University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

Shakspeare.

The history of the unfortunate young man, who, after
escaping all the hazards and adventures of the passage,
was now so unexpectedly overtaken as he was about to
reach what he fancied an asylum, was no more than one
of those common-place tissue of events that lead, through
vanity and weakness, to crime. His father had held an
office under the British government. Marrying late, and
leaving a son and daughter just issuing into life at the time
of his decease, the situation he had himself filled had been
given to the first, out of respect to the unwearied toil of a
faithful servant.

The young man was one of those who, without principles
or high motives, live only for vanity. Of prominent
vices he had none, for there were no salient points in his

character on which to hang any quality of sufficient boldness
to encourage crime of that nature. Perhaps he owed
his ruin to the circumstance that he had a tolerable person,
and was six feet high, as much as to any one other
thing. His father had been a short, solid, square-built
little man, whose ambition never towered above his stature,
and who, having entered fairly on the path of industry and
integrity early in life, had sedulously persevered in it to the
end. Not so with the son. He read so much about aristocratic
stature, aristocratic ears, aristocratic hands, aristocratic
feet, and aristocratic air, that he was delighted to
find that in all these high qualities he was not easily to be
distinguished from most of the young men of rank he occasionally
saw riding in the parks, or met in the streets;
and, though he very well knew he was not a lord, he began
to fancy it a happiness to be thought one by strangers, for
an hour or two in a week.

His passion for trifles and toys was inherent, and it had
been increased by reading two or three caricatures of fashionable
men in the novels of the day, until his happiness
was chiefly centered in its indulgence. This was an expensive
foible; and its gratification ere long exhausted his
legitimate means. One or two trifling and undetected
peculations favoured his folly, until a large sum happening
to lie at his sole mercy for a week or two, he made such
an inroad on it as compelled a flight. Having made up his
mind to quit England, he thought it would be as easy to
escape with forty thousand pounds as with the few hundreds
he had already appropriated to himself. This capital
mistake was the cause of his destruction; for the magnitude
of the sum induced the government to take unusual steps
to recover it, and was the true cause of its having despatched
the cruiser in chase of the Montauk.

The Mr. Green who had been sent to identify the fugitive,
was a cold, methodical man, every way resembling
the delinquent's father, whose office-companion he had
been, and in whose track of undeviating attention to business
and negative honesty he had faithfully followed. He
felt the peculation, or robbery, for it scarce deserved a
milder term, to be a reproach on the corps to which he belonged,

besides leaving a stigma on the name of one to
whom he had himself looked up as to a model for his own
imitation and government. It will readily be supposed,
therefore, that this person was not prepared to meet the
delinquent in a very forgiving mood.

“Saunders,” said Captain Truck in the stern tone with
which he often hailed a-top, and which implied that instant
obedience was a condition of his forbearance, “go to the
state-room of the person who has called himself Sir George
Templemore—give him my compliments—be very particular,
Mr. Saunders—and say Captain Truck's compliments,
and then tell him I expect the honour of his company in
this cabin—the honour of his company, remember, in this
cabin. If that don't bring him out of his state-room, I'll
contrive something that shall.”

The steward turned up the white of his eyes, shrugged
his shoulders, and proceeded forthwith on the errand. He
found time, however, to stop in the pantry, and to inform
Toast that their suspicions were at least in part true.

“This elucidates the circumstance of his having no attendant
with him, like other gentlemen on board, and a wariety
of other incidents, that much needed dewelopement.
Mr. Blunt, I do collect from a few hints on deck, turns out
to be a Mr. Powis, a much genteeler name; and as they
spoke to some one in the ladies' cabin as `Sir George,' I
should not be overcome with astonishment should Mr. Sharp
actually eventuate as the real baronite.”

There was time for no more, and Saunders proceeded to
summon the delinquent.

“This is the most unpleasant part of the duty of a packet-master
between England and America,” continued Captain
Truck, as soon as Saunders was out of sight. “Scarce a
ship sails that it has not some runaway or other, either in
the steerage or in the cabins, and we are often called on to
aid the civil authorities on both sides of the water.”

“America seems to be a favourite country with our English
rogues,” observed the office-man, drily. “This is the
third that has gone from our own department within as
many years.”

“Your department appears to be fruitful of such characters,

sir,” returned Captain Truck, pretty much in the spirit
in which the first remark had been given.

