[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

Some obscure child of sorrow had just been consigned
to the tomb in the Chapel burying ground, the
worm-eaten planks placed over it, the rich mould of
the grave-yard heaped thereon, and the brown sod
restored to its accustomed place;—the mourners,
the idlers, and the loiterers had one by one retired,
the monotonous sound of the funeral bell still surging
on the memory, when the stranger mariner, starting
from the deep reverie in which he had been bound,
found himself alone among the monuments of the
dead.

The sun was fast receding behind the hills which

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

half girdle Boston with a crescent of greenery, and
the orange hue of evening, like the deep coloring of
Claude, reflecting back from all opposing objects,
partly gilded and partly veiled them in gloom.

The mariner was sitting on a square monument,
which consisted of a large slab of sandstone supported
by four columns of the same. He had thrown
his hat on the grass, and bending his body listfully
over, appeared to be meditating deeply on the most
exciting subjects, for his features displayed extreme
emotion. He seemed to be a young man of
about twenty-five years old, nearly six feet high, uncommonly
well-made, with broad shoulders and
a slender waist. His head was one of those which
immediately attract attention; being finely developed
in every part, though rather too small for perfect
symmetry. The affective organs were moreover rather
larger than the intellectual; so that, judging from
the exterior, one would readily suppose that he were
better calculated for action than for speculation. His
features were perfectly regular; his eyes light blue,
and large; his nose was straight; his lips were like
those we see in the Napoleon of David, with a chin
and neck full and massive. His hair was rather light
and curling, and his complexion was browned as if
by constant exposure to the weather. He was dressed
in loose pantaloons of blue cloth, with a short
jacket of the same, snugly fitting the body; a check
shirt with the collar turned down, was circled

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

at the neck by a black silk kerchief, which fell from
a slip-knot on his bosom. His feet were clad in
white stockings and thin shoes.

Edward Fitzvassal, for such was the name of the
person we have now described, was the natural son
of one of the proudest men that ever lived within
the shadows of the three hills. Possessed of immense
wealth, that father, who appropriated large
sums to the gratification of his sensual appetites, had
lived in the hall of his ancestors in England surrounded
by every luxury, grinding the poor till sufferance
ceased to be a virtue with them, till at last he
was driven by their hatred to seek a shelter in America.
He had buried his wife soon after he arrived,
and her monument was now before the eyes of Fitzvassal.
She had never injured him, indeed he had
never seen her; for, long before he was a conscious
child of suffering, that woman had sunk under the
repeated injuries of her husband, and lay slumbering
in the church-yard. He had been acknowledged
by his father only through the desperate and unceasing
importunity of the most abject misery which
the satiety of sensuality had cast on a lonely woman.
In consequence of this importunity, Vassal acknowledged
his son, and bribed a young man to marry
the mother; a fellow who had followed the seas in
several distant voyages, and who, being tired of a
wandering life, was easily induced to take upon
himself such a beautiful incumbrance as Ellen

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

Wilby and her boy, backed as the burthen was with the
gift of a small fishing schooner and a frame-house,
already referred to, situated between Dorchester
Heights and the Point, large enough to accommodate
a small family.

Ellen yielded to this necessity with meek submission.
Though she was nothing but a humble
serving-maid, she had been deceived by the ardor
of too confiding affection. Often had she
entreated her seducer to leave her in pity of her
helplessness before the seal of her ruin were accomplished;
for her heart's weakness spake to her in terrible
admonitions, while she dreaded the fascination
of her charmer; and now, when the harsh reality
burst upon her that she was an outcast in the world,
and that the man on whom she had lavished her
very heart's blood in her excess of womanly devotion,
would not even look on her with kindness;
when she was on the point of being consigned to the
poor-house as a mendicant, and of having her infant
torn from her arms as the child of no one, to be subjected
to the tender mercies of a cold and calculating
charity; then it was that, in the desperation of her
agony, she flew to the house of her seducer, and
through untiring importunities extorted from him
protection for her child.

It was not for herself that she cared. She was
willing to undergo any privation in which the
pledge of that false affection might not participate;

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

but she loved it even more than if it had been the
fruit of lawful affection; for the natural principle developed
itself in its fulness, as it was warmed by the
strange fire that consumed her; and though it was
not the fire of heaven, the ministers of mercy tempered
it to her endurance, and mingled joy even in
the excess of her anguish. Though she married
Abner Classon with reluctance, she endeavored to
conceal her unwillingness, and make amends for her
simulated love, by performing the duties of a wife
with apparent cheerfulness.

Poor wretch! how many thousands have the false
arrangements of society wedded to similar suffering!
How many anguish and pine in rayless misery, with
the light of their eyes fading, and the bloom of their
cheeks turning pale; whose lives are one undisturbed
current of hypocrisy, and who array the dead
body of their hopes in the garniture of smiles!

Abner Classon was a rude sailor, wholly destitute
of any refinement. He had been, in his younger
days, eagerly sought after by the vulgar, idle, and
dissipated of Boston, as he was ever ready for a
frolic, could out-drink any competitor, would stand
by his friends in a row, and was gifted with a sort
of dry humor, which discovered itself rather in his
manner of saying things than in any intrinsic excellence
of their own. He was seldom at home, as,
every other day, he ran down the outer harbor, coasting
along Nahant and the neighboring fishing

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

grounds for cod and haddock, which he carried to
Oliver's Dock, and sold at the market value. The
proceeds he would now and then carry with him
home; but generally he found ways of spending it
at sailors' boarding-houses, where he was glad to
meet any revellers he could find, and always willing
to pay the whole bill himself.

Such was the step-father of Edward Fitzvassal,
and under such influences was he brought up from
his childhood; for, though his mother exerted herself
in every way to lead him in the right path, and
imparted to him the rudiments of a simple education,
the same she had herself with great difficulty acquired;
yet the brutality of Classon dragged him down
faster than he could rise from the disadvantages of his
situation, while the example of habitual drunkenness
threw its pestilential influence on his path.

Edward Fitzvassal grew up under such protection
to manifest forms of character almost entirely dependent
on the circumstances by which he was
surrounded. At an early age he showed a haughty,
overbearing, and indomitable temper. In the first
flush of generous youth, when under more genial
auspices, his heart would have become attuned to all
that is lovely and admirable in nature, in art, or in
their hidden spiritual causes,—he learned to realize
the false and cruel relation which he and his mother
held to the world in which they lived. Before he was
fifteen years old he had drunk deeply from the bitter

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

fountain of contumely, and been spurned from his
unfeeling parent's threshold in heartless disdain. He
learned to know that the consequences of another's
fault may descend to an innocent sufferer; he learned
to realize the hard condition of a poor man, by
becoming conversant with the apparent happiness
of the rich; in short, he learned to compare the outward
forms of good with the inward forms of those
evils which spring from discontent and penury; and
the flames of torturing unrest began to parch his
bosom.

How could it have been otherwise? Who was
there to open for him the deep recesses of his nature,
lacerated and bleeding by the thorns of pride and
all nameless irritation, and pour the balm of human
sympathy into his bosom? Who was there that,
having been tried as the silver is tried in the furnace,
in the nine times heated fire of adversity; that had
passed through privations, and been smitten down by
the iron mace of human agony, for temptations too
readily yielded to; that had been bowed down in
undissembling humility at the inmost shrine of sorrow's
sanctuary, to afford a brother's consolation in
his afflictions, a guide in his labyrinth of woe?

But it was provided, as the best possible path for
Edward Fitzvassal, that he should strike into the
thick entangled forest of human life, and be his own
pioneer through the wild. Nor was he left wholly
desolate. He felt that he had courage and hope; he

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

knew that at times his heart was visited by an unaccountable
glow of consolation and promise,—and,
though he attributed all this to his own inborn energies
and unconquerable pride, and so mistook another's
bounty for his own resources, he rose sufficiently
above the influences of his condition to assume
the semblance of endurance. Deeply was he
indebted to the gentle offices of his mother, a woman
who had learned to know and realize the immortal
from the abyss of degradation to which she had fallen.

The truths which are said to lie in the bottom of
a well are the stars that correspond with societies of
angels, and when the parched earth has drunk the
last drop of moisture which rolled there in delicious
coolness, the pilgrim, who has mainly sought to
quench his thirst at the fountain, may turn to their
realitics in heaven.

Fitzvassal had been thinking over the darker passages
of his life as the funeral train left him to his
solitary reflections; and as he turned to gaze on the
aristocratical mockery carved on the tomb of his
father's consort, curses deep and bitter heaved from
his lungs, while he ground his teeth and snapped his
finger joints after the restless and agitated manner of
those who would but cannot fly from the horror
with which evil surrounds them.

There is a sun that shines on the inward man,
like that which brings the day-beam to the horizon;
and the dulness that gathers over us at times, is

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

because we have suffered the invisible attendants of the
spirit to intercept its rays, and envelope the better
part of our nature in shadow. In vain will the natural
sun culminate in the heavens and scatter its
brightness around us, if the spiritual sun is clouded
by our passions. There will then be no brightness
for us; no beauty will break over the face of nature;
the melody of birds will be discordant jargoning, and
the verdure of the trees like a melancholy funeral pall.

“My father!” groaned Fitzvassal—“in what has
he been a father to me? He has given me life, and
he has my bitterest curses for it.”

He then remembered, that the last time he visited
his parent, he had been spurned like a dog over his
threshold: and never did demon-father receive from
his accursed progeny heartier maledictions than
those which boiled up from the hell that was flaming
in this miserable sufferer.

With unutterable anathemas, Fitzvassal sprang
from the monument, and casting his fiery eyes on the
gloom around him, hurried to the fence of the churchyard,
and bounded over it into the street. Immediately
opposite stood, on a part of the most
elevated ground of the metropolis, the splendid house
where his unnatural father resided. The mansion was
built with considerable architectural style, and had
been once occupied by a colonial governor. It had
several gable ends, a manner of building common in
those days; and its exterior was rough-cast with broken

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

glass. Before it a succession of glaces, like steps,
well grown with grass and interlaid with ornamental
gardening, reached almost to the street, now called
Tremont. Fitzvassal turned his eyes from it in
disgust, and went his way in sorrow.

The shadows of evening had now gathered deeply
over the town, and the heart of the wanderer, as he
pursued his solitary walk from Boston, beat violently
with conflicting emotions. His thoughts struggled
between two opposites,—hatred for his father and
love for his mother. How could he help loving one,
who, in giving him birth, hateful though it was to
him, had sacrificed every thing her heart held dear,—
one who had since lived only for him; who had
wedded herself to a man she loathed, that he, her
only child, might be kept from the cold charities of
the world. True, she had sacrificed every thing in
vain,—for the pittance which she expected from her
husband was generally denied her, and she was often
driven abroad amidst the inclemency of winter, unknown
to her brutal, uncongenial partner, to beg for
that support which his beastly necessities denied her.
Though her child never knew of this as he grew up
to energetic youth, he did know more, much more
than his hardihood of mind dared to ponder on; and
amidst all the conflicts that environed him, and all
the despondency that hung its dark drapery over his
life, he tried to cherish the hope that by some means,
fair or foul, he would one day be enabled to make his

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

mother independent of the world, and his father beg
for mercy at his feet. Though his stepfather had
stood in the way of all his determinations, it could
not be hidden from the son that every thing the
abandoned man could convert into money went immediately
for brandy; and in one hour of domestic agony
more terrible than others, he resolved to make a desperate
effort to relieve the distresses of his mother,
and break the bondage that enslaved her.

Fortunately for Fitzvassal, an opportunity at the
time seemed to present itself, of furthering his purpose.
There lived at that day one of the most enterprising
men New England ever saw; one who
was designed to work an important part in her history.
William Phips was born February 2d, 1650,
in an obscure village on the Kennebeck. His father
followed the occupation of a gunsmith, and William,
afterwards Sir William, was the youngest of a large
family. “Reader,” says the venerable Mather, “inquire
no further who was his father? Thou shalt
anon see, as the Italians express it, a son to his own
labors.”

From his earliest years young Phips discovered
to those who knew him intimately, uncommon abilities
and an adventurous disposition. With such a
spirit, unwilling to be confined at home, where there
was little else to engage his active mind but Indian
skirmishes and petty border quarrels, he left his father's
house, and shipped on board a merchant vessel which

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

traded to the West Indies. Ever active and obedient,
it was not long before Phips became master of a vessel,
and he continued for a long term to follow the
old trade to the West Indies. Many years before, a
Spanish galleon, laden with immense wealth, had
been wrecked on the coast of Hispaniola. Great as
the loss was, the circumstance had long been forgotten,
and was never referred to but as a nautical legend,
which sailors spun into long yarns with a
mixture of improbable fiction and ghostly circumstance.

