The high prices of Northern produce in Southern markets held out great inducements to shippers to engage in exporting it. Our correspondents at Norfolk, stated potatoes to be worth one dollar and fifty cents per bushel; onions, sixteen dollars per hundred ropes; salt, two dollars and fifty cents per bushel, and cheese twenty-five dollars per cwt.
We loaded the sloop with four hundred bushels potatoes, two hundred bushels salt, three thousand four hundred and fifty ropes onions, and eight thousand six hundred pounds of cheese; all shipped on the joint account of the owners.
I was to purchase and sell the cargo, and when I arrived at Norfolk was to buy three or four old brigs or schooners, load them with coal, and when a favorable opportunity occurred by the enemy being driven to sea by the wind, send them to New-York. Vessels could be purchased in Norfolk at that time for one-third of their real value in time of peace; and the price of coal in New-York was three or four times as much as in Norfolk.
My wages, as master, was one hundred dollars per month, and I drew one-fourth of the profits of the whole concern.
On the 14th of November I sailed from New-York and proceeded to Sandy Hook, where I discovered an English frigate close in with the land, in chase of an American schooner, which she compelled to run ashore near Shrewsbury. I sailed into Mosquitto Cove, and took shelter among some thirty American gun-boats, the crews of which went as volunteers to protect the wreck of the schooner from being plundered by the English frigate, which they accomplished.
After tarrying two days at Mosquitto Cove, we weighed anchor and proceeded to sea, keeping as near the land as we could without being in danger of running aground, until we were some distance south of Cape Henlopen, when a violent gale of south-east wind commenced, and with our utmost exertions we succeeded in running into the bay.
Here I ascertained that my pilot, whom I had taken much pains to obtain, and who at the time I employed him had informed me he was well acquainted with that coast, had deceived me; he now for the first time informed me that he knew nothing of the different shoals and inlets on the Southern coast. I had now no alternative but to run by chance and keep a sharp look out for breakers. My little sloop was literally buried under water. The gale kept increasing until near night, when she struck upon a shoal. She thumped terribly, and almost every sea was breaking entirely over us when a seaman exclaimed, "She is bilged, a plank has come up from her bottom." On examination we found it was the shoe of her keel. We tried the pump and found we could keep her free of water by pretty hard labor. Soon after, she thumped over the shoal into nine feet water, where she did not strike so often, and remained there until dawn. At daylight we cast out the anchors and succeeded in getting her into three or four fathoms water.
We then commenced repairing damages in the best manner we could. Her false keel had been broken and had swung across her main keel, which we could not repair. We then made sail for Chesapeake Bay and arrived that day about sun-set, without any material mishap.
Soon after, a light easterly wind sprung up, and we made sail for Norfolk. After entering the bay the wind slackened. About 11 o'clock in the evening it became a dead calm, with a thick fog: a strong tide set in, which prevented my going out to sea again. Soon after midnight we heard the cry, "Past 2 o'clock, and all's well," which I afterwards ascertained proceeded from His Britanic Majesty's ship Dragon, 74 guns, commanded by Commodore Barry, lying at anchor in the bay.