Having finished our coaling, and made the other preparations necessary for sea, I dispatched my coal-ship, which had still another supply of coal left, to another rendezvous—the Areas islands, in the Gulf of Mexico, and gave the Yankee schooner leave to depart, telling the master to make a free sheet of it, and not let me catch him on the high seas, as it might not be so well for him a second time. He took me at my word, had all the sail on his little craft in the twinkling of an eye, and I question whether he stopped this side of Nantucket.
My object; in running into the Gulf of Mexico, was to strike a blow at Banks' expedition, which was then fitting out for the invasion of Texas. This gentleman, who had been a prominent Massachusetts politician, but who had no sort of military talent, had risen to the surface with other scum, amid the bubbling and boiling of the Yankee caldron, and was appointed by ‘Honest Abe’ to subjugate Texas. Banks had mounted a stud-horse, on Boston Common, on militia-review days, before the war, and had had himself lithographed, studhorse, cocked-hat, feathers, and all, and these were credentials not to be despised. I had learned from captured Northern papers, that he was fitting out at Boston and New York, a large expedition, to consist of not less than 30,000 men. A large proportion of this army was to consist of cavalry and light artillery. To transport such an army, a large number of transport-ships would be required. The expedition was to rendezvous at Galveston, which the enemy had captured from us, not a great while before.
