her," and knew as well as we did what she was intended for. Only her keel and ribs were in place when I first saw her and I do not think the builders were in any hurry to complete her, but rather devoted their energies to the construction of an iron blockade-runner called the Phantom which was now being built in the same yard.
It was now the middle of winter. The days were shorter than I ever believed days could be—it was not light before ten in the morning, and dark again by half-past two in the afternoon with the exception of foggy days, and then there was no daylight at all. How I repented ever having abused that bright, burning Louisiana sun. What I would not have given for a few hours of its presence.
My life in Liverpool that winter was a very lonely one, as I was the only Confederate midshipman, at the time, in Europe. I only knew two families in the city—that of Captain Huger's sister, Mrs. Calder, who was very kind to me on account of my having served in the McRae under her heroic brother, and the family of Mr. Blacklock, a retired merchant of Charleston, South Carolina. Captain Bullock and Lieutenant Hamilton lived out of town, as did Mr. Prioleau who resided in a baronial mansion called "Allerton Hall." some miles out. Having naturally, midshipman-like, squandered all the money Mr. Trenholm had so kindly instructed his agent in Bermuda to give me, I was now again dependent on my pay of forty dollars a month and was compelled, for reasons of economy, to live in a little dingy house in a back street, called Upper Newington, a couple of blocks away from the Adelphi Hotel. Unaccustomed as I was to cold weather, the constant storms and the snow added to the cheerlessness of the situation. The only break in the monotony of my existence came on the days I attended a nautical school, where I was taught navigation, and my fencing and boxing classes. I thought there was going to be a rift in the clouds when Mr. Prioleau invited me to Allerton Hall for Christmas, but there was a fly in
