to sail at 2 P.M., when the tide was most favorable.  I had a new chain for the anchor, and the captain said he wanted a kedge anchor for safety, so I ordered one from McCondery & Co., for $35, on condition that, without fail, they would have it on board before 2 P.M.  We were all on board by 1 o’clock, waiting for the favorable tide, to start.  At 1:30 no anchor and the bay was very rough.  The captain said it would not come, they would not venture out in that sea in a small boat.  I said it would be there certain, I knew my man.  Sure enough, in a few moments we could just see a boat in the distance, two men rowing and one guiding the rudder.  They came alongside and we had the anchor aboard in five minutes.  In the stern was Mr. Watson, one of the firm.  He said he was afraid to trust his men in that sea for fear they would fail to deliver it.  The profit on it to them was only $3.50, and it was a very wealthy firm, but they had pledged their word to me that they would have it there at that time. (Would that there were more of such honorable men.) We hoisted anchor, the tide in our favor and a stiff breeze blowing.  We passed out of the bay of San Francisco into the bay of Los Angles, and crossed that into the Straits of Benica, which is four miles long and connects with Suisan bay.  The Straits of Benica was a perfectly safe anchorage.  It was approaching night, and blowing almost a gale.  I was in hopes and expected that the captain would come to anchor in the straits and wait until morning before venturing out into the Suisan bay, which was twenty miles across to the mouth of the San Joaquin river, where we were bound.  The bay was almost like the open sea; you could get out of sight of land.  I think he would have come to anchor if I, the owner, had not been on board, and had not urged upon him the importance of having the vessel in Stockton in time.  As he was the captain I felt sensitive about interfering with his business, and had hoped and expected, all the way through the straits, that he would come to anchor, and not undertake to cross the bay that night.  Darkness was setting in, but he did not come to anchor.  The gale increased to a hurricane; all sails were taken in, and we were scudding under bare poles, and had a lantern hung up in the rigging.  The captain came to me and said, loaded as we were, we could not live in that gale; he would have to seek a place to anchor on the side of the bay.  I said to him, he was the captain.  The line was thrown out every few minutes.  At last we found sounding, and the anchor was cast.  We had been there but a short time before another vessel, more than twice as large as ours, came aside of us, with a heavy deck-load of lumber, and got entangled in our anchor chain, and kept drawing us nearer to them.  If they had struck our vessel we knew we were lost.  They would have sunk us at once.  Seven times they came down on us and each time, by superhuman efforts, we warded the blow, all hands and passengers doing their best, fully realizing the