For some days after my
arrival at Gibraltar, I had hopes of being able to reach another English
or a French port, where I might find the requisite facilities for
repair, and I patched my boilers, and otherwise prepared my ship for
departure. In consequence of a combination of the coal merchants against
me, however, I was prevented from coaling; and, in the meantime, the
enemy's steamers, Tuscarora and Kearsarge, and the sailing sloop Ino,
too, arrived and blockaded me. Notwithstanding the arrival of these
vessels, I should have made an effort to go to sea, but for the timely
discovery of further defects in my boilers, which took place under the
following circumstances:--An English steamer, having arrived from
Liverpool with an extra quantity of coal on board, offered to supply me.
I got steam up to go alongside of her for the purpose, when, with a very
low pressure, my boilers gave way in so serious a manner as to
extinguish the fires in one of the furnaces. I was obliged, of course,
to "blow off;" and upon a re-examination of the boilers, by a board of
survey, it was ascertained that they had been destroyed to such an
extent as to render them entirely untrustworthy. It was found, indeed,
to be necessary either to supply the ship with new boilers or to lift
the old ones out of her, and renew entirely the arches and other
important parts of them, which could only be done in a machinist's shop,
and with facilities not to be found at Gibraltar.
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