I was sent on board her [the sloop Ranger] as prize-master, with orders to carry her to Halifax; and on the 30th, taking with me the captain's coxswain and two men, together with the master and a boy belonging to the sloop, I parted for the Orpheus, being about two hundred leagues from Halifax.

The weather blew hard till the 4th of June, on the morning of which day I was chased by a rebel privateer brig till five in the evening, when, finding she was coming up very fast with me and must inevitably speak me, I hauled up the ports, of which she had fourteen fresh painted, though not one gun; and conceiving our formidable appearance might serve to intimidate the enemy with the addition of some stratagem, I hove immediately about and crowded all the sail I could toward him, when he in his turn ran off as fast as possible. This sudden manoeuvre, the meaning of which he had clearly mistaken, amused him till it was dark, when I altered the course from any he had seen me steer, and in this manner got clear of a very troublesome friend. The 6th I had a fine breeze, and the 7th made the land about four or five leagues to the westward of Halifax harbour, soon after which it fell a stark calm, when in the course of an hour I caught, with two lines only, one hundred and twenty-four fine large cod. The wind springing up with a thick fog, I unfortunately passed the entrance of the harbour three leagues before I discovered it, and on the 8th in the morning it blew a heavy gale of wind directly off shore to the northward. I stood to the eatward all night under a trysail and storm jib, and in the morning, the weather being more moderate, stood to the westward under close-reefed mainsail and double-reefed foresail, and at sunset was at the mouth of the harbour. But night coming on with the usual bad weather, and having forty fathoms of water, I was obliged again to run to sea.

The 10th I was again in with Chebucto Head, and having struck soundings on a reef of rocks, in 8 fathom, I immediately let go the anchor, as the people as well as myself had taken no rest for forty-eight hours. Thoughfrom such a situation I had a right to expect the loss of both cable and anchor, yet I was fortunate enough to save them, and got under way at break of day in the morning, with a seeming prospect of getting soon into the harbour. But just as I was the length of Major's beach, and about to speak a Falmouth packet then coming down the river, she missed stays, which obliged me (being very near some dangerous rocks) to be quick in wearins; in consequence of which the boom came over, with the whole main sheet eased off, and carried it away in six different parts, which obliged me again to run from the narrow channel, and also lost me the satisfaction of speaking the packet; at one o'clock I got as high as George's Island, where, meeting with the accident of splitting my mainsail, I brought to, and leaving the care of the prize to the captain's coxswain, waited upon my Lord Shuldham, who gave me directions to come on board the Chatham, who in two hours carried me again to sea in a flag ship with four shirts and one old uniform.