Sunday, August 25.— Cloudy in the morning. Went on shore to church at half past 8. The good old mother has her churches and clergymen , even in this remote Dutch colony. It is estimated that there [are] 10,000 Catholics in the colony. The church was a neat, well-arranged building, the congregation full and mixed, the colored names greatly preponderating. The sermon was fluent but in Dutch, and therefore sealed to me, but the Latin mass and the ceremonial—the same all over the world—impressed me strongly and touched many cords of reminiscence. The people were devout. A detachment of the government troops was present. A number received the communion. Mustered the crew at 11, and afterwards performed the agreeable duty of releasing a couple of prisoners; to release is always more pleasant than to confine. Some Dutch lieutenants visited the ship. On this day, in the quiet of the Sabbath sunlight, how strongly the thoughts revert to country, home, family, and friends, from all of whom, alas, we are separated under such painful circumstances.
We learn by late papers from Barbados that the U. S. S. Keystone State was in that island on the 21st of July, in search of us. She has not yet found us. There was quite a flutter in the dovecote at Key West, too, on the 8th of July , when the news of our arrival at Cienfuegos reached them . There was prompt coaling and steaming up on board the Niagara and Crusader, which vessels supposed they might overtake us at Cienfuegos or Trinidad, and blockade us anew, only in her Majesty’s dominions. Soft, Mr. Shufeldt, and soft, Captain McKean—we had anticipated all this display of black Republican zeal. We knew that the Yankee man at Cienfuegos would telegraph the Yankee man at Havana, and that the latter would send a fishing smack to Key West, and we knew that the enemy had ships at that point. Soft, Mr. Shufeldt. A long and steady rain during the night.