Mr. Green was as thorough-going an Englishman as any
of his class in the island. Methodical, plodding, industrious,
and regular in all his habits, he was honest by rule,
and had no leisure or inclination for any other opinions than
those which were obtained with the smallest effort. In consequence
of the limited sphere in which he dwelt, in a
moral sense at least, he was a mass of the prejudices that
were most prevalent at the period when he first obtained his
notions. His hatred of France was unconquerable, for he
had early learned to consider her as the fast enemy of
England; and as to America, he deemed her to be the
general asylum of all the rogues of his own country—the
possession of a people who had rebelled against their king,
because the restraints of law were inherently disagreeable
to them. This opinion he had no more wish to proclaim
than he felt a desire to go up and down declaring that Satan
was the father of sin; but the fact in the one case was just
as well established in his mind as in the other. If he occasionally
betrayed the existence of these sentiments, it was
as a man coughs; not because he particularly wishes to
cough, but because he cannot help it. Finding the subject
so naturally introduced, therefore, it is no wonder if some
of his peculiar notions escaped him in the short dialogue
that followed.

“We have our share of bad men, I presume, sir,” he
rejoined to the thrust of Captain Truck; “but the thing
that has most attracted comment with us, is the fact that
they all go to America.”

“And we receive our share of rogues, I presume, sir;
and it is the subject of animadversion with us that they all
come from England.”

Mr. Green did not feel the force of this retort; but he
wiped his spectacles as he quietly composed his features into
a look of dignified gravity.

“Some of your most considerable men in America, I
believe, sir,” he continued, “have been Englishmen, who
preferred a residence in the colonies to a residence at home.”

“I never heard of them,” returned the captain; “will
you have the goodness to name just one?”

“Why, to begin, there was your Washington. I have
often heard my father say that he went to school with him
in Warwickshire, and that he was thought anything but
very clever, too, while he lived in England.”

“You perceive, then, that we made something of him
when we got him over on this side; for he turned out in
the end to be a very decent and respectable sort of person.
Judging from the language of some of your prints, sir, I
should suppose that King William enjoyed the reputation
of being a respectable man in your country?”

Although startled to hear his sovereign spoken of in this
irreverent manner, Mr. Green answered promptly,—

“He is a king, sir, and comports himself as a king.”

“And all the better, I dare say, for the thrashing he got
when a youngster, from the Vermont tailor.”

Now Captain Truck quite as religiously believed in
this vulgar tale concerning the prince in question, as Mr.
Green believed that Washington had commenced his career
as one no better than he should be, or as implicitly as Mr.
Steadfast Dodge gave credit to the ridiculous history of the
schoolmaster of Haddonfield; all three of the legends belonging
to the same high class of historical truths.

Sir George Templemore looked with surprise at John
Effingham, who gravely remarked,—

“Elegant extracts, sir, from the vulgar rumours of two
great nations. We deal largely in these legends, and you
are not quite guiltless of them. I dare say, now, if you
would be frank, that you yourself have not always been
deaf to the reports against America.”

“You surely do not imagine that I am so ignorant of the
career of Washington?”

“Of that I fully acquit you; nor do I exactly suppose
that your present monarch was flogged by a tailor in Vermont,
or that Louis Phillipe kept school in New-Jersey.
Our position in the world raises us beyond these elegancies;
but do you not fancy some hard things of America, more
especially concerning her disposition to harbour rogues, if
they come with full pockets.”

The baronet laughed, but he coloured. He wished to be
liberal, for he well knew that liberality distinguishes the

man of the world, and was an indispensable requisite for a
gentleman; but it is very hard for an Englishman to manifest
true liberality towards the ci-devant colonies, and this
he felt in the whole of his moral system, notwithstanding
every effort to the contrary.

“I will confess that case of Stephenson made an unfavourable
impression in England,” he said with some reluctance.

“You mean the absconding member of Parliament,” returned
John Effingham, with emphasis on the four last
words. “You cannot mean to reproach us with his selection
of a place of refuge; for he was picked up at sea by
a foreign ship that was accidentally bound to America.”

“Certainly not with that circumstance, which, as you
say, was purely an accident. But was there not something
extraordinary in his liberation from arrest!”

