“Bless me, sir, this is very extraordinary!  An English frigate, did you say?  It is very unusual for the vessels of that just nation ever to be guilty of an aggression, particularly as our common language, common descent, Saxon ancestors, and Saxon English, and all that sort of thing, you know, operate against it; whereas, sorry I am to say, each new arrival brings us some fresh instance of the atrocities of the myrmidons of this upstart Emperor of the French; a man, sir, whose deeds, sir, have never been paralleled since the day of Nero, Caligula, and all the other tyrants of antiquity.  If you will favour me, Captain Wallingford, with a few of the particulars of this last atrocity of Bonaparte, I promise you it shall be circulated far and near, and that in a way to defy the malignant and corrupt perversions of any man, or set of men.”

I had the cruelty to refuse compliance.  It made no difference, however; for, next day, the Federal Truth Teller had an account of the matter, that was probably about as accurate as if I had related all the events myself, and which was also about as true as most of the jeremiads of the journals that are intended for brilliant effect.  It was read with avidity by all the federalists of America; while its counterpart in the Republican Freeman, passed, pari passu, through all the democratic papers, and was devoured, with a similar appetite, by the whole of that side of the question.  This distinction, I afterwards ascertained, was made by nearly the whole country.  If a federalist was my auditor, he would listen all day to that part of my story which related to the capture by the French privateer; while it was vice versa with the democrats.  Most of the merchants being federalists, and the English having so much more connection with my narrative than the French, I soon found I was making myself exceedingly unpopular by speaking on the subject at all; nor was it long before a story got in circulation, that I was nothing but a runaway English deserter myself—­I, the fifth Miles of my name, at Clawbonny!  As for Marble, men were ready to swear he had robbed his captain, and got off from an English two-decker only four years before.  It is unnecessary to tell people of the world the manner in which stories to the prejudice of an unpopular man are fabricated, and with what industry they are circulated; so I shall leave the reader to imagine what would have been our fate, had we not possessed the prudence to cease dwelling on our wrongs.  Instead of thinking of appealing to the authorities of my country for redress, I felt myself fortunate in having the whole affair forgotten, as soon as possible, leaving me some small portion of character.