The fact that this treasure still lay,not many fathoms
deep, near Port de la Plata, did not escape the vigilant
mind of Captain Phips; and for several years he
endeavored to collect, as warily as possible, all the
information that tradition could afford him on the
subject. At last, during one of his voyages he fell
in with an old Spaniard, who, taking a sailor liking
to Captain Phips, communicated to him certain information,
in a shape more rational and tangible than
any which he had before collected: the exact spot
was pointed out on the chart where it was pretended
the treasure lay, and every assurance given that
there could be no error in the information.

This intelligence, confirming parts of the disjointed
narratives, which the vigilant captain had collected,
and suggesting a reasonable probability that the
treasure might be recovered, induced Captain Phips
to make proposals to several wealthy individuals of

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

Boston, and among the rest, to Edmund Vassal, for
fitting out an expedition for the recovery of the prize:
but it was Captain Phips's fortune to meet with discouragement
in every direction. The men of money
laughed at the proposed enterprise as only worthy
of a madman, and at the very idea of such an expenditure,
curtailed their current expenses, and began
to feel poor. But Captain Phips was made of sterner
stuff than even his best well-wishers imagined. He
determined at once to go to England, and lay the plan
of the enterprise before King Charles II. He knew
that that monarch would do any thing for money,
but, in so judging, he did not take into consideration
that he was to be called on for an outlay.

In the meanwhile the affair was talked of with
great freedom, and among the twelve thousand inhabitants
of Boston, there were not a dozen who did
not regard the proposal with contempt. It seemed
to them about as rational a project as the more modern
one to sail into the interior of the earth, and,
like every thing novel, it was hunted down forthwith.
The idea of such a possibility as the one proposed in
the scheme of Captain Phips, was enough to inflame
the imagination of a poverty stricken, woe-fraught,
half-crushed and despised piece of mortality like
poor Fitzvassal; and on hearing of the project, his resolution
was formed in an instant. Decision and
resolution are qualities of no common temperament,
and these this young man, who was then already

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

eighteen years old, possessed in an eminent degree.
He shipped on board Captain Phips's vessel, and was
made second officer before he reached England. The
captain soon discovered that he had been in reality a
sailor all his life, which was so far true, that Fitzvassal
had been almost every day on the water, and
from the familiarity which he had necessarily formed
with marine affairs, had become acquainted with
the practical details of navigation.

King Charles II. at first entertained the proposed
expedition with considerable favor, but he was soon
induced by his court favorites to reject it. They
could not spare their money, ill-gotten as it was, yet
so essential to their debaucheries and infamous pleasures,
even with the fair contingency of increasing it
an hundred fold; so that Captain Phips was compelled
to turn for assistance in another direction. At
length the Duke of Albermarle, son of the celebrated
General Monk, who was principally instrumental in
the restoration of England's monarchy, was induced
to regard the scheme with favor. He accordingly
invested sufficient money to fit out an armed schooner,
which, under the guidance of Captain Phips, sailed
on the destined adventure.

The expedition was successful. Captain Phips
recovered wealth from the bosom of the deep equivalent
to a million and a half of dollars, and with this
rich reward for his labors he returned to England,
and laid the treasure before his generous patron, the

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

Duke of Albermarle. At first it was proposed in the
king's council to seize the whole amount, on the villainous
allegation that the enterprize had not been
clearly enough explained to the king; but the latter,
with becoming magnanimity, refused to touch a
shilling, declaring that the representation had been
satisfactory, and that the plan would have been
adopted by himself but for the advice of those very
councillors who would now deprive the lawful owners
of their property.

Instead of robbing Phips and Albermarle of their
goods, the king conferred the honor of knighthood
on the enterprising captain; and Sir William Phips
was allowed a sum for his part in the fortunate undertaking
equal to one hundred thousand dollars, a
princely fortune if we consider the relative value of
money a hundred and fifty years ago.

While the duke's vessel lay off Port de la Plata,
and the hands were busily engaged in stowing away
the rusty masses of double-joes, and the ponderous
bars of bullion, which the Indian divers had recovered
from the deep, Captain Phips found it necessary
to promise the men an ample, extraordinary compensation
for their labor, in order to keep down a spirit
of insubordination, which seemed to be breaking out
among them. They did not relish the idea of contributing
in that way to the heaping of wealth on
wealth where there was already an undue proportion,
and an opportunity for providing for future

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

wants, seemed then to present itself, which would
not be likely to happen again.

It was through the influence of Fitzvassal that
the men were kept in order; for he whispered among
them that, as an immense amount of money must
necessarily be left after the schooner were laden, it
would be an easy thing to help themselves in case
another voyage were attempted, as it assuredly
would be, and satisfaction were not afforded them
according to the captain's promise. But we must not
anticipate the development of events connected with
another part of our narrative.

At the time we are now noting, Fitzvassal had
been but two days returned from his voyages. Immediately
on his arrival he hastened to the humble
abode of his mother, and to his astonishment, found
the house locked up and deserted. There was no
indication that it had been occupied for years. In
a state of deep perturbation, he ran to the landing-place
by the water-side, and to his great joy found
a boat, which had been fastened there but a short
time before by a fisherman, who had landed to
dig clams on the beach. He sprang into it and
pushed for the town, without knowing where to
look; but in the desperate determination to leave no
search unattempted in the hope of discovering his
mother; for there was that on his mind which seemed
to assure him that his parent was not dead, but was

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

longing for his presence as the hart panteth after
the water-brooks.

It is important for us now to retrace our steps one
day, which we shall attempt in the following chapter.

CHAPTER III.

“I told you so, Sir, they were red-hot with drinking;
So full of valor, that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces.”
Shak. The Tempest.

“A bold, bad man.”

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

After Fitzvassal had retired from the mansion-house
of the Wilmers, he hurried rapidly toward the
northern precincts of the town, with his mind more
distracted than ever. For the first time in his life he
realized the truth that man is not intended to live
principally for himself, but for others; and the very
radiance of this revelation, disconnected from any
thing else, gave him a thrill of mixed emotion which
he had never before known. He felt, and the recognition
of the feeling surprised him, that there are
ties which bind us to one another, stronger than the
chains of avarice and sensuality; and he perceived
the law of our being, half developed only, in his

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

bosom as incontrollably imperious. Need it be said,
that for the first time in his life he loved? Such
was, indeed, the case; nor was it remarkable that he
whose life had been one scene of tortured pride, restraint,
and poverty, and in its best phase one of hard
and unremitting servitude; that he who had never
been thrown, even by accident, in the path of a female
of purity and refinement, other than that
of his forlorn and heart-sick mother; and had had
no opportunity, therefore, of calling forth those sentiments
which lie buried in darker natures than his,
and are always susceptible of being vivified by the
sweet influences of woman, should have felt in his
situation as did Fitzvassal when he found the flood-gates
of his pent feelings suddenly opened, and the
iron of his stern nature melted.

He had sustained in his arms the most beautiful
girl imagination had ever presented to the vision of
a poet; he had seen the roses fade away on her
cheeks, and her angelic face assume the habiliment
of death; he had chafed her temples, ah, how delicate!
till the own hue of loveliness came back to its
alabaster rest;—he had watched the long, dark lashes
as they pressed upon her cheek, and he had seen the
bright revelation when they were lifted like the curtains
of heaven; he had felt a sigh from that bosom
whose beauty was not to tell, but to be the dream of her
worshipper. He fancied that those eyes looked on
him with gratitude and interest, and he fed his

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

thoughts with this luxurious delusion, till he peopled
his own created heaven with the progeny of hope.
With what rapture did he press to his lips that ring
which had encircled her graceful finger! Why had
he robbed her of that rich treasure? Nay rather,
why had she robbed him of his heart of hearts, and
given him no equivalent? At that moment he resolved
to restore the ring, and to peril every thing
for the merchandise of her affection.

Fitzvassal now wandered toward Winnissimmit
Ferry, with his mind principally occupied with the
events of the morning, when he came to a small tavern
with a sign of a sea-gull on the wing, and the
name underneath, A. Classon, painted in badly executed
characters.

His astonishment may easily be conceived when
he made this singular discovery. Instead of entering
the house, he made the best of his way from it;
and coming to a lumber-yard in the vicinity, strolled
therein, and gave loose to his thick-coming fancies.
The name on the tavern sign he was confident was
his stepfather's,—there was no other person of his
name in Boston or in its neighborhood, he was certain;
and he could not doubt for a moment that it
was in reality the same.

But why, if this, indeed, were his abode, had he
deserted his house in Dorchester, and relinquished the
occupation he had so successfully followed for years?
Could it be that his mother was dead?

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

As if at this thought, the heart of Fitzvassal,
which had suddenly been humanized by the transcendant
influence of Grace Wilmer, melted; and the
sturdy mariner bowed his head in secret, half suffocated
with vainly suppressed emotion. Had he entered
the portal of the sanctuary, and bowed down
in the belief that his mother was no more; or were
his emotions of a blended texture, interwoven with
which the idea of an adored woman was most prominent?
It would have been a hard task for an ordinary
pschycologist to analyse his feelings. It was
not the first time the man had ever wept; but never
before had he wept in such a cause, and never before
was he not ashamed of his emotions. He had within a
few hours found his parental hearth deserted, and
the very weeds growing on the door-stone; he had,
as he had reason to believe, saved the lives of two
human beings, one of them the cousin of the loveliest
creation of heaven; and he now reviewed the
event with delight, associated as it was with sensations
so entirely new and delicious. In the almost
hopeless search for his mother he had found her
worthless husband; and a thousand suspicions arose
at once to affect his feelings of filial reverence and
give agitation to his passions.

In some degree relieved by the crisis which had
passed, Fitzvassal retraced his steps toward the Sea-Gull,
which, on narrowly examining, he discovered to
be a common sailor boarding-house. His long

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

absence from his maternal roof, he was well aware,
must have disguised him effectually; he therefore entered
without any apprehension of discovery, it being
his desire to remain unknown for the purpose of
eliciting the whole truth about his mother in case she
were alive.

The Sea-Gull was one of those remarkable specimens
of architecture, hardly an individual of which
now remains in this country It looked like a cluster
of houses fantastically grouped together, each successive
story projecting over that below it,—the
whole terminating above by half a dozen gable-ends.
The walls were rough cast with small fragments of
glass, and over the front door were carved the figures
M.D.CXL, showing that the edifice had been erected
nearly fifty years already. The doorway was closed
by a sort of shutter divided into four parts, and after
ascending one step, it was necessary for the visitor
to descend two more. As Fitzvassal came up, a
sailor, who was leaning over the lower section of the
door, enjoying a Dutch pipe of tobacco, gave way
for him to enter, and he immediately found himself
in the bar-room of a tavern.

The apartment was only sufficiently lofty to accommodate
a tall man without stooping. On one
side was a large fireplace occupied by two sailors,
who were sitting opposite each other between the
jambs, on blocks of wood, regaling themselves with
the fumes of tobacco and blistering their legs before

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

a roaring fire of oak wood, under the coals of which
were half a dozen long iron bars terminating with a
one pound ball, appropriately denominated logger-heads,
the use of which formidable instruments, a
little varied in shape till they have degenerated to a
sort of poker, has descended from father to son in a
succession of generations for the perpetuation of
mulled wine and flip, and for the due exhilaration
of New England sleighing parties.

On the hearth, a half-gallon pewter vessel was
very deliberately evolving the motive power of modern
boat and rail-road engines, little suspecting its
own importance, which, however, was partially acknowledged
by the thirsty tars, who occasionally interrupted
its solitary musings by transferring the
fumes to their own brains.

Within the bar, our new comer, without much
difficulty, recognized his step-father. He was engaged
in the very laudable occupation of mixing rumbitters
for two wicked-looking truckmen, who had
just come in, and who now stood leaning in their
dirty frocks on the still more dirty counter of the bar.
One of them, as he rested on his left elbow, amused
himself by trying to hit with his whip-lash the head
of a nail which projected its shining head above the
sanded floor, and in doing this he recklessly scattered
the gritty particles too near the steaming flip, for the
satisfaction of the sons of Neptune.

“Mind your eye there, you fresh-beef-eating

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

land-lubber, and luff away—you're sanding our ca'boose,
d'ye hear!” Shouted one of the sailors, who was distinguished
by the enormous size of his black beard
and whiskers, and by the massive proportions of his
queue, “or, shiver my timbers,” he continued, “if I
don't carry away some of your dirty canvass, and
be hanged to you.”

“I tell you what it is, bully slush-bucket,” replied
he of the whip, taking his bitters from the landlord
and tossing it off at a single gulp, while he eyed the
sailor with a shake of the head in regular cadence
with his words, “I'll tell you what it is, bully slush-bucket,
if ye drive that are team this ere way, ye'd
better not turn down our worf, if ye know what's
good for ye, no how.”