“Sir George Templemore, there are few Englishmen with
whom I would dwell an instant on this subject,” said John
Effingham gravely; “but you are one of those who have
taught me to respect you, and I feel a strong regret whenever
I trace any of these mistaken notions in a man of your
really generous disposition. A moment's reflection will show
you that no civilized society could exist with the disposition
you hint at; and as for the particular case you have mentioned,
the man did not bring money of any moment with
him, and was liberated from arrest on a principle common
to all law, where law is stronger than political power, and
which principle we derive directly from Great Britain.
Depend on it, so far from there being a desire to receive rich
rogues in America from other countries, there is a growing
indisposition to receive emigrants at all; for their number is
getting to be inconvenient to the native population.”

“Why does not America pass reciprocal laws with us,
then, for the mutual delivery of criminals.”

“One insuperable objection to such a reciprocity arises
from the nature of our government, as a confederation, since
there is no identity in our own criminal jurisprudence: but
a chief reason is the exceedingly artificial condition of your
society, which is the very opposite of our own, and indisposes
the American to visit trifling crimes with so heavy

punishments. The American, who has a voice in this matter,
you will remember, is not prepared to hang a half-starved
wretch for a theft, or to send a man to Botany Bay
for poaching. The facility with which men obtain a livelihood
in America has hitherto converted most rogues into
comparatively honest men when they get there; though I
think the day is near, now your own police is so much improved,
when we shall find it necessary in self-defence to
change our policy. The common language, as I am told,
induces many knaves, who now find England too hot to hold
them, to migrate to America.”

“Captain Ducie is anxious to know whether Mr. Truck
will quietly permit this criminal to be transferred to the
Foam.”

“I do not think he will permit it at all without being
overpowered, if the request be urged in any manner as a
right. In that case, he will very properly think that the
maintenance of his national character is of more importance
than the escape of a dozen rogues. You may put a
harsh construction on his course; but I shall think him right
in resisting an unjust and an illegal invasion of his rights.
I had thought Captain Ducie, however, more peaceably disposed
from what has passed.”

“Perhaps I have expressed myself too strongly. I know
he would wish to take back the criminal; but I scarce think
that he meditates more than persuasion. Ducie is a fine
fellow, and every way a gentleman.”

“He appears to have found an acquaintance in our young
friend, Powis.”

“The meeting between these two gentlemen has surprised
me, for it can scarcely be termed amicable: and yet it
seems to occupy more of Ducie's thoughts just now than
the affair of the runaway.”

Both now became silent and thoughtful, for John Effingham
had too many unpleasant suspicions to wish to speak,
and the baronet was too generous to suggest a doubt concerning
one whom he felt to be his rival, and whom, in
truth, he had begun sincerely to respect, as well as to like.
In the mean time, a discussion, which had gradually been
growing more dogged and sullen on the part of Mr. Green,

and more biting and caustic on that of Captain Truck, was
suddenly terminated by the reluctant and tardy appearance
of Mr. Sandon.

Guilt, that powerful vindicator of the justice of Providence,
as it proves the existence of the inward monitor, conscience,
was painfully impressed on a countenance that, in
general, expressed little beyond a vacant vanity. Although
of a tall and athletic person, his limbs trembled in a way to
refuse to support him, and when he saw the well-known face
of Mr. Green, the unhappy young man sank into a seat,
from a real inability to stand. The other regarded him
sternly through his spectacles, for more than a minute.

“This is a melancholy picture, Henry Sandon!” he at
length said. “I am, at least, glad that you do not affect to
brazen out your crime, but that you show a proper sense of
its enormity. What would your upright and pains-taking
father have said, had he lived to see his only son in this
situation?”

“He is dead!” returned the young man, hoarsely. “He
is dead, and never can know any thing about it.”

The unhappy delinquent experienced a sense of frightful
pleasure as he uttered these words.

“It is true, he is dead; but there are others to suffer by
your misconduct. Your innocent sister is living, and feels
all your disgrace.”

“She will marry Jones, and forget it all. I gave her a
thousand pounds, and she is married before this.”

“In that you are mistaken. She has returned the money,
for she is, indeed, John Sandon's daughter, and Mr. Jones
refuses to marry the sister of a thief.”

The delinquent was vain and unreflecting, rather than
selfish, and he had a natural attachment to his sister, the
only other child of his parents. The blow, therefore, fell on
his conscience with double force, coming from this quarter.

“Julia can compel him to marry her,” said the startled
brother; “he is bound by a solemn engagement, and the law
will protect her.”

