Friday morning at length arrived, and with it a good deal of wind–so much as to prevent our going to see Netley Abbey. The afternoon was not more favourable, and when we embarked on board the ‘St David’, it was ‘blowing very fresh’ and contrary for our passage. As we got out of the Southampton River, the weather became worse and the Captain thought proper to put into Portsmouth Harbour for the night. William went on shore in search of our Mexican friends, who in about an hour returned with him, and we passed a happy, merry evening on the poop deck, supping in darkness and not knowing till we tasted it, what we were eating.

The scene around us was highly interesting. The busy sailors in the Port with their boats, the fine men of war at anchor, the Town, the Magazines, &ca. As the evening closed in, the men of war fired a Royal Salute in honor of the Duke of Clarence who was in the town, firing round by turns, and the echo from side to side added to the effect. The noise was too much to be agreeable, the flashes from the guns looked like lightening. Then the lights from the town and the different ships were extremely pretty.

About 10 o’clock we went to bed, but no one, who has not experienced what it is to pass a night on a hard mattress laid on a locker and ride out a gale of wind in a harbour, can imagine the uncomfortableness of it. The noise of the water, the whistling of the wind in the cordage, the rocking of the ship, aided by swarms of fleas, almost banished sleep, and we gladly obeyed William’s summons at ½ past 3 to get up and see the vessel weigh and get out. The wind still blew, but every one hoped it would go down as the day advanced, and the St David is so fine a vessel, built on purpose for rough winter seas between Liverpool & Dublin, & the crew so efficient, that even should the weather not improve, there was no cause for uneasiness. When, however, we had passed the Isle of Wight, into the open sea, we found that we had no trifle to encounter. The breeze had become a regular gale and, to use the Captain’s words, there was a ‘very heavy sea on’.

By 8 o’clock, the passengers, 50 in number, were nearly all ill. The vessel piched and rolled, the wind set onto the starboard bow, and seas were breaking over the deck every moment. Chenda fainted. We made her up a bed under the shelter of a hatchway with the cusheons of our carriage. William was already ill. Chenda became too ill to remain on deck; the Captain carried her into the cabin, laid her in a berth, and attended to her with the greatest kindness. Kneeling over her and following her into the cabin soon made me sufficiently poorly to be glad to lay down, and to be incapable of helping her. There were very few ladies on board and they were all ill but myself, and I was only poorly.