_Saturday, November 23rd._--Beautiful clear morning, with every appearance of settled weather. Fine starlit nights and clear settled days, though very pleasant to the lover of nature, are not quite such weather as we require for running a blockade by a ship which keeps herself in plain sight of us, and which has the heels of us. But we must have patience, and bide our time. Several sail have come in and departed during the last twenty-four hours. The enemy in the offing as usual. Towards noon it began to cloud up, and we had some rain, and I had strong hopes that we should have a cloudy, dark night. The moon would not rise until seven minutes past eleven, and if we could be aided by a few clouds we should have sufficient darkness; for be it known that in these tropical climates, where almost every star is a moon, there is no such thing as darkness when the firmament is clear. But my hopes began to fade, with the day, for one cloud disappeared after another, as the sun went down, until the night promised to be as serene and bright as the last. Venus, too, looked double her usual size, and being three hours bright at sunset, poured forth a flood of light, little less than that of the moon in a northern latitude. Notwithstanding all these discouragements, however, I resolved to attempt the run, and having made all the necessary preparations silently, so as not to awaken the suspicions of the townspeople, who were always on the alert, at about five minutes before eight o'clock gun-fire, I directed the chain to be slipped, and the fasts to the shore cut, and put her under steam. The enemy being on my starboard bow, and apparently standing towards the north point of the roadstead, I headed her for the south point, giving her full steam. So much on the _qui vive_ were the townspeople, that we had scarcely moved twenty yards when a shout rent the air, and there was a confused murmur of voices, as if Babel had been let loose. As we neared the French steamer of war, Acheron, signals were made to the enemy by means of blue lights from one of the Yankee schooners in port: perceiving which, and knowing that the signals were so arranged as to designate our direction, after moving a few hundred yards further, I doubled, and came back under cover of the land, while I stopped once or twice to assure myself that the enemy was continuing his course in the opposite direction, in obedience to his signals; when, as soon as the engineer could do so (for he had to cool his bearings, and this was truly an anxious moment for me), I gave her all steam, and stood for the north end of the island. As we approached it, the Fates, which had before seemed unpropitious to us, began to smile, and the rain-squall, which had come up quite unexpectedly, began to envelope us in its friendly folds, shutting in our dense clouds of black smoke, which were really the worst tell-tales we had to dread. The first half-hour's run was a very anxious one for us; but as we began to lose sight of the lights of the town and to draw away from the land, we knew that the enemy had been caught in his own trap, and that we had successfully eluded him. I had warned the French authorities that their neutrality would be disregarded, and that these signals would be made. The commander of the Iroquois had been guilty of a shameful violation of good faith towards the French naval officer, to whom he made a promise that he would respect the neutrality of the port, by sending his pilot on shore, and arranging these signals with the Yankee skippers. Yankee faith and Punic faith seem to be on a par. Our ship made good speed, though she was very deep, and by half-past eleven we made up with the south end of Dominica. Here the wind fell, and we ran along the coast of the island in a smooth sea, not more than four or five miles from the land. The moon by this time being up, the bold and picturesque outlines of this island, softened by the rains and wreathed in fleecy clouds, presented a beautiful night-scene.