“No law can make a man marry against his will, and
your poor unfortunate sister is too tender of your feelings,
whatever you may have been of hers, to wish to give Mr.

Jones an opportunity of defending himself by exposing your
crime. But this is wasting words, Mr. Sandon, for I am
wanted in the office, where I have left things in the hands of
an inexperienced substitute. Of course you are not prepared
to defend an act, that your conscience must tell you is inexcusable.”

“I am afraid, Mr. Green, I have been a little thoughtless;
or, perhaps, it would be better to say, unlucky.”

Mr. Sandon had fallen into the general and delusive mistake
of those who err, in supposing himself unfortunate
rather than criminal. With an ingenuity, that, exercised in
a better cause, would have made him a respectable man, he
had been endeavouring to excuse his crime to himself, on various
pleas of necessity, and he had even got at last to justify
his act, by fancying that some trifling wrong he had received,
or which he fancied he had received in the settlement of his
own private account, in some measure excused his fraud, although
his own denied claim amounted merely to the sum of
twenty pounds, and that which he had taken was so large.
It was under the influence of such feelings that he made the
answer just given.

“A little thoughtless! unlucky! And is this the way,
Henry Sandon, that you name a crime that might almost
raise your upright father from his grave? But I will speak
no more of feelings that you do not seem to understand.
You confess to have taken forty thousand pounds of the public
money, to which you have no right or claim?”

“I certainly have in my hands some money, which I do
not deny belongs to government.”

“It is well; and here is my authority to receive it from
you. Gentlemen, will you have the kindness to see that my
powers are regular and authentic?”

John Effingham and others cast their eyes over the papers,
which seemed to be in rule, and they said as much.

“Now, sir,” resumed Mr. Green, “in the first place, I demand
the bills you received in London for this money, and
your regular endorsement in my favour.”

The culprit appeared to have made up his mind to this
demand, and, with the same recklessness with which he had
appropriated the money to his own use, he was now ready

to restore it, without proposing a condition for his own safety.
The bills were in his pocket, and seating himself at a table,
he made the required endorsement, and handed them to Mr.
Green.

“Here are bills for thirty-eight thousand pounds,” said
that methodical person, after he had examined the drafts,
one by one, and counted their amount; “and you are
known to have taken forty thousand. I demand the remainder.”

“Would you leave me in a strange country penniless?”
exclaimed the culprit, in a tone of reproach.

“Strange country! penniless!” repeated Mr. Green, looking
over his spectacles, first at Mr. Truck, and then at Mr.
Sandon. “That to which you have no claim must be restored,
though it strip you to the skin. Every pound you
have belongs to the public, and to no one else.”

“Your pardon, Mr. Green, and green enough you are, if
you lay down that doctrine,” interrupted Captain Truck, “in
which neither Vattel, nor the revised statutes will bear you
out. A passenger cannot remove his effects from a ship,
until his passage be first paid.”

“That, sir, I dispute, in a question affecting the king's
revenues. The claims of government precede all others,
and the money that has once belonged to the crown, and
which has not been regularly paid away by the crown, is the
crown's still.”

“Crowns and coronations! Perhaps, Master Green,
you think you are in Somerset House at this present speaking?”

Now Mr. Green was so completely a star of a confined
orbit, that his ideas seldom described a tangent to their ordinary
revolutions. He was so much accustomed to hear
of England ruling colonies, the East and the West, Canada,
the Cape, and New South Wales, that it was not an easy
matter for him to conceive himself to be without the influence
of the British laws. Had he quitted home with the
intention to emigrate, or even to travel, it is probable that his
mind would have kept a more equal pace with his body, but
summoned in haste from his desk, and with the office spectacles
on his nose, it is not so much a matter of wonder

that he hardly realized the truths of his present situation. The
man-of-war, in which everything was His Majesty's, sustained
this feeling, and it was too sudden a change to expect
such a man to abandon all his most cherished notions at a
moment's warning. The irreverent exclamation of Captain
Truck shocked him, and he did not fail to show as much by
the disgust pictured in his countenance.

“I am in one of His Majesty's packets, sir, I presume,
where, you will permit me to say, a greater deference for
the high ceremonies of the kingdom ought to be found.”

“This would make even old Joe Bunk laugh. You are
in a New York liner, sir, over which no majesty has any
control, but their majesties John Griswold and Co. Why,
my good sir, the sea has unsettled your brain!”

