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162 showed the way into his cabin, and as Mr. Evans and I entered the room, with a graceful bow he said, "Ici nous sommes des messieurs" ("Here we are gentlemen"); and not only showed his papers, which were absolutely correct, but also opened a bottle of champagne for us. We thought that we had parted on the most friendly terms, but some days afterwards the Frenchman met and boarded a French steamer and sent a report of the outrage (?), as he termed it, to his Government, which would have caused us a great deal of trouble if it had not been for a good piece of luck which befell us in falling in with the French brig Diligente, which had been knocked over by a squall and was lying on her beam ends, out of food, and helpless, while every wave washed over her and her exhausted crew. Her cargo had shifted and her wearied men had been unable to right her. We sent a number of our crew on board who soon replaced the cargo in its proper place and we spontaneously burst into a hearty cheer as she regained an upright position. Her captain was very grateful, especially for the provisions we gave him, and he gave us several bottles of eau-de-vie de Danzig with gold dust floating in it. This was the only thing in the brig which was not saturated with salt water. The Diligente hailed from Cherbourg, France, and her captain gave us a letter to his owners telling them of his misfortune and speaking in very complimentary terms of the assistance we had given him, and begged us to mail it from the first port we entered.

A few days after we had rescued the Frenchman we experienced quite a little uneasiness on our own account. A smoke was seen on the horizon and shortly afterwards a steamer appeared coming straight for us. We soon decided that she was a merchantman, but that proved nothing, as the United States Government had converted so many merchant steamers into men-of-war. Owing to our foul bottom the stranger gained rapidly on us. We went to our guns and waited to see what was going to happen. On