and Orpheus, had taken the Confederacy and several of her
convoy.

And now I was engaged in a scene, to do proper justice to which
completely baffles all my powers of description. The fleet were sadly
in want of men. By some means or other they must be procured. New York
was, we heard, full of seafaring men, boatmen and others, accustomed to
the water, whom the war had driven from their usual vocations, and who
were now living on shore. To get hold of these was our object. It
would not do to attempt to capture them by driblets, for if a few were
pressed, the rest would take alarm and hide away where we were not
likely to find them. The admiral's plans were quickly and secretly
formed. All the boats of the fleet were ordered to assemble, with the
crews well armed, by break of day, on board the Rainbow. Silently we
pulled in for the city much in the same way that we should have
attempted to surprise a place held by an enemy. Having completely
surrounded all the lower parts of the town inhabited by the class of men
we wanted, we commenced our press. While one portion of our force were
told off to keep guard, the others broke into every house without
ceremony, where there was a probability of finding men. Very seldom we
stopped to knock for admission. Generally the door was forced open, and
in we rushed, seizing the husband from the arms of his wife, and very
often allowing him scarcely time to put on his clothes, while we were
compelled to endure the bitter invectives, the tears, the screams, and
abuse of his wife, whom we were thus cruelly robbing. Sometimes the
men, aided by their better halves, made an attempt at resistance, but
were speedily overpowered, bound hand and foot, and carried off. Often,
too, we fell in with young men of a better class, mates of merchantmen
and others lately married; and truly pitiable was it to witness the
grief and agony of the poor young wives as they saw their husbands in
the power of our rough-looking and seemingly heartless press-gangs.
They did not scream; they did not abuse us; but often on their knees,
with tears and sighs, they implored us to release those who had become
dearer to them than life itself. These appeals I found harder to
withstand than anything else, and had to steel my heart and to assume a
roughness which I did not feel, to resist giving way to their
entreaties. I did, as it was, all I could to assure them that their
husbands would soon again be at l