The only rejoinder which the sailor condescended
to make to this reply, was by instantly springing on
his feet, and dashing his tarpaulin on the floor as his;
glove of defiance. The truckman immediately
made towards him, as if to anticipate his attack; but
the other, with inconceivable rapidity, threw his feet
into the air, and striking both of them at once with
the entire weight of his body, full on the truckman's
stomach, hurled him against the door, which, giving
way with the momentum, sent the fellow headlong
into the street.

The sailor would have followed the man had it
not been for the other truckman, who hit the former
such a blow behind the ear, that he was

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

immediately knocked down and disabled. All was now confusion,
and a general fight seemed to be inevitable.
The truckman having come to from the effects of
the blow and fall, had gathered together several others
of his white-frocked brotherhood, who seemed
determined to have an out-and-out row, and revenge
the disgrace that had been cast on their fraternity.
Accordingly, they marched up to the house, and
were about to commence a bombardment, when
Fitzvassal, turning aside the others with such singular
force and authority as at once commanded their
acquiescence, placed himself alone at the door-way.
“Get out of the way,” exclaimed the fellow who had
floored the sailor, “or I will make you swallow just
such a dose of jalap as I gave that other sick monkey
yonder; clear out, I say!”

So saying, he endeavored to thrust Fitzvassal
aside, and failing to do that, made a pass at him for
a black eye; when the latter, seizing him by the collar
with his right hand, and suddenly grasping his
right leg with the other, lifted him up with as much
ease as an ordinary man would raise a child, and
hurled him over the heads of the others far into the
street.

Such an exhibition of muscular power elicited an
involuntary shout from the by-standers,—the truckmen
fell back astonished, and unwilling to enter the
lists with such an opponent, while those within the
Sea-Gull sent up a yell of wonder and delight. At

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

that moment, Classon, who understood human nature
as well as most men, came forward when he
thought mediation could be best effected, and exclaimed
to the crowd that had meanwhile gathered
round his door;

“Hallo, my hearties, where's the use of all this
squabbling? One would think that old Admiral
Tromp had raised his broomstick, and opened his
Dutch metal among us. Haul in your guns and belay.
You've each on you lost a man; and now, suppose
you parley. You'll have the selectmen arter you as
sure as codhook, if you don't stop. Who's for flip
and a quiet life? Come in all hands of you, the Sea-Gull
will treat the company;—who speaks for flip
gratis?”

This agreeable challenge was answered by a salute
from the crowd “half whistle and half groan”—
for Classon was very unpopular, and the people did
not much care to be indebted to his hospitality who
was such a favorite of the odious governor's; however,
omnipotent rum carried the day, and, after looking
at each other, as if to say “If you will, I will,”
they turned into the grogery.

Beer and rum are pacificators as well as quarrelbreeders,
and “a hair of the same dog” is often found
to contain much practical philosophy. Though we
might say a word for the principles of homœpathy,
which the sagacious Classon practised in allaying

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

the popular fever, the less said about infinitesimal
doses the better.

Classon now brought out all his stone and pewter
pitchers, and filling them with the proportionate
quantities of rum, beer, and sugar, made a requisition
on the scorching fire-place for the red-hot logger
heads which were buried there like ostriches in the
hot sands of the desert. And now the sizzling of
the iron, the steaming of the flip, and the gabbling of
tongues made an uproar to which there is fortunately
nothing in the nature of things for a simile; while
the quantity of fire-water that Classon sacrificed as
a libation to the vox populi would have paid the
rent of his house for a month. But he was not so
low in the estimation of the powers that were, as not
to have a reason for what he did; and he consoled
himself, moreover, with the reflection, that he had
perhaps saved his house from being pulled about
his ears, and had given some fifty Bostonians a taste
of his flip; which circumstance might, in the course
of human events, serve as a sheet anchor for the
coming winter, and help to reinstate him in the fair
opinion of the people. Nor did he much misjudge;
for more trivial occurrences sometimes conspire to
give a reputation to as humble an establishment as
Abner Classon's, and to turn the tide of public odium
which beats against a man's affairs, into a current
which shall set in every way for his advantage.

The peace-offering having been accepted, the

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

parties roared their hour away, and then departed with
glistening eyes, red noses, and heated brains, to diversify
the different scenes of life, in which their
daily business now called them to take a part.

While the treat was going on in the bar-room
of the Sea-Gull, Fitzvassal had an opportunity of observing
his step-father, who, though much changed
from what he had been a few years before, retained
all those distinctive characteristics which constituted
his individuality. He was a man about five feet six
inches in height, who stooped a good deal about the
shoulders, probably from the constant habit of rowing;
certainly in part, from his dissipated course of
life. His forehead was very low, narrow, and square,
over which his reddish, curling hair pressed in matted
tangles. His cheek-bones were high, his mouth
large and bent down at the corners; his nose, which
had been tolerably regular, was misshapen and sunken
in at the bridge, from a diseased cartilage; his
eyes of a greenish brown, small and near together;
and his complexion very red and sunburnt. His
skull, from the occipital to the frontal bone, was
scooped out in a hollow, and it was far more largely
developed behind the ear than in the region of the
intellect.

Fitzvassal had been observing this man, his mother's
husband, with amazement. He had met with
all sorts of men abroad in the countries he had visited;
he had seen drunkards of every description;

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

but such another as his own step-father had never
crossed his path. The quantity of liquor which he
had swallowed within the last two hours was incredible;
and though the occasion was extraordinary, it
showed plainly enough that the man was in the
habit of indulging to a most insane excess in the
maddening contents of the decanter.

Classon's evil passions had always overswayed his
better nature. Had the alternative of a virtuous or
a vicious course of life been presented to him in the
pliant and ductile years of childhood, there can be
little question that the tranquil delights of the former
would have been preferred by him. Bad as he was,
profligate and reckless as he might now be, there was
a visible spark of goodness glittering in the dark recesses
of his rocky, antral bosom, which might
have been even then kindled into a sacred monitor.

“Who cares for Abner Classon?” was his daily
ejaculation; and the dark spirit within him whispered,
“Why, then, should Abner Classon care for any
human being?” Thus it is that the vilest of the iniquitous
yearn for human sympathy; and it is only
for want of this divine principle properly directed,
that so many follow up one bad step, by precipitating
themselves into the direst and most hopeless gulph
of degradation. Classon, from a long course of
vicious indulgence, had so completely broken down
the will, that the most acute sufferings which sometimes
followed his delirious debauches, had no other

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

effect on his mind than to prompt him to resolutions
which he had not power to keep. On an occasion
like the one which had just happened, he would follow
up his potations to such an extent, that he could
not contain the dearest secret of his heart; and all
the while he was conscious of his infirmity, he
would go on pouring out the very matters it was
most important for him to keep to himself.

As Classon's temporary guests retired, the sailors
who had been seated within the fire-place, resumed
their blocks, and being a good deal excited by the
stimulant they had so liberally indulged in, began to
sing fragments of love-ballads, while the other roared
out with that hysterical laughter which belongs
to the peculiar kind of insanity produced by excessive
intoxication. While they were in this mood,
the man with the big whiskers, who had been so
prominent in the row, casting his blood-injected eyes
on Fitzvassal, who was endeavoring to decypher the
inscription on an old worn-out engraving that hung
in a black frame over the mantle-piece, cried out to
him as follows:

“Throw us your hawser, Jack, and come to anchor
alongside, will you—I like the cut of your jib,
if I don't blow me!”

“Ay, ay,” answered Fitzvassal, who thought the
opportunity a favorable one to pursue his investigations,
as Classon had now retired to replenish his
decanters, “I like a snug harbor after a hard blow,

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

as well as any man that ever slung a jack-knife to
his button-hole.”

So saying, he placed an additional block within
the jambs, and seated himself without further ceremony
beside his jovial companion.

The rough sailor who invited Fitzvassal to the
merry junketing, touched his tarpanlin as the latter
placed himself alongside, evidently perceiving that
he had some time since graduated at the forecastle.

“I thought as how,” resumed the sailor with an air
of blunt deference, “by the way in which you heaved
that rotten spar overboard, you might be one of his
majesty's man-o'-war's-men;—but you'll excuse an
old sea-dog for any blunder o' the like, seeing as how
d'ye see, flip's good and man's dry: p'rhaps you've
no objection to trying a pull at the same windlass?”

At the same time he gave a hitch at his waistband,
and with the other hand passed the beverage to Fitzvassal:
the latter, however, only pretended to taste
it; so, smacking his lips as a prelude to his praises,
he returned the jug to the sailor, and said:

“Why, this is something like: your landlord is
an old hand at the oar, I see; one would think he
he had been the king's chaplain by the way in which
he mixes.”

“Ah, I see, you knows a thing or two of the secret
service;—maybe you never was a man-o'-war's-man,”—
replied the sailor, cutting his eye over the way at
his fellow voyager,—“never mind—all I can say is,

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

if you knew the chaplain of the Rose frigate, you'd
see a mixer in right earnest. You've no objection I
see,” continued the man in whiskers, “to a drop of the
creature when ashore; nor I neither, as for that are
matter. They keep a fellow infernal short of grog
though on board these ere frigates.”

And having uttered the foregoing with some vehemence,
he added to his other creature comforts a
huge piece of pig-tail, which he twisted off with his
grinders.

“Ah?” exclaimed Fitzvassal in a tone of inquiry,
“then you are hands of that goverment ship lying
off there in the channel?”

“Ay, ay, Sir!” responded both the sailors, simultaneously.

“And she's as nice a sea-boat, Bill Grummet, as
ever you sailed in, I know,—isn't she?” inquired
the other man of him in the big whiskers, while he
rested his elbows on his knees and his cheeks on his
hands, his bright eyes glistening in the hollows.

“For that are,” answered Grummet, taking a long
intermittent pull at the flip, and wiping his mouth
with his sleeve preparatory to the resumption of
the quid which he had hauled out of his mouth for
the occasion—“for that are matter, I can't say but
as how she's trig enough, and clean in the run too,
and one of the best sailers in the service.—The king
has reason to like her, any how.”

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

“The king!” exclaimed Fitzvassal—“what special
reason has he to prefer your vessel to any other?”

“I thought everybody had heard of his voyage a
few years ago, to Scotland, and how he was shipwrecked
and all that”—said whiskers.

“Certainly,” replied Fitzvassal, “every body has
heard of that accident; but I don't yet understand
what your Rose frigate had to do with it.”

“Then I can tell you all about it, and maybe a
little more than any body that you know of has
heared yet. His royal highness that then was, the
Duke of York, d'ye see, took it into his royal head, a
few years ago, to make a voyage to Scotland. So
what must the Admiralty do, but equip the Grampus
frigate. I was in the forecastle of that are crank old
hulk,—devil take the Friday in which she was lunched,
I say;—but that is neither here nor there, for as I
was saying, the Duke got on board at Plymouth, and
with half a dozen as slick, oily-looking Catholic
priests as ever a Portuguese man-o'-war's-man set
eyes on; and by the jingoes! the way they crossed
themselves, beat the reefers;—well, we got under
way smooth enough, but the next morning, afore day,
running ten knots an hour, with studding-sails all
set, we brought up smack on a sand-bank, and began
to leak like a cullender. The sea made a clean
breach over us, and carried away the quarter-boats as
slick as a boatswain's whistle. As soon as it was light,
we had the long boat out, and in jumped the Duke;

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

and what d'ye think? He wouldn't let a soul get in
with him but the priests and a parcel of pointer dogs,
blast 'em! When the crew found that his royal
highness was safe, they sent up a roar of joy, as if
they had all of 'em a twenty years' reprieve from old
Davy Jones's locker.

“Is this is all true?” asked Fitzvassal with great
earnestness.

“It's all as true as a log-book,” resumed the sailor;
“and by the soul that's to go aloft when this old
hull's waterlogged, it was too much loyalty for my
tonnage, I tell'y.”

“And what became of the Grampus?” inquired
Fitzvassal, deeply interested in the narrative, which
he soon discovered to be something more than a mere
sailor's yarn.

“Oh, she went to pieces in an hour or so, and a
couple of hundred as fine fellows as ever you saw,
to say nothing of the women and children, went to
the bottom in a giffy.”

“Women and children?” exclaimed Fitzvassal;
“is it possible that a sailor like the Duke of York,
his present majesty, a man who has fought so well
for his country, that he should suffer women and
children to perish before his eyes, while he saved
himself and his pointer dogs from drowning.”

“It's as true as preaching,” said the sailor.

“Then,” added Fitzvassal, “you may mark my
word; he will inevitably be the last king of his

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

family; for a man who could be guilty of such unheard-of
baseness, is as bad as bad could be. How
did you escape, Grummet?” continued he.

