He had fortunately passed his examination and obtained his certificate as captain before sailing on the present voyage. Had it not been for this he could not have accepted Edgar's offer. The voyage was a rapid one. They stopped for two days at Gibraltar to take in water. They had some little trouble with the prize-agent there, for of course the ship's papers showed that she had been a prize, and she should have been sent there to be condemned and sold. Sir Sidney Smith, however, had written, saying that as the ships on the station were already short-handed, he could not spare a prize crew, and that he had therefore only the choice of burning the prize or of selling her there, and that a court of officers from the various ships-of-war had fixed her value at £850, and a purchaser having been found at that price, he had deemed it expedient to sell her, and now forwarded his bill for the amount, to be divided in the usual course by the prize officials at Gibraltar, as if they had sold her themselves. He stated that as she had been loaded with munitions of war for the French army, no question could arise as to the lawfulness of her capture.