On arriving at Southampton, the first thing I saw in the 'Times' was a paragraph headed, 'The Capture of the "D----n."' Poor little craft! I learned afterwards how she was taken, which I will relate, and which will show that she died game.
The officer to whom I gave over charge was as fine a specimen of a seaman as well can be imagined, plucky, cool, and determined, and by the way he was a bit of a medico, as well as a sailor; for by his beneficial treatment of his patients we had very few complaints of sickness on board.

As our small dispensary was close to my cabin, I used to hear the conversation that took place between C---- and his patients.

I will repeat one.
_C._ 'Well, my man, what's the matter with you ?' _Patient._ 'Please, sir, I've got pains all over me.' _C._ 'Oh, all over you, are they; that's bad.' Then, during the pause, it was evident something was being mixed up, and I could hear C---- say: 'Here, take this, and come again in the evening.' (Exit patient.) Then C.said to himself: 'I don't think he'll come again; he has got two drops of the croton.

Skulking rascal, pains all over him, eh!' I never heard the voice of that patient again; in fact, after a short time we had no cases of sickness on board.

C---- explained to me that the only medicine he served out, as he called it, was _croton oil_; and that none of the crew came twice for treatment.
Never having run through the blockade as the commander of a vessel (though he was with me all the time and had as much to do with our luck as I had), he was naturally very anxious to get safely through.