“God knows!” replied the man; “but I recollect
lashing myself to a spare royal-yard, and I found
myself on board the Rose as a man wakes up from
a dream—and who should I find there but this same
cargo of privileged man and dog flesh in the same
quarters. The Duke and his friends were lucky
enough to fall in with our craft. And it was for the
reason of that, d'ye see, that I said that the king had
cause to like our trig little vessel lying off there in
the stream, that's all. The Rose is well enough,
but I don't much fancy the way they have got into of
treating a fellow in his majesty's service.”

“The fact is,” said Fitzvassel, who was any thing
but a royalist, and whom the story about the Duke
of York put in a humor for decrying the government
of England, “the fact is, that things have come
to such a pass, that the very name of king is inseparable
from tyranny.”

“The king's bad enough,” said the sailor, “Charley
loved the galls at such a rate, that he gave the helm
to the old dog-saver, which just finished the spoiling
of him.”

“Whenever tyranny rules ashore,” exclaimed Fitzvassal,
musing, you may be sure to find plenty of it
at sea. In these times you may find it wherever the
British flag waves in the wind.”

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

Grummet looked steadily at the speaker, with an
undisguised expression of suspicion, for he began to
think that the officer-like looking man with whom he
had been so communicative, might be tempting htm
with an insidious show of frankness, and so entrap
him to his disadvantage. His penetration had already
satisfied him that he was no ordinary man,
and the thought occurred to him that there was danger
of committing himself by too great a freedom of
expression.

Fitzvassal instantly comprehended him, and continued,
lowering his voice and looking full into the
eyes of each sailor by turns; “Ay, you doubt what I
say, seeing that I may be the master of a vessel myself;
but I tell you what it is, I can drink a can with
a ship's crew ashore, and make them mind their eye
too when abroad; and yet I never whip'd or betrayed
a sailor.”

The men stared at him with astonishment, and by
the manner in which they ducked and scraped, while
he now looked at, and spoke to them, seemed to admit
that the authority of such a man could never be
disputed.

“I hate tyranny, however,” resumed the speaker,
who wished to further his design without any more
delay; “I loathe it in every shape, from a king on
this throne to the landlord of a sailor boarding-house”—
and with this remark Fitzvassal pretended
to look cautiously around, as if the person to whom

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

he alluded might have entered unawares, and overheard
the severity of his reflection.

“I must allow,” said Grummet, taking from his
pocket, in which he thrust his arm to the elbow,
a few pieces of silver, and pondering over them in
his hand, “that these landlords are a set of sharks.”

“But this landlord here of the Sea-Gull seems to
be an exception to the rule,” suggested Fitzvassal;
“by the manner in which he treated the people just
now, one would suppose that he had been a partner
of some lucky buccaneer. That man is too geneous
to rob an honest tar of his wages!”

“Oh! he is free enough with his money, and
well he may be if all's true that's said of him,—but
num's the word for that,” replied Grummet, “yet
the man who would treat his own wife as he
does”—

“His wife!” interrupted Fitzvassal, who had inadvertently
struck the very key for which he had
been sounding, “his wife! and how has he treated
her, pray?”

“Bad enough, but that's no affair of mine, d'ye
see.”

“Where is his wife? what of her? who knows
any thing of Classon's wife?” exclaimed her son,
who was so hurried away by this miserable gleam
of intelligence about his mother, that he was completely
thrown off his guard.

“This lubberly landlord lets her be supported in

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

the Poor-House,” said the sailor, “at least so they
told me the other day; but people along-shore beat
the marines for tough yarns; p'rhaps its a lie after
all.”

“The Poor-House?” exclaimed Fitzvassal; “how,
in the name of mercy, could she be suffered to go to
the Poor-House while her drunken husband is rioting
here on the fat of the land?”

“Why, they tell me as how,” said the man of hair,
“that this here landlord, Abner Classon, is chief rigger
to the governor, and that he lets him do as he
likes for reasons best known to himself. If he will
do dirty jobs for Sir Edmund, why, I suppose Sir
Edmund won't be outdone in obligations, that's all.”

“The scoundrel!” ejaculated Fitsvassal; “but—
and he checked himself, remembering, after a moment's
hesitation, that he had already expressed himself
too warmly, “but it is no affair of our's, as you
truly enough remarked just now; it is no affair of
our's; come,” said he, taking up the jug and passing
it along, “let us drink confusion to all tyranny and
rascality on sea and on shore.”

The men rose from their seats, doffed their tarpaulins,
and making a leg, drank one after the other,
and pledged the sentiment which had been offered.
After which, making a move for departure, Fitzvassal
insisted on settling the tavern score himself, and
having whispered in Grummet's ear that he would

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

like to see him again shortly, received their hearty
good-morrows, and once more found himself alone.

Fitzvassal was more than ever determined not
to make himself known to his step-father. He saw
at a glance the exact position in which his mother
must be placed, and he resolved that his first business
should be, to relieve her, as soon as possible, at
all hazards. There were reasons, however,
for not doing so immediately. He did not doubt
that the extravagance, excesses, and villainy of Classon
had driven his mother to the last pass of distress
and poverty; but when he took into consideration
the flourishing appearance of the man's affairs,
and the hint just dropped by the sailor, of the kind of
service which it was reported this man performed for
the Governor, he felt every reasonable assurance
that the liability of the husband had been overruled
by the lawless dictator who governed the colonists.
He determined to sound Classon, but, if possible, not
to reveal himself; that he might procure information
respecting his father, and others who could be
useful to him in carrying out his designs.

While he was musing after the foregoing manner,
Classon entered the room, with his arms laden with
the replenished decanters; then turning to his unrecognized
step-son, whom he had not heard from for
so long a time he supposed him to be dead, he opened
the converation as follows:

“What, all alone, hic! my hearty? I hope you

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

hav'nt heaved all my customers into the street—as
ye did that bull-headed, piratical, big whiskered—
hic!—bully—hey?”—

“You mean the truckman, landlord,” responded
Fitzvassal—“that big-whiskered fellow was fighting
for the quarter-deck of the Sea-Gull, against a fleet of
dirty-rigged land-lubbers.”

“True—hic! true”—said Classon, his glazed
eyes rolling in their sockets, and his kness bending
under him, while they scarcely sustained the weight
of his body—“I'd forgotten—otten all about it—
I hate quar'ling ye know, as I hate witchcraft—hic!
and all abominations—didn't I get the weather-gage
of them ere chaps—hic!—just now; hey?”

“You managed like a jolly old Admiral!” replied
the other, clapping Classon on the shoulder with that
kind of familiarity which he knew to be agreeable to
such characters when in his condition—“old
Blake himself couldn't have done better.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” chuckled the flattered inebriate—
“do y'know now, hic! that I took a liking to ye
as soon as ye came into the Sea-Gull?—and when I
saw ye batter that chap—whew!”—And Classon
made a sort of drunken war-whoop, which plainly
indicated how steeped was his brain already in the
fumes of alcohol. The man then seemed to muse
awhile, and he shook his head as his eyes swam over
the floor, see-sawing his hand horizontally, as if he
were feeling for something in the dark.

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

“Ye see”—resumed he—“I am over-working
myself for the good of so—so—ciety—hic!—I am
peace-maker of the town—and so ye see I've got my
line all in a snarl this morning—hic! plague on this
sour stomach!—did ye ever have a sour stomach,
hey?”

“I'm not much troubled with ill health,” said his
step-son—

“I can't—hic! 'magine what it is,” resumed the
publican, “that is ruining my digestion”—and
he was going on to lecture on dietetics in a manner
consoling to his darling inclination, when Fitzvassal,
who was not disposed to breathe the pestilential atmosphere
of the man any longer than was necessary,
interrupted him—

“You had a fine jail-delivery of rum and beer
this morning, Admiral—you were liberal with your
grog.”—

“Yes, hic!”—cried the other—“it costs me a mint
of money to carry my, hic! schemes; but massa—
hic! pay for 'em, as the Indian said, hic!”

Fitzvassal was not at that time prepared to guess
that his step-father alluded to the strong box of the
governor, which his instrument could use on all
such occasions as suited his necessities with even
greater freedom that he had done that morning;
the concluding remark of Classon's passed him,
therefore, without particular attention, though he
distinctly remembered it afterward, when he became

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

more fully informed of the relation they bore to each
other.

“But I thought,” said Fitzvassal, “that your colonial
laws did not allow your indulging in such
jollifications as I saw here this morning. Your people
have the reputation, on the other side of the water,
of being the most sober community on the face
of the globe. One in London would never believe
the story of what I witnessed this morning, here in
your too hospitable quarters.”

“Ye're a stranger in these ere parts,” replied Classon,
“any body—hic! might have known it—We
Boston folks—hic! have improved a quantity since
the days of the Rump—hurra for Jemmy and liberty!—
We used to be—hic!—the stiffest and most puritan—
tanical set of water-casks ye ever—hic!—laid yer
eyes on—I never see'd the—hic! like on it in my
born days—but, thanks to the spirit—hic! of what
d'ye call it, they have remoddled the old ship, and—
hic!—we are afloat again.”

“In what are your circumstances improved?” inquired
Fitzvassal.

“In the liberty of drinking, to be sure.” responded
the man of the bottles. “A few years ago—hic! a fellow
was limited to half a pint of wine—pshaw! and
that—hic! was half water—and if he called for more
than that—hic!—at a sitting—or for a reasonable
jorum of strong-waters—the commissioner—hic!
had power to countermand the order, and send it—

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

hic! hang this indigestion!—back to the tap,—and
if ye—hic! will believe it, one of—hic! these fellows
was always—hic! at yer elbow—lest a man
should take too much liquor. A putty kind of—hic!
liberty of conscience, not to let a fellow get as drunk—
as drunk as Chloe, if he likes!”

Fitzvassal endeavored to keep the drunkard in good
humor by forcing a smile to his face, and he pursued
his object by giving another turn to the colloquy.

“What sort of magistrates have you here, in this
famous city of yours,” inquired the step-son—“it
seems to me they allow the people more leeway than
they do anywhere else.”

“They were—hic! as beggarly a set of puritanical
puppies, as ye—hic! would like to lay yer eyes
on—till, hic! the most ex—cellent Sir Edmund
Andros came over among us; hic! Jemmy—hic!
deserves the everlasting gratitude of this generation—
hic! for mending our manners.—Cranfield and
Dudley were well—hic! enough, but it will be all
the same hic! a hundred years hence.”

Whereupon he helped himself to a cup of rum, and
passed the decanter silently to the other, who as
silently declined, by removing it a short distance from
him.

“As I was—hic! going to say,” resumed Classon—
“now that Sir Edmund is governor—hic! he has
put into office a very decent, liberal—hic! set of

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

Catholic magistrates—as different—hic! from those
water-drinking knaves as—as Edward Vassal is”—

“Edward Vassal—did you say?” exclaimed the unknown
son of that man.

“Yes—Edward Vassal—and what—hic! of that,
pray?—ye have driven the idea I had—hic! out of
my hend.”

“I've heard of that man in England.”

“A pickled scamp—hic! that fellow,” said Classon
with great bitterness, and he ground his teeth as he
spoke.

“Who; Vassal?” exclaimed the mariner, following
up the idea which he knew would open the heart of
his step-father.

“Yes! Vassal—do ye doubt it? Does any
one doubt it? I thought every body knew that,”
cried the drunkard with a volubility he had not
shown before, and suddenly assuming a kind of mastery
over his debility.

“Having often heard his name mentioned,” said
Fitzvassal with a long-drawn breath of affected indifference,
“I was about to inquire of you if the man
were yet living?”

“Yes;” replied Classon with a smile of demoniacal
malice, “he is alive, and much good may his life do
him. We shall meet on equal ground one of these
days, when there will be at least three of us to curse
each other.”

This speech was uttered with a distinctness and

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

deliberation which showed how powerfully his feelings
were working; his convulsions were cured by
the transition.

The decanter came again in requisition, and the
spirit seemed now to have absolutely no such effect
on him as it had had before.

“You speak of three of you,” insinuated Fitzvassal,
endeavoring, if possible, to draw his step-father
to the confessional, though he knew well enough
that he meant to include himself in the number
which he had devoted to the abodes of darkness;
“if you excite my curiosity thus, you must not be surprised
at my asking you extraordinary questions.”

“Not at all,” replied Classon, who began to warm
toward the other for his condescending manner—“I
had as lief let ye know all about it as not. It will
be all the same a hundred years hence.”

“No matter,” said Fitzvassal, “I don't care about
knowing.”

And, indeed, the young man began to dread what
he had just before so earnestly desired to hear: for a
narrative of all his mother's wretchedness and of his
father's crimes was appalling to think of.

“Don't be too modest, young man—modesty has
been the bane of many a man before you; if one
can't be frank with a sailor, where's the use of having
a tongue in his head? I have no secrets that I care
about. I don't care, for instance, who knows that I
married Vassal's mistress”—

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

Fitzvassal involuntarily shuddered.