Now, Mr. Green did know that the United States of
America had obtained their independence, but the whole
proceeding was so mixed up with rebellion, and a French
alliance, in his mind, that he always doubted whether the
new republic had a legal existence at all, and he had been
heard to express his surprise that the twelve judges had not
long since decided this state of things to be unconstitutional,
and overturned the American government by mandamus. His disgust increased, accordingly, as Captain Truck's irreverence
manifested itself in stronger terms, and there was
great danger that the harmony, which had hitherto prevailed
between the parties, would be brought to a violent termination.

“The respect for the crown in a truly loyal subject, sir,”
Mr. Green returned sharply, “is not to be unsettled by the
sea; not in my case, at least, whatever it might have been
in your own.”

“My own! why, the devil, sir, do you take me for a
subject?”

“A truant one, I fear, though you may have been born
in London itself.”

“Why, my dear sir,” said Captain Truck, taking the
other by a button, as if he pitied his hallucination, “you
don't breed such men in London. I came from the river,
which never had a subject in it, or any other majesty, than
that of the Saybrook Platform. I begin to understand you,

at last; you are one of those well-meaning men who fancy
the earth but a casing to the island of Great Britain. Well
I suppose it is more the fault of your education than of your
nature, and one must overlook the mistake. May I ask
what is your farther wish, in reference to this unhappy young
man?”

“He must refund every pound of the public money that
remains in his possession.”

“That is just, and I say yea.”

“And all who have received from him any portion of this
money, under whatever pretences, must restore it to the
crown.”

“My good sir, you can have no notion of the quantity of
champaigne and other good things this unfortunate young
man has consumed in this ship. Although but a sham baronet,
he has fared like a real lord; and you cannot have
the heart to exact from the owners the keeping of your
rogues.”

“Government makes no distinction, sir, and always
claims its own.”

“Nay, Mr. Green,” interrupted Sir George Templemore,
“I much question if government would assert a right to
money that a peculator or a defaulter fairly spends, even in
England; much less does it seem to me it can pretend to
the few pounds that Captain Truck has lawfully earned.”

“The money has not been lawfully earned, sir. It is
contrary to law to assist a felon to quit the kingdom, and I
am not certain there are no penalties for that act alone; and
as for the public money, it can never legally quit the Treasury
without the proper office forms.”

“My dear Sir George,” put in the captain, “leave me to
settle this with Mr. Green, who, no doubt, is authorized to
give a receipt in full. What is to be done with the delinquent,
sir, now that you are in possession of his money?”

“Of course he will be carried back in the Foam, and, I
mourn to be compelled to say, that he must be left in the
hands of the law.”

“What, with or without my permission?”

Mr. Green stared, for his mind was precisely one of those
which would conceive it to be a high act of audacity in a

ci-devant colonist to claim the rights of an old country, even
did he really understand the legality and completeness of the
separation.

“He has committed forgery, sir, to conceal his peculation.
It is an awful crime; but they that commit it cannot hope
to escape the consequences.”

“Miserable impostor! is this true?” Captain Truck sternly
demanded of the trembling culprit.

“He calls an oversight forgery, sir,” returned the latter
huskily. “I have done nothing to affect my life or
liberty.”

At this moment Captain Ducie, accompanied by Paul
Powis, entered the cabin, their faces flushed, and their manner
to each other a little disturbed, though it was formally
courteous. At the same instant, Mr. Dodge, who had been
dying to be present at the secret conference, watched his
opportunity to slip in also.

“I am glad you have come, sir,” said Mr. Green, “for
here may be occasion for the services of his Majesty's officers.
Mr. Sandon has given up these bills, but two thousand
pounds remain unaccounted for, and I have traced
thirty-five, quite clearly, to the master of this ship, who
has received it in the way of passage-money.”

“Yes, sir, the fact is as plain as the high-lands of Navesink
from the deck,” drily added Captain Truck.

“One thousand of this money has been returned by the
defaulter's sister,” observed Captain Ducie.

“Very true, sir; I had forgotten to give him credit for
that.”

“The remainder has probably been wasted in those silly
trifles of which you have told me the unhappy man was so
fond, and for which he has bartered respectability and peace
of mind. As for the money paid this ship for the passage
it has been fairly earned, nor do I know that government
has any power to reclaim it.”

