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April 1861 April 1st This morning came in rainy. All hands washed clothes. The English Gun boat Buffalo arrived here, also a Portuguese mail boat. In the afternoon we brought the captain on board the Portsmouth. At 4 p.m. five of us had a stunning supper ; we then went on board the Portsmouth. The U.S. Gun boat Sumpter came in at 8 p.m. At 9 p.m. we returned on board of our own ship. April 2nd Maggots and Weevils/at St Paul de Loando All hands scrubbed hammocks. At 8 a.m. loosed sail. This morning I started my grog on board the ship. The only reason I do it is to try and eat the food we get, which is actually alive with maggots and weevils. The last named I do not care about, but when one of the former gets in one’s mouth, it produces, a sensation which entirely destroys an appetite, no matter how voracious a person may be. Hence the benefit of taking your whisky, which improves it wonderfully. The San Jacinto is coaling up. At 3 p.m. we brought the captain’s steward ashore, and returned at sundown. The U.S. Gun boat Sumpter has got some of her men sick with the coast fever. Her B.M. Steam Gun boat Buffalo is going to St Helena in a few days. Up to this point, Leonard had apparently stopped his grog, meaning he got the equivalent in cash with his pay. But the bread quality drove him to change that. April 3d arrival of a French corvette/Coast Fever on board/19 Deaths This morning came in wet and cloudy but cleared off at 6 a.m. A French steam corvette arrived here today. No signs yet of the store ship. There is considerable excitement on board about the secession. We have got two parties here, one the Southern and the other the Northern. We have got a rumor that fifteen April 1861 249 states have seceded. At four o’clock the U.S. Steamer San Jacinto went to sea; she is to look for the Gun boat Mohican, which is gone for our mail, and order her to come here. We expect our orders for home in this mail. At 5 p.m. the captain of the French corvette came on board of us; her name is the Zelee, and is just from the Congo River. Most all of her crew are sick with the coast fever. Nineteen of her men died with it since she left the Congo. The U.S. Gun boat Sumpter has also got it on board. Aboard the Constellation Mdn. George A. Borchert, a Georgia native, penned a letter to the secretary of the navy requesting permission to return to the United States “at the earliest opportunity possible, for the purpose of resigning .” Flag Officer Inman thought it presumptuous of a midshipman even to offer a resignation, exclaiming, “The assurance of the fellow. Confound him, he is only an apprentice on trial.”1 The secretary’s reply to Borchert’s letter, which arrived too late to matter, was for the Constellation to “retain [him] until the ship comes home.”2 The French two-hundred-ton, two-gun steam corvette Zélée is an historical curiosity. Built as a sailing corvette in 1812, it sailed with the similar Astrolabe under Capt. Jules Dumont d’Urville on his south polar expedition in 1839–40, during which men first set foot on the Antarctic continent proper. In 1853 it was fitted with a steam engine and screw; that plus its small size made it suitable for duty on the African coast. The French maintained a squadron of about a dozen ships on the West African coast. April 4th indulging in a Luxury/at St Paul de Loando/ serving out money/a good sell At two o’clock this morning it commenced raining, in consequence of which all hands slept in until half past 6 a.m. A luxury we are but very seldom indulged in. We were then turned out, but as it still continued to rain, the hammocks were stowed between the guns, on the half deck. [The half deck was the area of the gun deck between the mainmast and the cabin.] At 9 a.m. William A. Leonard. it cleared off, all hammocks were piped up and all hands called to loose sail. At 10 a.m. the purser served out five...

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