“Ay,” resumed the man, “brat and all—but I do
care that I didn't make him pay dearer for it, that's
all.”

His step-son gazed on him with horror while he
spoke, and his eyes blazed with the impulse of revenge.

“The brat is dead long ago, I hope,” continued
the publican, “he had `gallows' written in his face
as clearly as his father had `villain;' as for that woman,
d—n her”—

“Hold, infamous scoundrel!” cried the infuriated
young man, who could command his temper no
longer; “if you utter the hellish slander which was
even now on your lips ready to blast my ears, you
shall not live another moment to curse the earth with
your presence!”

“And who, in the devil's name, are you?” responded
Classon, his cheeks glowing and his eyes flashing
with consuming fire, now blown almost into a flame
by a sudden gust of passion: “I should like to know
who you are, that have the audacity to confront me
in this manner, and insult me in my own house;
who in the devil are you, hey?”

“I am Edward Fitzvassal!” screamed the other:
and if a thunderbolt had burst through the roof of
the man's house at that moment, he could not have
been more astonished. He lifted both hands, and

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

gazing incredulously on the speaker, reeled against
the shelves of his tap-room in perfect amazement.

“And if ye are indeed the man ye say ye
are,” exclaimed he, “I had rather have seen the
devil come from hell than you across my threshold.
Ye come here for no good—I warrant.”

“What I come for, Classon,” rejoined his step-son,
“you may know hereafter;—I did not intend to discover
myself to you; but your scoundrel tongue has
forced me from my determination. Swear to me
that you will not reveal my name to Sir Edmund
Andros or any of the crown officers, and I will make
your fortune.”

“You make my fortune?” exclaimed Classon,
with undisguised contempt and incredulity—“Edward
Fitzvassal make my fortune? ha! ha! ha! that
is a good joke, truly.”

Fitzvassal made no other reply than by taking out
a handful of gold, and chinking it before the publican.

Classon gazed on him with astonishment—and
then, his countenance all of a sudden becoming serious,
said,

“But why are ye so anxious not to be known to
the governor? He is friendly to me, and perhaps for
my sake, who am of great service to him, and for
certain considerations—hey? would not molest
ye.”

“Classon!” said Fitzvassal sternly, “I am not

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

disposed at present to make a confidant of any one,
much less of you. Promise me that you will not
betray me! But no matter—you dare not do it. I
caution you though at your peril to keep a sharp lookout.
The moment you betray me, you lose an independent
fortune. I want no favors of you that
you will not be paid for a hundred-fold more than
Sir Edmund Andros pays you for your dirty work.
I am able to do it, and will do it. Do you hear me?”

“I hear ye,” replied Classon, musing.

Fitzvassal looked steadfastly at him, and placed a
purse heavy with gold in his hand.

“Classon!” said he, “the first act you must do is
to procure the release of my mother.—Who occupies
the old house—or rather who owns it; for I
know well enough that it has been vacant for a long
time?—No matter—if you have mortgaged it, redeem
it, and have every thing comfortably provided for
her. But be careful how you go there to live—”

“I have no wish to do so,” replied Classon, who
was so confounded with Fitzvassal's show of wealth,
that he hardly realized his own whereabout: “I will
do as ye desire, immediately.”

“I will double that purse when I see you again in
a few days,” said Fitzvassal—“and now good-bye
for the present. Do you have the house ready for
my mother before you release her, and when she is
there—but I will communicate with you before then.”

So saying, he left the Sea-Gull,—and Classon,

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

perfectly bewildered with the events of the morning,
took an extraordinary cup of rum, and sat down
in his bar-room to meditate.

CHAPTER IV.

Of tyrannie and crueltie
By this ensample a kynge maie see,
Him self—
Gower.

'tis most just
That thou turn rascal.
Shak. Timon of Athens.

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

The day before Fitzvassal arrived at the deserted
house of his mother near Dorchester Point, the people
in the vicinity of Mount Wallaston, now Quincy,
were surprised at the appearance of “a low built,
black, rakish-looking schooner,” which, toward sunset,
coming up in that neighborhood, dropped her
anchor about a mile off in the harbor. The flag
of England was flying at her main-top, but as the sun
sank below the hills, it was hauled down soon after
her arrival: at the same time her sails were all carefully
furled. There seemed to be an unusual number
of men at this work, who by the aid of a good
glass, appeared to be dressed in blue jackets and
trowsers, the cuffs and collars of the former being

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

red. A number of people collected together in the
course of the evening, and a good deal of speculation
was soon afloat relative to the probable cause of this
unaccustomed appearance: for in those days the waters
of Mount Wallaston were seldom honored by any
thing in the shape of a square rigged schooner; a few
fishing boats with an occasional wood or sand lighter,
constituting her principal marine visitors. The general
impression was, that she was a government yacht,
which had brought important despatches to the administration;
and the curious who had collected to
reconnoitre her, being satisfied with this conjecture,
which was soon transferred into a piece of actual
intelligence, retired to their several abodes to discuss
the probable subject of the new orders.

For the last six years previous to the present time,
1688, the colonies had been groaning under the arbitrary
encroachments of Charles II. and his successor.
The spirit of liberty, which, in opposing the
tyrannous advances of the first Charles, unhappily
degenerated into licentiousness, and led to the very
opposite of those rusults which were anticipated by
a Hambden and a Sydney, had at one time apparently
died away in the bosoms of British subjects. Nothing
could have seemed more inauspicious to the
great cause of human freedom than a superficial
view of the political aspect of those times. In its
most discouraging appearance, however, the political
philosopher might have discovered the old

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

tree, though scathed by the lightnings of ambition,
and stripped of its greenest branches, to be sound at
the root, and even more energetic there, than if the
nourishment of its beneficent mother had been diffused
through its unharmed body. The good seed,
to change the illustration, had assuredly been thrown
upon good ground; and though the tramplings of
kings and bishops were able to keep the plantsunder
for a time, there was no fear but that they would
burst forth in season and yield a plentiful harvest.

But such encouraging views were confined to comparatively
a few persons among the millions of
British subjects who were desponding under the
adverse events which they had vainly endeavored to
control. Liberty had always been dear to them; and
since the Reformation, it had been handed down to
them from generation to generation with increasing attractions.
In the course of a few generations antecedent
to the accession of Charles the first, a body of
men had arisen comprising the flower of England,
who had now become the special guardians of that
high trust, which was first executed at Runnymede.
In recognizing liberty of conscience as inseparable
from civil liberty, and thence opposing all parliamentary
action, which was compulsory on them to observe
certain rituals and ceremonies in religious
worship, they came in collision with that powerful
class of men which has existed in all countries, and
who, rioting on the privileges they possess, are ready

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

to sacrifice the rights of others, and the everlasting
principles which set forth the true relations of society;
so long as they may pander to their own selfish
appetites and wallow in epicurean delights.

The attrition of classes so unlike tore off the outward
folds which had for a time enveloped them,
and revealed the interior characteristics of each.
The selfishness of the hierarchy and their dependents
became now the pander of royalty, and it was
glory enough for that degraded class of lace-clad
slaves, if, in furthering the royal prerogative, they
could partake of the luxuries it claimed: but the
sturdy non-conformists, who had seemed nothing
more than religious zealots singularly attached to a
simple mode of worship, and jealous of control in
this peculiar prejudice, now arrayed themselves between
the people and the crown, and protected the
former from that desolating sway which served for a
time to threaten the extinction of their glory.

The first parliament which was elected after the
Restoration gave the people little to hope. Wearied
as they had been under the domination of Cromwell,
with all their hopes frustrated, they had vainly expected
that the sceptre of their reinstated monarch
would not only re-establish order, but be even a
better safeguard of their rights, than if it had never
transcended the social contract: they soon found,
however, to their bitter disappointment and mortification,
that there could be no redress under the

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

authority of the Stuarts. The descendants of Henry
the Seventh carried the ideas of divine right and popular
subserviency to such an extent, that nothing
could be expected from them but the propagation of
errors and the perpetuation of tyranny. The decapitation
of Charles I., instead of opening the eyes
of his son to the essential nature of the executive office,
served no other purpose than to infatuate him
the more with notions of kingly prerogative; and we
find his influence forthwith exerted, after the Restoration,
in packing a House of Commons which would
go any lengths in favoring the crown. From that
time forth there were few interruptions in a series of
executive aggressions, the inconvenience of which
was felt in the colonies as well as in the mother country,
till they ended in that high-handed act which
ought to have sent the head of its inventor rolling
beneath the scaffold.

Having squandered incalculable sums on his lawless
pleasures, and exhausted the resources of war
and peace to replenish his coffers, Charles II. conceived
the mad idea of seizing on all the charters in his
dominions, and granting them again under certain
restrictions, for what he deemed an equivalent in
money. The charter of the city of London was the
first that was sacrificed to this mad avarice, and it
was followed by all the others in the kingdom. The
colonies in New-England did not escape the hurricane
that swept away nearly every vestige of their

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

ancient liberties, and tore up the very landmarks of
civil society which their patriotic progenitors had so
carefully planted. Accordingly, in the year 1683, a
quo warranto was issued against the New-England
chief corporations, and a judgment entered up in
Chancery. In place of their own elected governors,
who were removed to make room for him, Henry
Cranfield was commissioned by the king to rule over
New England; and these outrages were followed up,
during the next year, by the infatuated James II.,
who then succeeded to the crown, and stripped the
colonies of all their remaining privileges. The king
assumed the power of making governors, deputy-governors,
judges, magistrates, and military officers;
and through the former, and four commissioners, legislated
and taxed the people at his own pleasure. In
short, the whole form and substance of the colonial
government were completely changed and destroyed.
Joseph Dudley, who was the successor of Cranfield,
was the miserable instrument of this usurpation;
but though he was odious to the people, this man
procured some favor on account of his father's
services.

All offices of any influence were now filled with
royal favorites whose political and religious principles
were diametrically opposite to those of the American
people. This state of things, with all its necessary concomitants,
lasted till the year 1686, when King James
I. having stretched his prerogative almost to the point

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

of non-endurance, gave another screw to the tyrannical
vice with which he grasped the people of New
England, and consummated his assumption of mastery
by sending over Sir Edmond Andros, as governor.

At the time we are now chronicling, the people,
especially of Massachusetts, were groaning under
this man's arbitrary oppression. They were not
possessed of even a remnant of that liberty which
their pilgrim fathers had toiled so hard to maintain.
Even the lands which their hardy sires had redeemed
from the wilderness, and paid for to the savage
proprietors (for not an acre had been wrongfully acquired
by them,) were taken away; their titles having
been usurped by the crown on the forfeiture of the
charters,—and they who were desirous of holding
them again, were compelled to pay one half their
value to the king. Enormous impositions were laid
on them in the shape of office fees, and pounds were
now exacted, where, under their charters, only a few
shillings had been required. The people were taxed
without mercy, and at the same time were not allowed
any assembly or general court: not only were
they refused representatives, but they were not permitted
to assemble at all, but once a year for the
choice of petty officers, so insignificant that the crown
would not condescend to interfere with them: and
even the number of the selectmen of Boston was

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

diminished by the capricious interference of the governor.

All this, and more, was borne with as much patience
as the religious principles of the people could summon
for the occasion; and this is saying every thing
for those who considered self-denial and the endurance
of hardships, the most imperative of duties.
They endured, because they possessed that unshaken
confidence in the order of providence which had
been transmitted from their parents, and because they
knew, that so long as they reposed themselves under
that power, and exerted their utmost ability to cooperate
with the supreme will, the shadows that
enveloped them and the storms that beat so furiously
against their consecrated altars, would pass away in
season, and bring again the sun of peace and liberty
with brighter and more renovating influence. Besides
this, they were ardently attached to their mother
country, and sincerely desired to harmonize with her
in all things practicable; and their agents were even
now in London, soliciting the paternal interposition
of the sovereign to save the colonies from utter and
irremediable ruin: for, so far from their having increased
for a number of years back, they had obviously
diminished; since nearly all the objects for
which the children of liberty had left their incompetent,
criminal, and debased father-land, seemed for a
while frustrated by these high-handed usurpations.

But the people of Massachusetts had never

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

despaired. Patiently had they waited for the fulfilment of
promises which had been repeatedly given to their petitions,
and so long as their agents remained at court,
the hope which had sustained them under so many
privations was re-kindled by every arrival in their
waters. The people of Boston, however, had for
some time given unequivocal indications that the
chain was galling them to the quick. On several
occasions they had manifested that feverish restlessness
which is so disagreeable to tyrants; and on a
late one, when certain soldiers were on trial for having
deserted from the army, and a freeman had
dared to complain to the council of its unreasonable
conduct, he was told by one of its members that
“he must not think the privileges of Englishmen
would follow them to the ends of the world.”