Mr. Green heard this opinion with still greater disgust
than he had felt towards the language of Captain Truck,
nor could he very well prevent his feelings escaping him
in words.

“We truly live in perilous times,” he muttered, speaking

more particularly to John Effingham, out of respect to his
appearance, “when the scions of the nobility entertain notions
so loose. We have vainly fancied in England that
the enormities of the French revolution were neutralized
by Billy Pitt; but, sir, we still live in perilous times, for
the disease has fairly reached the higher classes. I hear
that designs are seriously entertained against the wigs of
the judges and bishops, and the next thing will be the
throne! All our venerable institutions are in danger.”

“I should think the throne might indeed be in danger,
sir,” returned John Effingham, gravely, “if it reposes on
wigs.”

“It is my duty, Captain Truck,” continued Captain Ducie,
who was a man so very different from his associate that he
scarcely seemed to belong to the same species, “to request
you will deliver to us the person of the culprit, with his
effects, when we can relieve you and your passengers from
the pain of witnessing any more of this unpleasant scene.”

At the sound of the delivery of his person, all the danger
of his situation rushed forcibly before the imagination of
the culprit. His face flushed and became pale, and his
legs refused to support him, though he made a desperate
effort to rise.

After an instant of silence, he turned to the commander
of the corvette, and, in piteous accents, appealed to him for
mercy.

“I have been punished severely already,” he continued,
as his voice returned, “for the savage Arabs robbed me of
everything I had of any value. These gentlemen know
that they took my dressing-case, several other curious and
valuable articles for the toilet, and nearly all my clothes.”

“This man is scarcely a responsible being,” said John
Effingham, “for a childish vanity supplies the place of
principles, self-respect, and duty. With a sister scorned on
account of his crimes, conviction beyond denial, and a dread
punishment staring him in the face, his thoughts still run
on trifles.”

Captain Ducie gave a look of pity at the miserable young
man, and, by his countenance, it was plain to see that he
felt no relish for his duty. Still he felt himself bound to

urge on Captain Truck a compliance with his request. The
master of the packet was a good deal divided by an inherent
dislike of seeming to yield anything to a British naval
officer, a class of men whom he learned in early life most
heartily to dislike; his kind feelings towards this particular
specimen of the class; a reluctance to give a man up to a
probable death, or some other severe punishment; and a
distaste to being thought desirous of harbouring a rogue.
In this dilemma, therefore, he addressed himself to John
Effingham for counsel.

“I should be pleased to hear your opinion, sir, on this
matter,” he said, looking at the gentleman just named, “for
I own myself to be in a category. Ought we, or not, to
deliver up the culprit?”

“Fiat justitia ruat cœlum,” answered John Effingham,
who never fancied any one could be ignorant of the meaning
of these familiar words.

“That I believe indeed to be Vattel,” said Captain Truck;
“but exceptions alter rules. This young man has some
claims on us on account of his conduct when in front of the
Arabs.”

“He fought for himself, sir, and has the merit of preferring
liberty in a ship to slavery in the desert.”

“I think with Mr. John Effingham,” observed Mr. Dodge,
“and can see no redeeming quality in his conduct on that
occasion. He did what we all did, or, as Mr. John Effingham
has so pithily expressed it, he preferred liberty in our
company to being an Arab's slave.”

“You will not deliver me up, Captain Truck!” exclaimed
the delinquent. “They will hang me, if once in their power.
Oh! you will not have the heart to let them hang me!”

Captain Truck was startled at this appeal, but he sternly
reminded the culprit that it was too late to remember the
punishment, when the crime was committed.

“Never fear, Mr. Sandon,” said the office-man with a
sneer; “these gentlemen will take you to New York, for
the sake of the thousand pounds, if they can. A rogue is
pretty certain of a kind reception in America, I hear.”

“Then, sir,” exclaimed Captain Truck, “you had better
go in with us.”

“Mr. Green, Mr. Green, this is indiscreet, to call it by
no worse a term,” interposed Captain Ducie, who, while he
was not free from a good deal of the prejudices of his companion,
was infinitely better bred, and more in the habit of
commanding himself.

“Mr. John Effingham, you have heard this wanton insult,”
continued Captain Truck, suppressing his wrath as
well as he could: “in what manner ought it to be resented?”

“Command the offender to quit your ship instantly,” said
John Effingham firmly.

