As you anticipated, it became necessary for me to abandon the Sumter, in consequence of my being hemmed in by the enemy in a place where it was impossible to put the necessary repairs upon her-to make her fit to take the sea.

For some days after my arrival at Gibraltar, I had hopes of being able to reach another English or a French port, where I might find the requisite facilities for repair, and I patched my boilers, and otherwise prepared my ship for departure.

In consequence of a combination of the coal merchants against me, however, I was prevented from coaling; and, in the meantime, the enemy's steamers, Tuscarora and Kearsarge, and the sailing sloop Ino, too, arrived and blockaded me.

Notwithstanding the arrival of these vessels, I should have made an effort to go to sea, but for the timely discovery of further defects in my boilers, which took place under the following circumstances:--An English steamer, having arrived from Liverpool with an extra quantity of coal on board, offered to supply me.
I got steam up to go alongside of her for the purpose, when, with a very low pressure, my boilers gave way in so serious a manner as to extinguish the fires in one of the furnaces.

I was obliged, of course, to "blow off;" and upon a re-examination of the boilers, by a board of survey, it was ascertained that they had been destroyed to such an extent as to render them entirely untrustworthy.