Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/450

430 this mode of being taken off, that I would, at this time, willingly have exchanged places with the lowest officer in his Majesty's navy, on the point of a desperate engagement; for I should at least have died honourably, and my name and death would have been recorded for the benefit of my relatives, as far as regarded the certainty of my fate: but should any thing happen to me of the nature we were anticipating, not even that consolation would be left them; besides which, the objects of my Mission would be lost to the government, who might, in the absence of information respecting the motives by which my conduct was actuated, have condemned it for the very exposure to which I was thus subjected. I, therefore, agreed with the captain to land me at the Havannah, in the hopes of falling in with one of his Majesty's ships, or being able to get a passage in some vessel proceeding with a convoy out of this dangerous gulf; but it so happened that just as we were passing the