“And what will the insurance be worth, ag’in Halifax, or Bermuda?  I’ll put my life on the channel, and would care more for your ship, Miles, than my own.  If you love me, stand on, and let us see if that lubberly make-believe two-decker dare follow.”

I was fain to comply, though I ran a risk that I find impossible, now, to justify to myself.  I had my cousin John Wallingford’s property in charge, as well as my own, or what was quite as bad, I placed Clawbonny in imminent jeopardy.  Still, my feelings were aroused, and to the excitement of a race, was added the serious but vague apprehensions all American seamen felt, in that day, of the great belligerents.  It is a singular proof of human justice, that the very consequences of these apprehensions are made matter of reproach against them.

It is not my intention to dwell further on the policy of England and France, during their great contest for superiority, than is necessary to the narrative of events connected with my own adventures; but a word in behalf of American seamen in passing, may not be entirely out of place or season.  Men are seldom wronged without being calumniated, and the body of men of which I was then one, did not escape that sort of reparation for all the grievances they endured, which is dependent on demonstrating that the injured deserve their sufferings.  We have been accused of misleading English cruisers by false information, of being liars to an unusual degree, and of manifesting a grasping love of gold, beyond the ordinary cupidity of man.  Now, I will ask our accusers, if it were at all extraordinary that they who felt themselves daily aggrieved, should resort to the means within their power to avenge themselves?  As for veracity, no one who has reached my present time of life, can be ignorant that truth is the rarest thing in the world, nor are those who have been the subjects of mystifications got up in payment for wrongs, supposed or real, the most impartial judges of character or facts.  As for the charge of an undue love of money, it is unmerited.  Money will do less in America than in any other country of my acquaintance, and infinitely less than in either France or England.  There is truth in this accusation, as applied either to a particular class, or to the body of the American people, only in one respect.  It is undeniable that, as a new nation, with a civilization that is wanting in so many of its higher qualities, while it is already so far advanced in those which form the basis of national greatness, money does not meet with the usual competition among us.  The institutions, too, by dispensing with hereditary consideration, do away with a leading and prominent source of distinction that is known to other systems, thus giving to riches an exclusive importance, that is rather apparent, however, than real.  I acknowledge, that little or no consideration is yet given among us to any of the more intellectual pursuits, the great bulk of