For no sooner had he passed than up went a rocket from the cruiser who had seen the runner rush by, and who now moved a little further in towards the shore, so as to stop her egress by the way she went in; and the other vessels closing round by a pre-arranged plan, the capture or destruction of the blockade-runner was a certainty.
Some of the captains most pluckily ran their vessels on shore, and frequently succeeded in setting fire to them; but the boats of the cruisers were sometimes too sharp in their movements to admit of this being done, and the treatment of those who tried to destroy their vessels was, I am sorry to say, very barbarous and unnecessary.
Moreover, men who endeavoured to escape by jumping overboard after the vessel was on shore were often fired at by grape and shell, in what seemed to me a very unjustifiable manner.

Great allowance, however, must be made for the men-of-war's men, who after many hard nights of dreary watching constantly under weigh, saw their well-earned prize escaping by being run on shore and set fire to, just as they imagined they had got possession.

On several occasions they have been content to tow the empty shell of an iron vessel off the shore, her valuable cargo having been destroyed by fire.
But I have left my little craft lying as was stated about sixty miles from the entrance of the river.

I had determined to try a new method of getting through the blockading squadron, seeing that the usual plan, as described above, was no longer feasible or, at least, advisable.

I have mentioned that our position was well defined by observations and soundings, so we determined to run straight through the blockaders, and to take our chance.