Captain Ducie started, and his face flushed; but disregarding
him altogether, Captain Truck walked deliberately up to
Mr. Green, and ordered him to go into the corvette's boat.

“I shall allow of neither parley nor delay,” added the
exasperated old seaman, struggling to appear cool and dignified,
though his vocation was little for the latter. “Do
me the favour, sir, to permit me to see you into your boat,
sir. Saunders, go on deck, and tell Mr. Leach to have the
side manned—with three side boys, Saunders;—and now I
ask it as the greatest possible favour, that you will walk on
deck with me, or—or—damn me, but I'll drag you there,
neck and heels!”

It was too much for Captain Truck to seem calm when
he was in a towering passion, and the outbreak at the close
of this speech was accompanied by a gesture with a hand
which was open, it is true, but from which none of the arts
of his more polite days could erase the knobs and hue that
had been acquired in early life.

“This is strong language, sir, to use to a British officer,
under the guns of a British cruiser,” exclaimed the commander
of the corvette.

“And his was strong language to use to a man in his
own country and in his own ship. To you, Captain Ducie,
I have nothing to say, unless it be to say you are welcome.
But your companion has indulged in a coarse insult on my
country, and damn me if I submit to it, if I never see St.
Catherine's Docks again. I had too much of this when a
young man, to wish to find it repeated while an old one.”

Captain Ducie bit his lip, and he looked exceedingly
vexed. Although he had himself blindly imbibed the notion

that America would gladly receive the devil himself if he
came with a full pocket, he was shocked with the coarseness
that would throw such an innuendo into the very faces
of the people of the country. On the other hand, his pride
as an officer was hurt at the menace of Captain Truck, and
all the former harmony of the scene was threatened with a
sudden termination. Captain Ducie had been struck with
the gentlemanlike appearance of both the Effinghams, to
say nothing of Eve, the instant his foot touched the deck
of the Montauk, and he now turned with a manner of
reproach to John Effingham, and said,

“Surely, sir, you cannot sustain Mr. Truck in his extraordinary
conduct!”

“You will pardon me if I say I do. The man has been
permitted to remain longer in the ship than I would have
suffered.”

“And, Mr. Powis, what is your opinion?”

“I fear,” said Paul, smiling coldly, “that I should have
knocked him down on the spot.”

“Templemore, are you, too, of this way of thinking?”

“I fear the speech of Mr. Green has been without sufficient
thought. On reflection he will recall it.”

But Mr. Green would sooner part with life than part with
a prejudice, and he shook his head in the negative in a way
to show that his mind was made up.

“This is trifling,” added Captain Truck. “Saunders,
go on deck, and tell Mr. Leach to send down through the
skylight a single whip, that we may whip this polite personage
on deck; and, harkee, Saunders, let there be another
on the yard, that we may send him into his boat like an
anker of gin!”

“This is proceeding too far,” said Captain Ducie. “Mr.
Green, you will oblige me by retiring; there can be no suspicion
cast on a vessel of war for conceding a little to an
unarmed ship.”

“A vessel of war should not insult an unarmed ship,
sir!” rejoined Captain Truck, pithily.

Captain Ducie again coloured; but as he had decided on
his course, he had the prudence to remain silent. In the
mean time Mr. Green sullenly took his hat and papers, and

withdrew into the boat; though, on his return to London,
he did not fail to give such a version of the affair as went
altogether to corroborate all his own, and his friends' previous
notions of America; and, what is equally singular,
he religiously believed all he had said on the occasion.

“What is now to be done with this unhappy man?” inquired
Captain Ducie when order was a little restored.

The misunderstanding was an unfortunate affair for the
culprit. Captain Truck felt a strong reluctance to deliver
him up to justice after all they had gone through together;
but the gentlemanlike conduct of the English commander,
the consciousness of having triumphed in the late conflict,
and a deep regard for the law, united on the other hand to
urge him to yield the unfortunate and weak-minded offender
to his own authorities.

“You do not claim a right to take him out of an American
ship by violence, if I understand you, Captain Ducie?”

“I do not. My instructions are merely to demand him.”

“That is according to Vattel. By demand you mean, to
request, to ask for him?”

“I mean to request, to ask for him,” returned the Englishman,
smiling.

“Then take him, of God's name; and may your laws
be more merciful to the wretch than he has been to himself,
or to his kin.”