Such a sentiment could not be lost on the inhabitants
of Boston. It was not bruited abroad and proclaimed
from the house-tops, but it was indignantly
whispered about in private; and wherever it was
heard, it roused the blood of the people to a more tumultuous
action, than if the war-trumpet of the
most beloved monarch had summoned them to contend
for their altars. Meetings were held in spite of
the denunciations of Sir Edmund Andros and his
council, and measures were in rapid progress for effecting
a revolution in some degree analogous to that
which in less than a hundred years after, was achieved
by the sons of liberty.

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

Such is a brief outline of the condition of public
affairs, and of the popular affection towards the crown
officers, at the time when the events hereafter to be
described were secretly working for consummation;
and it will in part explain the readiness with which
the people about Mount Wallaston assured themselves
that the Grampus was a government vessel.

The sun had now sunk behind the blue hills of
Massachusetts, and the shadows of evening had enveloped
the landscape in gloom. Two days had
passed since the arrival of this vessel, which was
still riding at anchor about a mile below Mount Wallaston.
At seven o'clock that evening, a person
wrapped in a long pea-jacket stood at the door of a
rude hut, which was built on the borders of the sea
at half gun-shot distance from the anchorage of the
vessel. The hut was constructed under the lee of a
bank of earth, that, breaking abruptly in that place,
sloped gradually down to the water, where was a
small boat fastened to a rock, which served the double
purpose of an anchor and a ring-bolt. The hut
was erected over a natural excavation of the earth,
which, with little assistance from art, rendered it
available as a cellar. An abundance of sea-weed
was heaped round the foundation of the tenement to
keep the frost more effectually out; and you ascended
to the door by the aid of steps that had been
constructed out of broken spars, which the proprietor
had gathered from the floating wrecks of

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

vessels that were frequently scattered along the
shore.

A challenge within of, “Who's there?” followed
immediately on a low tap at the door, which, on the
summons being repeated, was slowly opened by the
occupant.

“What do you want here at this time of the day?”
growled the inquirer, as his head peered from the
opening, and a dark lantern gleamed on the face of
the person who had disturbed him.

“It is only I, Morgan!” responded the visitor—
“I'll tell you my business presently; in the meantime,
I'll take a place by your fireside, if you've no
objection.”

“Oh, it's you, is it?” said Morgan in a more friendly
tone, “come in;” on which he stepped back to
admit his visitor. “I thought it might have been
one of those infernal revenue officers, who are everlastingly
prowling about these ere parts: and jest
now, I guessed that the old rats had nosed out the
cheese you know on.”

“It is on that very account I have called to see
you now,” rejoined the guest; “the moon rises at
about one o'clock, I believe,” continued he, musing.

The man took down from a small shelf over the
fireplace a very dirty almanac, and after thumbing it
awhile, replied.

“She rises to-night at a quarter past one precisely.”

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

“Very well;” resumed the other, “the Dolphin
must be under weigh before the moon rises; the
revenue-cutter will be after her before that hour,
unless she clears out from this place; I may be mistaken,
but if Sir Edmund Andros gets scent of me,
as I have reason to think that he will, farewell to
all your hopes, and to mine too, as for that matter.
You know the soundings about Nahant?”

“Perfectly!”—

“Run her down to Nahant, then, and anchor her
on the sou'west shore, close by the Swallow's Cave;—
if we can get her in there before the moon rises,
she will be snug enough. There is not a solitary
inhabitant on that witch place that ever I heard of,
and the fishing-boats never run round that side.”

Morgan put his nose aside with the fore-finger of
his right hand, as much as to intimate to his employer
that he thoroughly understood his meaning; and
then looking at him shrewdly, inquired,

“You'll not trouble Nahant yourself, I suppose?”

“Not to-night; I have business of the utmost importance
in Boston. Run the schooner as near in
among the rocks as you can, and stay at anchor till I
come; unless you are attacked, which is not probable.
You know there is no danger in riding that
side of the peninsula unless it blows a tornado, for
you are well sheltered from the north-east. Here is
something as an earnest of the future.”

With this, the stranger placed in the hand of

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

Morgan several pieces of gold, which the latter chinked
without returning any answer, except to invite his
guest to be seated.

“I can wait with you an hour,” was the reply,
while the visitor looked at a very elegant watch; “at
eight o'clock I must see you on board.”

The speaker remained silent for some moments,
and seemed to be pondering something in his mind,
while he stirred the embers with the iron scabbard of
his rapier, which, as he seated himself on the wooden
settle, projected from under his pea-jacket. At last
he turned his face round with a sort of suppressed
whistle through his teeth, and gazing carelessly on
the rude habitation of his pilot, which was almost
entirely without furniture—the bedstead being
built of rough boards on one side of the room after the
manner of the berths of a vessel, and a small deal table
occupying the centre, on which lay a few clams,
a piece of sea biscuit, and a black bottle—the tout
ensemble bronzed by the flickering light that flared
up reluctantly from the hearth,—questioned him as
follows.

“And how long, pray, have you lived here, Morgan?—
The last I heared of you before I left Boston,—
for though I hailed from the old point over
there in Matapan, I always regarded myself as an inhabitant
of the good old town of notions,—you were
in Limbo for debt.”

“You are jest about right there,” replied Morgan,

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

looking a little queer at his employer, and screwing up
the corners of his eyes as he spoke; “and I should
have remained there to this day, for what I know on,
if the rascals, not being contented with burying me
alive one way, hadn't tried to bury me another;—
but the carcass of Jake Morgan got into the clutches
of the wrong grave-diggers that time, ha! ha!
ha!”—

And he chuckled at the remembrance of something
of which his visitor was too uninformed to be able to
participate in his mirth.

“If you haven't been the most prosperous man in
the world, Jake,” said he, “you have at least been
lucky enough not to lose your good humor. Suppose,
now, you tell me the adventure you allude to;
for by the dull face of a puritan, I'll swear that since
I hove in sight of the Light-House I have met with
hardly any thing but melancholy and misery. Come,
Jake Morgan, before we set to work let us have the
story that seems to put you in such excellent spirits.”

Jake Morgan was a muscular, square-built man, of
about forty years of age. His raven, black hair,
braided into a triple cue with their ends fastened together,
hung half-way down his back. His face was
very pale and cadaverous, contrasting strongly with
his black beard and eyebrows; but his dark eyes, always
moist and restless, had a very mirthful expression,
though it arose rather from mischievous purpose
than from any very laudable impulse. His

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

large mouth was filled with sound, strong teeth
much yellowed with tobacco, which he could not
help exhibiting in consequence of a remarkable spasmodic
action of the lips when interested in conversation.
He was always ready to tell stories, being generally
himself the subject of them; yet he rarely
had an opportunity of indulging this disposition, except
when he met with an accommodating customer
on his excursions to the neighboring settlements to
dispose of fish and wild fowl,—for when Morgan
was out of employment as pilot, his necessities compelled
him to resort to this means of living,—and
then he was so universally regarded as an unprincipled
and dangerous man, who could be easily engaged
in executing schemes of mischief,—that few
men were mirthful enough to pay the price of being
amused by him. He was nothing loath, therefore, to
comply with the solicitation of his present employer,
and regale him with one of his personal anecdotes.
Therefore, having drawn himself closer to the fire,
and mused and cleared his throat for the effort, after
disposing of an “old soldier,” which had been worn
out in the wars of his corn-grinders, and supplying
its place by a fresh recruit of “nigger-head,” he proceeded
as follows:—

“Well, you see, as how, I'd been in the stone jug
more than a year, e'en-a-most eighteen months, living
on bread and water, a thin diet for one whose
belly-timber had never been short of salt-junk and

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

pork; and all this for running up a small score at the
Two Gridirons, kept by Job Tileston;—you remember
Job, I dare say?”—

“I think I heard of such a fellow's being hanged
some time ago,” replied the guest.

“The same feller, exactly,” resumed Morgan; “he
was taken up a year or two arter I used to patronize
him, for cutting a man's throat who put up at his
house. It was about as dirty a job as ever I heared
tell on, that are murder—perhaps you'd like to hear
about it!”

“Perhaps you had better finish the yarn you began
with,” said the visitor, “and leave that for another
time.”

“Well, may be I had,” replied Morgan; “but it's no
yarn, I assure you; I'll bet a shilling the main part
of what I'm going to tell you is registered down in
the chronicles of Boston jail:—I know it must be, if
them fellers who keep it have any regard for true
history. But to proceed without any more palavering,
I'll soon get through, for a short horse is soon
curried.

“Well, you see,” continued Morgan, “after Job
Tileston had put the screws on me, there seemed to be
no earthly chance of getting out; and I had purty
much made up my mind to stay there till I died. A
good many on'em, who were not very fond of an active
life, have done so; but I was used to knocking
round, and didn't care about staying there in the

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

public boarding-house longer than I could help. Job
used to come every now and then, especially Sunday
arternoons, and look at me through the bars; many
a time had that same man of Uz looked over the bar
at me before,—but that's neither here nor there.
On them occasions, though, he was more like one of
Job's comforters than Job himself,—and the way I
used to curse him! Howsomever, it was all done in
a quiet way, and I soon got so used to being there,
boarding and lodging all free, that I wouldn't have
given a tinker's d—n to be let out agin: and hadn't
it been for the meerest accident in the world, I might
have been there to this day, and then the Dolphin
might have whistled for a pilot, and the world been
cheated out of one of the best jail-bird legends it ever
yet heared on.”

“At the rate you are now going,” interrupted the
listener, whose patience began to be a little fretted,
“it will be time to go aboard before you have got
under weigh with your story.”

“Well, then,” continued Jake, squaring himself in
earnest, “I will try to tack as little as possible. It
seldom happened that I was left alone in the cell I
occupied; while I boarded there, I suppose I chummed
with more than a dozen different persons, who
like schollards in old Mather's College, had been examined,
admitted, and graduated. Some on 'em out
of that same institution occupied very elevated stations
when they left—Job Tileston climbed to the very

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

top of the ladder—ha! ha! ha! but he fell off
though—good again! not so bad that”—

His employer could not help laughing at the fellow's
drollery, for though he had told the story a dozen
times before, his sense of the ludicrous and whimsical
constantly suggested the most grotesque relations
among his fancies.

“The last chum,” resumed Morgan,“was a queer feller,
who had never, as he confessed, been out of debt in
his life. There was nothing strange in that, though;
but what tickled me was, he took it into his head to
die, and then he was so cool about it. `Sam,' says
I, `aint you afeard to hop the twig?'—`Afeared!'
says he, `what have I to be afeared on? But I tell
you what it is, Jake,' says he, `I don't much like
this paying the debt of natur—its inconsistent.'
Soon arter this the death-rattles came over him, and
his eyes turned up in his head, and he struggled like
a good fellow”—

“For pity's sake,” interrupted the listener, “pass
over the particulars of that scene; I have no stomach
for the horrors to-night.”

“Why, od's niggers!” cried Morgan, “I know'd
well enough that Sam couldn't feel nothing—he
didn't suffer no more than a lobster does in a pot—
kicking's no sign! “Howsomever, it was all one;
a few minutes arter, and I laid him out as straight as
a salt fish, and closed his eyes; but they wouldn't
stay closed, they wouldn't; so I put two coppers I had

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

on 'em, because them wasn't the handsomest dead-eyes
I had ever seen, I assure you!

“It was now about midnight, and while I was fixing
Sam, I felt something cold and clammy catch
hold of my naked arm behind: by Golly! warn't I
scared then? For as soon as it got hold o'me, such
a scream came through the wall as you never heared
in your born days. And what do you think it
was? A crazy feller next cell, who had poked his
arm through the air-hole, and finding he had caught
something, set up that diabolical screaming. I tried
to make him undo his grip, and he wouldn't; so I
cut the tendons of his wrist—you needn't be alarmed,
it didn't hurt him none—but he let go though,
like a monkey hold on a hot potater. I had an extra
blanket that night, and slept very comfortable.
The next day, the carpenter brought a pine coffin,
and the turnkey and him put Sam into it;—talk of
feeling for a feller, I was a perfect mourner compared
to them ere fellers! The way they knocked Sam
about was a caution. Well, having packed away the
body, the carpenter, put the top of the coffin on and
fixed the nails, and then found that he had left his hammer;—
so off they both started, and left me with my
late chum who now, as the thought struck me, would
be a friend indeed:—the friendship you meet with in
the world has no such body to it as mine had;—
good again!

