The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1913-06-01

swept aft over US in clouds. With
each shower the children shouted and
the baby crowed with delight as he
bIinked the spray out of his eyes. The
children had so much fun that the
MisSuS forgot to get seasick.
The driving wind and spray-cool
and pIeasant-soon commenced to
make them drowsy and one by one
they dropped off to sleep. l had in
tended to anchor for the night about
p. m. in the neighborhood of Engle-
wood, but as they all slept on and the
Sailing" was so fine, l kept right on
down the middle of the Sound. The
heavy wind and seas seemed to make
very little difference in our speed: the
Peep o. Day took the seas as grace
fully as a running horse takes a hur-
die. 1 would certainly like to have a
picture of the Peep O. Day as she ap-
peared throughout the afternoon. The
engine ran as smoothly as possible,
and once every hour l would leave the
whee, for q minute to run below, turn
down the grease cups and note that
the lubricator was feeding.
The wind shifted to southwest as we
advanced and 1 could see that the
mainland shore would be poor anchor
age. Thee was a nice little cove on
the island side just cast of the quar-
antine station, but we might have mos
quitoes there, so I kept on for this spot.
Here we are only five miles from Pen
SacOld, ana IN q me IdI DOI SACSPI
with an eaSterly wind, something not
to be expected with the present signs
All hands awoke as made the cove,
and I sent them ashore in the skiff
while 1 cleared up the ship and cooked
supper. Supper consisted Of mashed
Irish potatoes, fried canned chicken,
the last of the biscuits, and coffee.
The evening was the finest ever, the
great round moon making the cove "a
light as day, and after al! hands had
dropped off to sleep / let my eyes and
ina gina ton rove around this curious,
deserted cove, and back into the dim
past when the English fleets came in
here to reft after engagements with
the French and Spanish and the pratt
cal hordes that infested the Spanish
Main.
The English government spent two
hundred thousand pounds sterling per
annum here and planned to make this
their greatest American naval station
In my fancy I could picture their
docks and great store houses and the
cove crowded with war-like shipping
in varying states of preparedness, from
the lofty three decker careened on the
beach, to the trim thirty-six gun
frigate just filing away for the nigh
seas. and victory or death.
BY day the air rang with hoarse
commands. the answering 'yo heave'
of hairy threats, the rattle Of block
and tackle, and the ring of caulking
mallets on English oak. At night there
were carousals on the beach-rough
play of sailors who wore their hair in
tarry pigtails. There were drunken
braw.s, and foul muders, and, and
somewhere herea7bouts there was a
British prison hulk, loaded with
wretches who only prayed for one
thing on this earth, viz: a speedy trial
and a short shrift.
Gone. Gone.
Judge Campbell in his Colonial Flo
ida drew a striking comparison, en-
titled The King and the Beaver"
bout the time that the English -four |
ished the greatest here, a family of
beavers built dam across Carpen ter's |
creek. near Pensacola. OF the vast eX-
penditures by the British crown not