “squared” things with the authorities and it was safe for me to return but that it would be best to leave the ship at Halifax for a while. I accordingly took the train for New York and in two or three weeks Captain Williams followed with the “Stuart,” which had been restored to her real self, though painted a different color than when she left New York. Our expeditions with the “Stuart” had been so successful that the Spanish Government, through its minister at Washington, had arranged with the Delamater Iron Works, on the Hudson, for the purchase of several small gunboats, each carrying two guns, which were to operate against filibusters. We had not lost a single cargo, either while operating with the Junta or independently of it. In some instances the Spanish cavalry swooped down and captured part of the shipment before the rebels could get all of it back into the bush, but that was in no sense our fault. Fisk had learned the terms of the Spanish minister’s contract with the Delamater Company and the date that was specified for the delivery of the gunboats, but we did not know of a secret and verbal understanding by which they were to be delivered several weeks in advance of that time. The result was that on my next, and last, trip to Cuba I ran full tilt into one of the new boats, as I was not looking for them.