“While the jail folks were busying themselves

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

about Sam, I lay on my bundle of straw, kivered up
by the blankets; and it was while they were banging
the doors and rattling the bars and padlocks on their
way out, that I planned one of the grandest schemes
that ever entered into the head of man, or ever you
heared on. And what do you think it was? Why,
I'll tell you, for I got up in no time to put the plan in
execution. I went to work, and dragged out the
dead body of poor Sam;—by the bye, I forget to tell
you that I see'd that infernal jailor put them are very
coppers in his pocket which I put on Sam's eyes to
keep 'em down,—but I didn't say nothing;—I say I
dragged the dead body of poor Sam out of the coffin,
and carrying it to my bundle of straw, I kivered
it up with the blankets exactly as I was kivered up
myself a few minutes afore when the jailer and the
carpenter was in the cell. My next step was to get
into the wooden surtout myself, which had been vacated
by my accommodating fellow-boarder. Here I
placed myself as quietly as possible, having snugged
the top and fixed the nails just as they had been
fixed by the carpenter.”

“I should have feared,” interrupted the listener,
who now seemed to place some reliance on the story,
and attended with deep interest, “I should have
feared suffocation in the coffin.”

“There was no danger o' that,” resumed the story-teller;
“I don't know but a feller might have lived
there a week, for there was a purty considerable

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

sized knot-hole in the coffin. Howsomever, I warn't
fool enough to trust to that; so what does I do, but
put two wedges of wood under the top of the box to
keep it from being made too tight, and every thing
being now ready, I laid as comfortable as ever a live
corpse did afore me. And this reminds me of another
story which”—

“Which you had better postpone for the present,
perhaps;” suggested his guest.

“As you like,” continued Morgan, a little piqued;
“but do let me tell it to you one of these days—it's a
devilish queer story about a man who was going to
be buried alive;—howsomever, I will not interrupt
what is now telling. As the arternoon advanced, the
old slamming of doors and rattling of chains, and bars,
and padlocks began again—we used to hear that constant
three times a-day for meals, and extra when
new boarders came.—By and bye the door of my cell
opened, and in came I don't know how many persons.
The first thing done was to drive the nails, which
operation sounded in my ears like thunder. As soon
as this was over, the coffin was lifted from the floor
and placed on the shoulders of my pall-bearers. I
now had the satisfaction of perceiving that there was
room between the coffin and the kiver for air enough
to supply a grampus; so that, you see, I was in no
sort of danger of wanting wind,—the only fear was
that those outside would get wind of me,—good again!

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

not so bad that! The pall-bearers now began to descend
into the street, and to talk together as follows:—

“`How long has this rotten old rascal been
dead, Joe?' asked one of my body guard of another.

“`About a week I should judge,' replied the feller,
spitting.

“`Who's going to have him; do you know?' again
inquired the first feller.

“`Doctor Sikes,' said the feller called Joe, who
was at my right shoulder; his turn comes next.
The doctor is a queer feller at buying bodies, but I
guess he got bit last week a little.'

“`How so?' asked my body-guard at my left foot.

“`Why, you see,' said he, `the doctor's son, and
some other chaps, were blowing it out down at the
Red Lion, and all in a nat'ral way they got as drunk
as you please;—well, arter they were purty well
tired on't, and 'twas time for them to be packing, they
found that they hadn't got no money none on'em.
`I see the way to fix it,' said one; `how's that?'
said another. `Let's put Ned Sikes in a fire bag,'
said he, `and sell him to the old man; Ned's dead
drunk, and as good as a corpse,' said he. `Hurrah!'
cried they all at once, and set to work in earnest to
do it. So they hauled an old canvass bag out of a
boot-closet they know'd on, and crammed into it the
body of Ned Sikes, and off four on them started for
the doctor's house, leaving the rest of the company to
await the result of the negotiation. So knock, knock,

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

went they agin the old man's door, and presently he
stuck his old night-cap out of the window with his
head in it. `Who's there?' said he,—`hush!' said
they,—and the old feller took the hint, and came
down. The Doctor looked at the bag, and lifted one
end on it. `What is it?' said he; `a man,' said
they; `what did he die on?' said he; `rum,' said
they. `He isn't worth more than fifteen shillings,
then,' said he; `make it a pound,' said they, `and it
is yourn;' `done,' said old Sikes, and they carried the
Doctor's own drunken son into his study, and left it
on the floor in the dark.

“`The doctor was gammoned that time, any how,'
said the man, who kept me up on the left shoulder;
`and he'll get gammoned this time too; for we've got
the money, and this is about the rottenest corpse I've
had the honor of bearing many a day; and if he don't
get gammoned this time, there is no such thing as
rum in punch.'

“You're right there, my body-guard,” thought I,
“for once in your life at least; and the pall-bearers
just then began to laugh aloud, for they had turned
down near the bottom of the common. I know'd
that they were in the habit of burying hungry debtors
down at that old grave-yard, and I could calculate
purty well the whereabouts. My friends made
a terrible fuss with my body, and were already tired
enough of their burden, when we drew nigh to my
long home. They stopped, and I couldn't mistake,

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

then. Now was pill-garlick's great time. I began
to kick and scream at the same instant, as if heaven
and earth were coming together, and all the devils
in devildom had been suddenly unchained at once.
My pall-bearers, half frightened out of their wits,
dropped the coffin, and scampered away as if for
their lives; one on'em tumbled over a tomb-stone
and nearly broke his neck. I had no time to lose.
With a desperate effort, I drew my knees up, and at
the same time strained with my back and elbows till the
sides and top of the coffin split asunder an gin away
at once. I tore and wounded my shoulder horribly
against the nails of the coffin, and here are the scars
at this day. You ought to have seen the way I
cleared! I never stopped till I reached Nigger Hill,
and there I remained as snug as you please for the
next six months; till, accidentally mistaking another
man's wallet for my own, I was induced to remove
here, where I built this house. Since then I have
been pilot to all the scamps, saving your presence,
who have honored these parts with their countenance.
What think you now of my adventure?”

“I think,” replied the other, “you have had an excellent
education for a cut-purse, and that your adventure
of the coffin is altogether worthy of you.
Did the sharks let you alone after your escape?”

“I never heared any more of their capiases, as
they call them. I guess they thought Jake Morgan

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

was a leetle too hard a customer for 'em, and that, on
the whole, it would be as well to let him alone.”

The time was now arrived which had been determined
on for proceeding on board the schooner.
Accordingly, the captain of the Dolphin opened the
door of the hut, and proceeding down to the water's
edge, gave a loud and shrill whistle, which was
answered immediately by the appearance of a light
from on board the vessel. In a few minutes the
light passed down the side of the schooner, and was
seen shining over the water, and growing brighter
and brighter, till presently the plash and dip of the
oars were heard, and a barge, rowed by eight men,
with a coxswain, rounded to the wharf.

“Is it you, Mr. Rogers?” inquired the captain, addressing
the man at the helm as he stepped on one of
the after-thwarts.

“Ay, ay, Sir!” returned the helmsman.

“Step aboard, Morgan!” said the captain; and
Morgan seated himself aft, along-side the officer.

Having shoved off according to orders, the barge
was on her way back to the schooner. It was not
long before they were on her deck. She was a
sharp built schooner, with raking masts; her bowsprit
running almost parallel with her deck, like the
modern Baltimore clippers. She was of about one
hundred and fifty tons burthen, carrying six twelve
pound carronades and one long twenty-four pounder,
which was swung aft of the foremast. Her

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

bulwarks were high, and almost straight fore and aft,
with a deck like that of pilot-boat. She was painted
black, and was, on the whole, as suspicious looking
a craft as ever fell under the glass of a revenue cutter.

It was not the first time that Jake Morgan had
been on board the Dolphin. He had piloted her in,
a few days before, having seen her signal far down
in the bay, where he had gone to fish for cod and
haddock. He was now in her cabin, with the captain,
and Mr. Felton, his lieutenant. They were
seated at the table, their only light that which shone
in the binnacle, and which cast a peculiar gleam
on the visages of the company. The captain turned
towards his lieutenant.

“We must weigh anchor immediately, Mr. Felton,
and proceed to Nahant; I have given the pilot directions,
as he will continue with you till I come. I
have reason to suspect that Sir Edmund Andros has
got scent of us, or that he will have, this very
evening. Keep your guns loaded with grape and
cannister, and if the revenue cutter should come,
I know that you are able to blow her out of the water.
Should this happen, run out to sea, and in a
week from this time cruise off Cohasset, by the
glades. I will join you there. Otherwise wait for
me at Nahant. You may send the men for fresh
provisions to Salem. Business in town requires my
presence.”

So saying, he went to his state-room, and from his

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

desk took a package carefully bound with red tape,
and placed it in his bosom; he then replenished his
pockets with gold, which he took from a sheet-iron
box; and being thus provided, he went on deck,
and descended into the barge which was waiting for
him along-side.

“I shall take your boat, Morgan, this evening,”
said the captain, giving a farewell nod, “and I shall
probably bring it with me to Nahant. Keep a sharp
look-out!”

In a few minutes the barge landed him on the
shore, and returned to the vessel.

Being now alone, he cast off Morgan's boat, and
having set the mast in the forward thwart, and unloosed
the sail, he was soon on his way to Boston.
He beat about, however, some time, till he had seen
his favorite vessel under weigh with a stiff breeze,
and then he put his helm down, and bore directly
for the long wharf in the metropolis of New England.

CHAPTER V.

Fate may dash
My sceptre from me, but shall not command
My will to hold it with a feebler grasp;
Nay, if few hours of empire yet are mine,
They shall be colored with a sterner pride.
Ion.

Ruffian, let go that rude, uncivil touch.
Shak.

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

The tyranny of Sir Edmund Andros over the
people of New England was, as near as could be,
an exact counterpart of that of James II. over his
more immediate subjects. Charles II. would never
have been guilty of half the excesses which are recorded
against him, had it not been for the influence
of his bigotted brother. What made matters still
worse was, that the then Duke of York was himself
under the complete dominion of the Catholie
clergy, and is said to have gone so far as to write a
letter to the Pope, promising his holiness that he
would leave no means untried to establish his religion
in New England.

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

The colonies were hateful to James, as nurseries
of republicans; and he saw no security for his
crown so long as the arbitrary principles which sustained
it were assailed by the free spirit which,
though temporarily subdued, he was aware must
prevail in that favored region. Had it not been for
the Duke of York, the charters of the people would
not have been invaded; and now that this last vestige
of liberty was gone, James did every thing in
his power to perpetuate the slavery he had effected.
He was therefore careful to use all the religious influence
he possessed to spread Papacy throughout
his dominions; knowing well enough, that if he
could enslave the consciences of men, there would
remain but little to be achieved in fastening on their
necks the most servile bondage.

In this spirit, and with this ulterior object, priests
were sent over to America in disguise during the
first part of his reign, who used every art in their
possession to lead the people into the snare that was
set for them; till, as the tyranny of the monarch
grew more daring, and his infatuation more extravagant,
the secret disguises of his conduct were entirely
abandoned, and he set to work with the holdness
that better became him.

One of his first acts at home was, to augment his
standing army from seven thousand to fifteen thousand
men, and to place over this force his favorite
Catholic officers; a step which at once trampled on

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

the laws and liberties of the people. This conduct
was in the midst of professions diametrically opposite
to it, and perfectly harmonized with that contemporary
piece of villainy—the revocation of the
edict of Nantes by Lewis the Fourteenth of France.
In the mean time Catholic lords were admitted into
James's privy council, and Jesuit Colleges were established
in different parts of the kingdom. Monks
now appeared at Court, and the administration became
entirely Catholic. So absurd and impolitic
was his conduct, that even Pope innocent XI., much
as he desired to see the whole Christian world at his
feet, disapproved of it; for he had sagacity enough
to see that, so long as it was against the sense of the
people, it could not endure, but would, on the contrary,
ultimately redound to his disadvantage.

In his zeal to spread his religious views and convert
the whole empire, James now published his
declarations for liberty of conscience in the
year 1687, which so charmed the Independents, that
for the time they seemed to forget the oppression to
which they were subjected. Allured by such hopes
as this seeming liberality inspired, the people of Massachusetts,
through Dr. Mather, Rector of Harvard
University, and Sir Henry Ashhurst, their agents at
London, petitioned the king to restore their charter,
in the confident belief that their prayer would be
granted. But the king had no intention of extending
his liberality thus far, and it was soon

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

discovered that his only design had been to favor the Catholics.

Bad men, the enemies of the people, are the same
in all ages of the world, and when in power are the
more dangerous to liberty, because their infatuation
increases with their assumption. James had now become
almost absolute, and he lost no occasion of taking
the responsibility of a tyrant. Though his parliament
was thoroughly Tory, they could not be induced
to wholly prostitute themselves to the crown.
They so far truly represented the people of England
as they resisted the royal design of forcing the Catholic
religion upon them; for a step had been taken
in human progress which could not admit of retrogression,
and the religious sentiment of the country
was fixed for its allotted duration.

James, however, was resolved to leave no electioneering
machinery untried. He visited the counties
in person, and closeted himself with influential
men, making a desperate effort to pack a parliament
that would carry out all his enormous schemes.
But the virtue of the people resisted all his machinations,
and liberty triumphed. Historical parallels
are instructive; but we shall leave the reader to
draw them. In furtherance of his arbitrary designs
to enslave a too confiding people, the monarch of
England resolved to produce the Pope's nuncio in
public. By the laws of England no one could assume
this character without the penalties of high treason.

