e entrapped. He shook the captain's hand as he
stepped over the side, the negroes dipped their oars into the water, and
in a short time the boat was seen from the schooner as a mere speck upon
the vast expanse of ocean.

The voyage was prosperous, and in eleven days the vessel reached its
destination. The Columbian officer, his wife and children, were received
with the utmost kindness and hospitality by the young and handsome wife of
Captain Ready, in whose house they took up their quarters. They remained
there two months, living in the most retired manner, with the double
object of economizing their scanty resources, and of avoiding the notice
of the Philadelphians, who at that time viewed the patriots of Southern
America with no very favourable eye. The insurrection against the
Spaniards had injured the commerce between the United States and the
Spanish colonies, and the purely mercantile and lucre-loving spirit of the
Philadelphians made them look with dislike on any persons or circumstances
who caused a diminution of their trade and profits.

At the expiration of the above-mentioned time, an opportunity offered of a
vessel going to Marguerite, then the headquarters of the patriots, and the
place where the first expeditions were formed under Bolivar against the
Spaniards. Estoval (that was the name by which the Columbian officer was
designated in his passport) gladly seized the opportunity, and taking a
grateful and affectionate leave of his deliverer, embarked with his wife
and children. They had been several days at sea before they remembered
that they had forgotten to tell their American friends their real name.
The latter had never enquired it, and the Estovals being accustomed to
address one another by their Christian names, it had never been mentioned.

Meantime, the good seed Captain Ready had sown, brought the honest Yankee
but a sorry harvest. His employers had small sympathy with the feelings of
humanity that had induced him to run the risk of carrying off a Spanish
state-prisoner from under the guns of a Spanish battery. Their
correspondents at the Havannah had had some trouble and difficulty on
account of the affair, and had written to Philadelphia to complain of it.
Ready lost his ship, and could only obtain from his employers certificates
of character of so ambiguous and unsatisfactory a nature, that for a long
time he found it impossible to get the command of another vessel.

In the autumn of 1824,