On opening a sealed order I had received from the Commander-in-Chief at Barbadoes I found I was to take on board some casks of lime juice for the men of the hospitals of Jamaica. Thinks I to myself, this is what Mr. Hume would have, in the Commons House, called jobbery, and a poor kind of job it turned out; for, on inspecting the lime juice at Port Royal, some of it was condemned as unfit for use. The two days I remained at Trinidad I dined with the Governor, Sir Thos. Heslip, who was urbanity itself. I visited the pitch lake at this place, which is a most extraordinary phenomenon. I remarked several large chasms in it, where small fish were enjoying themselves. I was told by the officer who accompanied me that the pitch could not be applied to any use. Whilst we were looking at it one of the smaller chasms, or rents, closed with a bubbling noise, and the water above it appeared as if boiling. At daylight on the third day I sailed with the convoy for Jamaica, and anchored at Port Royal. The day after I waited on the Admiral at the Pen, where I dined, and met a number of my brother officers, whose conversation after dinner was principally respecting their ships. As the ship I commanded was healthy I was, if possible, determined to keep her so, and I requested permission to sail on a long cruise as soon as we were refitted. The Pen, or the Government House, where the Admiral resides, is about three short miles from Greenwich. It is enclosed in a park, and the views from it are extensive and beautiful. Some of my former parti-coloured beauties of Port Royal had gone on the other tack--that is, they had taken up their everlasting abode among the land crabs on the Palisades, and as I partook of those crustaceous fish I very possibly might have eaten some part of them. If I did, I thought them very good.
The yellow fever was making rapid strides on board the squadron. It fortunately did not reach us, and we sailed on the tenth day after our arrival. My cruising ground was between the north side of Jamaica and Cuba. I frequently sighted the Moro Castle at the entrance of the river where I was formerly taken prisoner and sent to the town of St. Jago. The good Spanish Governor's kindness held a lively recollection in my memory, but the captain of an American vessel who had sailed from thence the day before I fell in with him, informed me that he was numbered with the dead. Peace to his "manes." We had been out a fortnight when one afternoon we fell in with two large Spanish schooner privateers. They were to windward, and standing for St. Jago. "Now," thought I, "if I can get you once under our guns, I will pay off old scores." The sea breeze was fresh, and we were closing fast. They at first, I believe, took us for an American, as I had hoisted the Yankee colours. When they came nearly within gun-shot they, unfortunately for us, saw their mistake, and hauled in for the shore. I tacked, and had got within gun-shot of them, when the lower fort of the Moro opened its fire on us, one of the shot passing through the main top-sail. They also fired, and their shot went over us. Finding the breeze lulling, and that we had no hope of capturing them, I gave them our passing broadsides, and as one of them yawed, I had reason to believe some of our shot took effect. The battery gave us a parting salute without doing us injury, when, as the evening was closing, and the enemy's vessels had run into the mouth of the river, I was obliged to haul off.