I have untill to day delayed writing you because I could not give you a definate account of what had ben done in the matter pertaining to the Boat M. of Iowa but will proceede to give you now the paticulars up to the present time. After a long and tedius Voyage spending many days on sand bars I arived at natches [Natchez, Mississippi] in just three weeks from the time I left home and there learned that the maid had assended Red River and was plying between the Raft and Fort Towsand about eleven hundred mile from the mouth I embrased the first opertunity and started up red river and after proceedeing a few hundred miles past her in the night without any posibility of bording her and was under the necesity of proceeding about one hundred miles farther before I could land and there waited several days before I was able to get passage to meeting with so many delays I was nearly five weeks from the time I left home before I found the Boat and then to my surprise she was in the possession of the sheriff for a debt contracted at and so badly damaged by running through the raft and in the upper Red River that I doubt wheathe [whether] she would have brot at auction over $2,000 I called on and offered to charter his portion of the Boat and tried in evry peaceble manner to get possession and offered to raise the money throug some of my friend and relieve the boat from her embaresment run her in some of the Bayoes this winter and return to in the spring— but he would acceede to no proposition I could make his wife was commander in chief and [p. [1]]