Mr. Sandon shrieked, and he threw himself abjectly on
his knees between the two captains, grasping the legs of
both.

“Oh! hear me! hear me!” he exclaimed in a tone of
auguish. “I have given up the money, I will give it all
up! all to the last shilling, if you will let me go! You,
Captain Truck, by whose side I have fought and toiled,
you will not have the heart to abandon me to these murderers!”

“It's d—d hard!” muttered the captain, actually wiping
his eyes; “but it is what you have drawn upon yourself,
I fear. Get a good lawyer, my poor fellow, as soon as
you arrive; and it's an even chance, after all, that you go
free!”

“Miserable wretch!” said Mr. Dodge, confronting the

still kneeling and agonized delinquent, “Wretch! these are
the penalties of guilt. You have forged and stolen, acts
that meet with my most unqualified disapprobation, and you
are unfit for respectable society.—I saw from the very first
what you truly were, and permitted myself to associate with
you, merely to detect and expose you, in order that you
might not bring disgrace on our beloved country. An impostor
has no chance in America; and you are fortunate in
being taken back to your own hemisphere.”

Mr. Dodge belonged to a tolerably numerous class, that
is quaintly described as being “law honest;” that is to say,
he neither committed murder nor petty larceny. When he
was guilty of moral slander, he took great care that it should
not be legal slander; and, although his whole life was a
tissue of mean and baneful vices, he was quite innocent of
all those enormities that usually occupy the attention of a
panel of twelve men. This, in his eyes, raised him so far
above less prudent sinners as to give him a right to address
his quondam associate as has been just related. But the
agony of the culprit was past receiving an increase from
this brutal attack; he merely motioned the coarse-minded
sycophant and demagogue away, and continued his appeals
to the two captains for mercy. At this moment Paul Powis
stepped up to the editor, and in a low but firm voice ordered
him to quit the cabin.

“I will pray for you—be your slave—do all you ask, if
you will not give me up!” continued the culprit, fairly
writhing in his agony. “Oh! Captain Ducie, as an English
nobleman, have mercy on me.”

“I must transfer the duty to subordinates,” said the
English commander, a tear actually standing in his eye.
“Will you permit a party of armed marines to take this
unhappy being from your ship, sir.”

“Perhaps this will be the best course, as he will yield
only to a show of force. I see no objection to this, Mr.
John Effingham?”

“None in the world, sir. It is your object to clear your
ship of a delinquent, and let those among whom he committed
the fault be the agents.”

“Ay—ay! this is what Vattel calls the comity of nations.
Captain Ducie, I beg you will issue your orders.”

The English commander had foreseen some difficulty
and, in sending away his boat when he came below, he had
sent for a corporal's guard. These men were now in a
cutter, near the ship, lying off on their oars, in a rigid respect
to the rights of a stranger, however,—as Captain
Truck was glad to see, the whole party having gone on
deck as soon as the arrangement was settled. At an order
from their commander the marines boarded the Montauk
and proceeded below in quest of their prisoner.

Mr. Sandon had been left alone in Eve's cabin; but as
soon as he found himself at liberty, he hurried into his own
state-room. Captain Truck went below, while the marines
were entering the ship; and, having passed a minute in
his own room, he stepped across the cabin, to that of the
culprit. Opening the door without knocking, he found the
unhappy man in the very act of applying a pistol to his
head, his own hand being just in time to prevent the catastrophe.
The despair portrayed in the face of the criminal
prevented reproach or remonstrance, for Captain Truck
was a man of few words when it was necessary to act.
Disarming the intended suicide, he coolly counted out to
him thirty-five pounds, the money paid for his passage,
and told him to pocket it.

“I received this on condition of delivering you safe in
New York,” he said; “and as I shall fail in the bargain,
I think it no more than just to return you the money. It
may help you on the trial.”

“Will they hang me?” asked Mr. Sandon hoarsely,
and with an imbecility like that of an infant.

The appearance of the marines prevented reply, the prisoner
was secured, his effects were pointed out, and his
person was transferred to the boat with the usual military
promptitude. As soon as this was done the cutter pulled
away from the packet, and was soon hoisted in again on
the corvette's deck. That day month the unfortunate victim
of a passion for trifles committed suicide in London,
just as they were about to transfer him to Newgate; and
six months later his unhappy sister died of a broken heart.