Gale continues; the wind (E.S.E.) not having
varied a hair for the last sixteen hours. Barometer gradually falling;
ship rolling and pitching in the sea, and all things dreary-looking and
uncomfortable. I am supremely disgusted with the sea and all its
belongings; the fact is, I am past the age when men ought to be
subjected to the hardships and discomforts of the sea. Seagoing is one
of those constant strifes which none but the vigorous, the hardy, and
the hopeful--in short, the youthful, or at most, the middle-aged--should
be engaged in. The very roar of the wind through the rigging, with its
accompaniments of rolling and tumbling, hard, overcast skies, gives me
the blues. This is a double anniversary with me. It was on the 8th of
September that I received my first order for sea-service (1826); and it
was on the 8th of September that Norton's Division fought the battle of
Moline del Ray (1847). What a history of the United States has to be
written since the last event! How much of human weakness and wickedness
and folly has been developed in these years! But the North will receive
their reward, under the inevitable and rigorous laws of a just
government of the world.
Another week passed with a solitary excitement in the shape of an
obstinate English skipper, who stoutly refused to heave to. The
following account of this affair is extracted from the journal of one of
the Alabama's officers:--
Towards evening of the 10th of September the wind fell considerably.
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