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462 when our vessel steamed in under the guns of the Moro Castle, and anchored off the city of Havana. In Havana I found a number of my old acquaintances of 1862, who were as busily engaged as ever in running the blockade, although the difficulties and dangers of the business gave them much discomfort. The profits of a successful trip, however, were so great that they could afford to brave them, and to submit to large losses through the vigilance of the Federal cruisers. In fact, despite the annoyances experienced from the blockaders, who were becoming exceedingly keen in their scent after prizes, blockade-running was yet a very paying business, and the men engaged in it would have been quite willing that the war should have continued indefinitely, so long as their ventures yielded as handsome results as they did.

What gave these people the most uneasiness at the time of which I write, was, not the stringency of the blockade, but a prospect that the war would speedily come to an end. They watched the course of events critically and anxiously, but from a very different standpoint from that of myself and my associates, North or South, and I was not a little startled by the evident belief that the collapse of the Confederacy was near at hand. The cold-blooded way in which they considered such a calamity, and the purely pecuniary light in which they regarded it, shocked me, and greatly excited my indignation. I could not but acknowledge the force of much of their reasoning, however, although their total indifference to the fate of the Confederacy, except so far as it affected their opportunities for money-making, had the effect of reviving my enthusiasm, and of making me more than ever resolved to labor for the success of the cause while a glimmer of hope remained. Having transacted my business in Havana, I started for Bridgetown, Barbadoes, to make arrangements there for the shipment of goods. I went from Havana to St. Thomas in the steamer Pelyo, and from St. Thomas to Bridgetown in a British steamer. The purser of the last-mentioned vessel