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162 us and other troops, stores, &c. down the bay. We soon embarked, that is, such of us as went by water, the greater part of the army having gone on by land. I was in a small schooner, called the Birmingham; there was but a small number of our corps of Sappers and Miners in this vessel, with a few Artillerists, six or eight officers, and a Commissary, who had a small quantity of stores on board, among which was a hogshead containing twenty or thirty gallons of rum. To prevent the men from getting more than their share of the liquor, the officers (who loved a little of the "good creature" as well as the men) had the bulkhead between the hold and the cabin taken down and placed the hogshead in the cabin, carefully nailing up the partition again, when they thought that they had the exclusive disposal of the precious treasure; but the soldiers were as wiley as they, for the very first night after the officers had snugly secured it, as they thought, the head of the cask being crouded against the bulkhead, the soldiers contrived to loosen one of the boards at the lower end, so as to swing it aside, and broached the hogshead on the other head; so that while the officers in the cabin thought they were the sole possessors of its contents, the soldiers in the hold had possession of at least as good a share as themselves.

We passed down the bay, making a grand appearance with our mosquetoe fleet, to Annapolis, (which I had left about five months before for West point,) here we stopped, fearing to proceed any further at present, not knowing exactly how matters were going on down the bay. A French cutter was despatched to procure intelligence. She returned in the course of three or four days, bringing word that the passage was clear; we then proceeded and soon arrived at the mouth of James' river, where were a number of armed French vessels and two or three fifty gun ships. We passed in sight of the French fleet, then lying in Lynnhaven bay; they resembled a swamp of dry pine trees. We had passed several of their men-of-war higher up the bay.

We were obliged to stay here a day or two on account of a severe North-East rain storm; the wind was quite high, and in the height of the storm, some officers on board a vessel lying near ours, sent off a soldier in a small punt, hardly capable of carrying a man in calm