Marble had entertained a strong dislike for England, ever since the Revolution.  But, at the same time, he had inherited the vulgar contempt of his class for Frenchmen; and I must own that he had a fierce pleasure in seeing the combatants destroy each other.  Had we been near enough to witness the personal suffering inflicted by the terrible wounds of a naval combat, I make no doubt his feelings would have been different; but, as things were, he only saw French and English ships tearing each other to pieces.  During the height of the affair, he observed to me:—­“If this Monsieur Gallois, and his bloody lugger, could only be brought into the scrape, Miles, my mind would be contented.  I should glory in seeing the corvette and the Polisson scratching out each other’s eyes, like two fish-women, whose dictionaries have given out.”

Neb and Diogenes regarded the whole thing very much as I suppose the Caesars used to look upon the arena, when the gladiators were the most blood-thirsty.  The negroes would laugh, cry “golly!” or shake their heads with delight, when half-a-dozen guns went off together; receiving the reports as a sort of evidence that crashing work was going on, on board the vessels.  But I overheard a dialogue between these two children of Africa, that may best explain their feelings: 

“Which you t’ink whip, Neb?” Diogenes asked, with a grin that showed every ivory tooth in his head.

“I t’ink ’em bot’ get it smartly,” answered my fellow.  “You see how a Speedy make quick work, eh?”

“I wish ’em go a leetle nearer, Neb.—­Some shot nebber hit, at all.”

“Dat always so, cook, in battle.  Dere! dat a smasher for John Bull!”

“He won’t want to press more men just now.  Eh!  Neb?”

“Now you see Johnny Crepaud catch it!  Woss!  Dat cracks ’e cabin winders!”

“What dat to us, Neb?  S’pose he eat one anoder, don’t hurt us!”

Here the two spectators broke out into a loud fit of laughter, clapping their hands, and swinging their bodies about, as if the whole thing were capital fun.  Diogenes was so much delighted when all the Black Prince’s spars went, that he actually began to dance; Neb regarding his antics with a sort of good-natured sympathy.  There is no question that man, at the bottom, has a good deal of the wild beast in him, and that he can be brought to look upon any spectacle, however fierce and sanguinary, as a source of interest and entertainment.  If a criminal is to be executed, we always find thousands, of both sexes and all ages, assembling to witness a fellow-creature’s agony; and, though these curious personages often have sentimental qualms during the revolting spectacle itself, they never turn away their eyes, until satisfied with all that there is to be seen of the terrible, or the revolting.