as much rum to keep his sluggish frame in the same degree of good spirits. He held out against his crew for two days, during which time they never one of them so much as lifted a spun-yarn. The weather was, be sure, very mild and pleasant. I confess, however, that I was very uneasy, under the idea that we might all perish, from the obstinacy of the crew, on one side, and the firmness of the little man on the other. Our captain found that his government was democratical; and perceiving that the weather was about to change, he conceded to the large and fearful majority; and New England spirit carried the day against a temperate European commander.

This habit of rum drinking makes a striking difference between the military of ancient and modern days. If a Roman soldier, or a Carthagenian sailor, had his clothing, his meat, and his bread, and his vinegar, he was contented, and rarely was guilty of mutiny. But the modern soldier and sailor must, in addition to these, have his rum, or brandy, and his tobacco; deprive him of these two articles, which are neither food nor clothing, and he infallibly mutinies: that is, he runs the risk of the severest punishment, even that of death, rather than renounce these modern luxuries. I have observed among sailors, that they bear the deprivation of rum with more patience than the deprivation of tobacco. On granting the crew half a pint of rum a day, they gave three cheers, and went to work with the greatest cheerfulness and alacrity.

The Americans, I believe, drink more spirits than the same class of people in England. The labouring people, and sailors, cannot get it in Britain. A soldier whose regiment was quartered in Boston, just before the revolution, held up his bottle to one of the new comers, and exclaimed, "Here is a country for you, by J—s; I have been drunk once to-day, and have got enough left to be drunk again: and all for six coppers!" What they then called coppers, we now call cents, and the Londoners hap-pennies.

The next day we descried three sail steering for St. Salvadore. We gave chase to them; but when we came within gun shot of the stern most, she fired her stern chasers at us. We brought our four guns on one side, to attack, or to defend, as we should find ourselves circumstanced; but night coming on, we saw no more of them.

Our water becoming short, we determined to gain our former watering place; but not being able to reach it easily, we anchored off a little settlement, twenty miles distant from the place where we watered before. Here our captain put on a British uniform, and waited on the commandant of the place who, although he treated him with politeness, gave evident suspicions that he was not an English officer. To prevent the awkward consequences of a detection, our captain promised to send off a barrel of hams, and a keg of butter. Under the expectation of the fulfilment of this rather rash promise, our crafty commander returned to his vessel, and left the place very early next morning.

It was now the middle of March, and we had taken nothing; neither had we fired our cannon, excepting at a miserable sort of a half boat and half raft, called a catamaran: made of five light logs, with a triangular sail. From the men on this miserable vessel we got information of a good watering place, where we soon anchored. The commandant of this little settlement was of the colour of our North American Indians, and so were his family, but the rest were nearly as black as negroes. He lived in a house covered and worked in with long grass; he offered us snuff out of a box tipped with silver, but every thing else looked very rude and simple. While we were getting our water, the females hovered round us. They had long, black, and shining hair, and wore a long white cotton garment, like a shirt or shift. They seemed to admire our complexions. One of these women, more forward than the rest, opened the bosom of one of our fairest young men, to see if his body was as white as his face. She appeared to be highly amused with the discovery, and called her companions to come and view the phenomenon. He shewed a similar curiosity as it concerned her, but she shrunk from it with the apparent delicacy of polished life, before so many men. The colour of these merry girls was that of the inside of a new leather shoe.

Just as we were about embarking, the commandant told our captain that he had just received a message from the commandant of Gomora, to seize him and all his crew and send them to Pernambuco, but that he should not obey him. We now set sail for the United States, and had not been at sea long before we were chased by a frigate, but out sailed her.

On the 20th of May we made Gay Head, which is the shining remains of an extinguished volcano, on the west end of Martha's Vineyard. The next morning we discovered a ship and a brig standing for us. We tacked and stood for the ship until we found that she was a man of war, and then we wore round for the brig, she being nearest of our own size. We now, for the first time, hoisted American colours, when the brig gave us a broadside, and kept up a constant fire upon us; but we soon left her by our superior sailing and management. The frigate, for such she proved to be, was not so easily got rid of. She was to the windward of us when we first saw her; and she came within gun shot about noon. She firing her bow-chasers, and we our stern-chasers. At length she came almost within musket shot of us, when she fired repeated broadsides into our little schooner, so as to cut away almost all our rigging, when our brave little captain went down below, after telling the men "to fight it out;" but they prudently struck their colours. A boat soon came on board of us with a lieutenant and twelve marines, swearing most bravely at the d—d Yankees. The name Yankee is used with pride by an American sailor or soldier; but with derision by the British. But as our men had, according to custom, when a vessel surrenders, seized whatever casks of liquor they could come at, soon filled out a few horns of gin, and passed it round among the marines, which inspired them with good nature, and for a moment they seemed "all hale fellows well met." The boarding officer did not appear to be so intent in securing the vessel, as in searching every hole and corner for small articles to pocket. The Americans disdain this dishonourable practice. The officers and crews of our men of war have never soiled their characters by taking from their enemies the contents of their chests and pockets, as the commanders of the British frigates, whom we have captured, can testify. We were soon ordered on board of his Britannic Majesty's ship the Tenedos, captain Parker.

I had always entertained a respectable opinion of the British, especially of their national marine. I had read British history, and listened to British songs, and had heard from my childhood of the superior bravery and generosity of the British sailor, and had entertained a real respect for their character; and being of a family denominated federalists, I may be said to have entered the frigate Tenedos, captain Parker, with feelings and expectations very different from what I should have felt, had we been at war with the French, and had it been a frigate of that nation that had captured us. The French are a people marked by nature, as well as by customs and habits, a different nation from us. Their language is different, their religion is different, and so are their manners. All those things have conspired in making a wall of separation between us and that lively people. But it is not so with the English. Our language, religion, customs, habits, manners, institutions: and above all, books have united to make us feel as if we were but children of the same great family, only divided by