Voyages to Various Parts of the World: Made Between the Years 1799 and 1844

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VII. VOYAGE FROM NEW-YORK TO CADIZ, AND THENCE TO ST. THOMAS AND ALVARADO, IN THE BRIG NYMPH," OF NEW-YORK, IN THE YEARS 1823 AND 1824. The Nymph was owned by Richard M. Lawrence, Esq., and myself, jointly, and commanded by Freegift Coggeshall, jun. We purchased this vessel in New-York, on the 22d of August, 1823, and after making some little repairs, commenced loading her on the 1st of September, with an assorted cargo of beef, pork, flour, bread, rice, and other articles of provision for Cadiz. At this period, Cadiz was besieged by a French army, commanded by the Duke of Angouleme, and blockaded by a large fleet of French men-of-war, consisting of twelve line- of-battle ships, several frigates, sloops-of-war and gun-boats, amounting, in all, to twenty sail. Most of them were generally anchored at the mouth of the harbor. The King of Spain, Ferdinand VII., was at this time confined to Cadiz, and not allowed to leave that city; he was, in fact, a state prisoner to the Cortes and to the generals commanding the armies of Spain. The principal general and commander-in-chief of the Spanish armies at this period, was Riego. Knowing that Cadiz was a strongly fortified place, I thought the town would probably hold out for several months, at least long enough to give me time to get there with a cargo of provisions before it should yield, and consequently, I predicated the success of the voyage on evading the blockade. The Nymph was a good sailing brig, burthen 181 tons, or 1500 barrels. We had a large quantity of butter and lard, and the whole invoice of the cargo amounted to $9,069. I was supercargo, having taken a young cousin of mine as captain. I also took with me Mr. Edward Brown as chief mate. Mr. Brown had been in my employ for many years as master and mate, and...