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

But, in defiance of these laws, and in direct opposition
to public opinion, this man, by the order of
James, made his public entry into Windsor, attended
by all the pomp and paraphernalia of his religion.
It was the duty of the Earl of Somerset, in virtue of his
place, to conduct official characters to an audience. But
he was too good a citizen to be a tyrant's instrument,—
and so he lost his office. The Duke of Grafton
was not so scrupulous, and he broke the laws to
please his master. Jeffries was then at the head of
the King's Bench, or there is no telling but that
Grafton might have been Lord Chief Justice of England.

These acts, among others, made James so unpopular,
that he resolved, if practicable, to use the influence
of the Prince of Orange, his son-in-law, if
haply he could induce that eminent personage to
agree with himself; for he was a favorite of the
English dissenters for the services he had rendered
them, while the Princess was the last hope that her
countrymen clung to. The king's object was to
make the repeal of the penal laws popular. In pursuance
of this end, he at length obtained the views
of the Prince and Princess of Orange, which amounted
to this, that they had no objection to indulging
the Catholics with liberty of conscience, but, on the
contrary, desired it, as they did most ardently that
the Protestant dissenters should be allowed the free
exercise of their religion; but that they would never

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

agree to the repeal of the test and penal laws, which
excluded the Catholics from parliament and public
offices, and were the best securities against the
overthrow of the Protestant faith.

From that time forth, the people of England, as
well as of the Colonies, began to look with more determined
opposition on the projects of their king;
inasmuch as they could now realize a source of protection,
which before they had only hoped for. As
the malcontents in the kingdom increased, James
became the more obstinate. He now, in 1688, published
another declaration, granting liberty of conscience,
and abolishing the penal laws; at the same
time ordering the bishops to read this declaration in
all their churches. How unpopular this measure
was, may be gathered from the fact that one minister
having told his congregation, that, though he was
compelled to read the declaration, they were not
obliged to stay and hear it read, they immediately
left the house, and he recited it to the deserted pews.

In the meanwhile the two parties in England,
through the judicious councils of the Prince of
Orange, united against their common enemy, the
king. So long as a Catholic monarch possessed
the throne of England, the Stadtholder saw the impossibility
of attaching that kingdom to the Protestant
alliance of the princes of the empire, Holland, Spain,
and Savoy, against the ambitious schemes of France.
The birth of the Prince of Wales, which happened

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

this year, shut out the princess from the succession;
so that all hope of securing the Protestant faith in
England seemed to have expired. The Prince of
Orange, therefore, entered into a closer correspondence
with the malcontents, who promised him their
full assistance if he would co-operate with them in
the re-establishment of their liberties.

James now began to perceive the true state of affairs,
and forthwith he ordered his fleets to be equipped,
and new levies to be set on foot for the protection
of his dominions. It was the same fear that impelled
him to despatch the Rose frigate to Boston; for
he had learned through the Massachusetts agents
that the people were becoming restless under the
privations and impositions they endured, and that
unless their charters were restored, it was impossible
to foretell the consequences which might follow.
The king, therefore, thought it advisable at this
juncture, to send an armed vessel to Boston, that the
turbulent people there might be overawed, and kept
under the provisional authority.

It would have been well for George III., nearly a
century after, if he had taken counsel from history,
and learned of what stuff his North American subjects
were made, and how they worked in the traces
of despotism. It is delightful to observe, at this period
of our history, the broad advancing shadow of
those mighty events, which in their majestic march
were even then heralded in the distance, and which,

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

so long afterward, came up in their appointed time in
the consummation of the age.

The Rose frigate was now lying off in the channel
of Boston harbor, where she had been for about
a week previous to the events which we have already
recorded. She was now the topic of universal
conversation, not only in the metropolis, but in
all the neighboring towns. Reports of various kinds
were in circulation relative to her intentions, but
nothing satisfactory could be determined. No intelligence
had yet reached the people of New England
as to the state of affairs in the mother country; and
though their hopes had all along reposed on Mary
when she should ascend the throne, that consolation
was now taken away by the birth of the Prince of
Wales. Still they confided in the influence of the
Stadtholder, who occupied so important a position in
European politics; and they now heard with satisfaction
that overtures had been made to him by the
most considerable of the English nobility and gentry.

In this state of uncertainty and suspense were
the inhabitants of Boston, expecting on the one
hand, the restoration of their ancient liberties, and
on the other, enduring all the miseries which the
privation imposed. The Rose frigate had been in
their waters for a week or more,—Sir Edmund Andros
had been summoned from New-York,—he had
repeatedly met with his council; yet nothing had

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

publicly transpired, by which it could be ascertained
that any thing had been done for their relief: and,
what excited their suspicion, and made them still
more restless, was, that a further change had, since
the arrival of the frigate, been made in many affairs
of the administration, which, so far from inspiring an
expectation of relief, confirmed their darkest suspicions.
Among other movements which alarmed
them was, that several guns had been dismounted from
Fort Hill near the residence of the governor, and
transported on board the frigate; and, in addition,
the arsenal had been deprived of munitions of war,
which were sent to the same destination. The officers
of the vessel, nevertheless, associated with the
citizens, and seemed by their conduct willing
to allay any apprehensions of evil. But the
jealousy of an injured community is not so readily
appeased.

There was a group of men standing together at
the end of Long Wharf, an extensive pier which
runs out to the channel of the harbor at the north-eastern
part of the city, from the termination of the
principal business place, then known as King's
Street. They were looking towards the frigate,
which, as she lay at anchor about a mile off, was
then swinging round with the turning tide, her guns
one by one becoming visible, till her whole broadside
was presented to the town. As her flags streamed to
the breeze in the blaze of noon-day, from her black

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

masts and rigging painted against the marbled atmosphere,
she presented a truly gallant appearance;
and the group of men who were beholding her, seemed
to take a pride in her beauty.

Several merchant vessels were lying about that part
of the harbor, and half a dozen pleasure-boats were
skimming lightly to and fro, with parties of ladies
and gentlemen, whom curiosity had prompted to take
a look at this important stranger. Most of the stores
on Long Wharf were closed, and the truckmen were
standing about, sunning themselves against the walls,
or perched on the anchors that lay rusting on the
ground. A number of sailors were there also, who
seemed to have nothing to do but to smoke their
pipes in the sunshine, sing ballads, and spin long
yarns.

Among the group of persons to which we have
referred, was a man who seemed to be a master mechanic,—
a personage about fifty years old, of a muscular,
and powerful frame. There was something very
striking in this man's appearance; he had an expression
of severity about his eyes and mouth, and
he exhibited great vehemence of enunciation and
action, which seemed to make an extraordinary impression
on those around him. His head was large,
and his features were regular but hard; and his dark
eyes flashed energetically as he spoke. His teeth
were uncommonly white, and they appeared more
so from the darkness of his close-cut mustache. The

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

other men appeared to be mechanics also. Two of
them were pump and block makers, and the fourth,
who was the principal talker after the master-mechanic,
was a calk-and-graver.

“And who cares,” said the master-mechanic, who
was an anchor-smith, addressing the calk-and-graver
more particularly, but turning his rapid glances occasionally
towards the others, “who cares, neighbor
Bagnal, whether that fine-built vessel is any finer
for our bone and muscle or not? She is in want of
refitting if ever a vessel was, but Boston mechanics
don't get any such job as that in a hurry.”

“If I could get the calking of her,” followed
Bagnal, “it would give me my winter's wood and
something to boot, I guess. But no luck like that
now a days! I never knew business at such a standstill;
did you, Randal?”

“Never,” replied Randal, for that was the name of
the anchor-smith, “never!—but unless times alter,
it will be the fault of us, the mechanics of Boston,
if we don't re-model, and re-rig, to say nothing of
re-anchoring the public ship.”

“We are the boys for that business, any day,” exclaimed
the two pump and block makers.

“And what do you suppose that yonder man-o'-war
is sent here for?” inquired Randal, shaking his
head as he spoke.

“It's more than I can do, to tell you,” replied Bagnal;
“but I'll bet the best month's wages of any

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man's money, that she didn't carry away those eighteen-pounders
from Fort Hill, and the grape shot and
pikes from the arsenal, for any convenience of our's,
any how.”

“And I'm just your way of thinking,” said Randal:
“but never mind, my boys, there's more bending
to be done yet, before you make horse-shoes of
us Yankees, depend on that;” and he cast a glance
of defiance across the water at the frigate, and involuntarily
stamped his foot as he spake.

“Bagnal!” continued the same speaker, pulling
the man he addressed by the skirt of his coat, “why
didn't you come to the meeting of our ward last
evening, at the engine house in High Street?”

“I never knew,” replied Bagnal, “nor heard of
any meeting, till it was over.”

“You deserve never to be at another,” rejoined
Randal, “as long as you live. There was some
speaking to the point, and the best spirit you ever
heard of.”

“And what would the Governor say to that?”
asked Bagnal, smiling as if he anticipated the answer.

“Who cares for the Governor, I want to know?”
exclaimed the excited mechanic; “the devil take all
such governors, say I; governors, indeed! ginger-bread
men, dolls, jumping-jacks, man-milliners. I
want to know whether our great-grandfathers came
over here to be governed this way? Can any body
answer me that?”

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“Of course they did no such thing,” replied Bagnal,
followed by the echoing assent of the others.

“And even if they did,” resumed Randal, “it
would be no reason why we should knock under to
such a lace-bellied set of knaves,—and by the fire of
thunder,” he continued, lowering his voice as he spoke,
“this King James is no better than his underlings.”

“Not a whit—not a whit;” echoed the hearers.

“Or else,” pursued the speaker, “when he came
to the throne, why did he make such fair promises
without any intention of fulfilling them? We might
have known it would be so; and for my part, I never
had any doubt that it was altogether owing to him
that the last king seized on the charters of the kingdom.”

“Why did the people submit to that, at the time?
that's what puzzles me,” said Bagnal.

“It's more than I can tell you,” replied Randal;
“but you know how easily a colt is broke to the saddle.
At first a little kicking and bolting, but very
soon it seems to come as natural as lying.”

“But I hope that isn't the case with men,” ventured
one of the pump and block makers.

“And why not?” said Randal: “the man who
submits to the least infringement of his rights, without
putting a stop to such infringements peremptorily,
once and for ever, has lost the only chance he
ever can have of being free. He is situated precisely
like a woman who has not checked the advances

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of licentiousness. If her pursuer has gained any
advantage, she may attribute her integrity, if it be
retained, to any cause but to the energy of virtue.”

“According to all that,” replied Bagnal, “when a
community is once under the thumb of a despot, it
must remain there for ever.”

“And so it must,” added Randal, “but for the last
remedy.”

“Well.” said the other, “for my part, the sooner
it comes the better, for there never was quite such a
tyranny as ours.”

The attention of the group was now turned more
particularly in the direction of the frigate, for one of
her barges was seen advancing toward the shore.
They kept their eyes upon it some time, remarking
the accurate fall and dip of the oars, till Randal
said to them:

“Come, let us clear out from this place, for, as sure
as we come in the way of those fellows, we shall
get into a row. There is no use of kicking up a
rumpus at this time of the day,—come!”

Having made this remarks, Randal turned away
from the bottom of the wharf where he had been
standing, and, followed by his companions, entered a
shop which provided ship-stores. Here they seated
themselves on some barrels which contained sugar
and flour for retailing, and after calling for bread and
cheese, and something to wash the same down, they
resumed their conversation.

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

“There's no use of denying it,” said Randal; “but
we are on the eve of a revolution. The king, in
trying to cram the Catholic religion down our throats,
is changing the very character of the people—Hallo!
there, Classon,” he exclaimed, as Abner Classon
just then passed by on the wharf,—“heave to, and
give an account of yourself.”

Classon hearing his name called, slackened his
pace, which was directed down the wharf, and looked
in at the shop door.

“Come in,” cried Randal, “what are you afraid
of? Though we are all Whigs here, we are not
hungry enough to devour such a Tory as you are;
come in,” he continued good-naturedly, “I want to
have a talk with you.”

Classon, who was easily attracted where eating
and drinking were going on, entered readily when
he found the little knot in the shop so agreeably engaged;
particularly as they seemed well disposed towards
him.

“You are always at it, somehow, it seems to me,”
said Classon; “and since your are so pressing, I don't
care if I do take a drop of something, for the sake of
drinking his majesty's health”—

Randal was about to make a truly republican ackknowledgment
of this proposal, when a tumult was
heard on the wharf at the place they had just left.
Cries of “help! help!” mingled with oaths and
blows, all at once saluted their ears.

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