“Though a poor man’s son, Captain Ludlow, I am a free-born Briton, and my education has not been entirely overlooked.  I hope I know something of the constitution, as well as my betters.  Justice and honor being an Englishman’s mottoes, we must look manfully to the main chance.  We are none of your flighty talkers, but a reasoning people, and there is no want of deep thinkers on the little island; and therefore, Sir, taking all together, why England must stick up for her rights!  Here is your Dutchman, for instance, a ravenous cormorant; a fellow with a throat wide enough to swallow all the gold of the Great Mogul, if he could get at it; and yet a vagabond who has not even a fair footing on the earth, if the truth must be spoken!  Well, Sir, shall England give up her rights to a nation of such blackguards?  No, Sir; our venerable constitution and mother church itself forbid, and therefore I say, dam’me, lay them aboard, if they refuse us any of our natural rights, or show a wish to bring us down to their own dirty level!”

“Reasoned like a countryman of Newton, and an eloquence that would do credit to Cicero!  I shall endeavor to digest your ideas at my leisure, since they are much too solid food to be disposed of in a minute.  At present we will look to the chase, for I see, by the aid of my glass, that he has set his studding-sails, and is beginning to draw ahead.”

This remark closed the dialogue, between the captain and his subordinate.  The latter quitted the gangway with that secret and pleasurable sensation which communicates itself to all who have reason to think they have delivered themselves creditably of a train of profound thought.

It was, in truth, time to lend every faculty to the movements of the brigantine; for there was great reason to apprehend, that by changing her direction in the darkness, she might elude them.  The night was fast closing on the Coquette, and at each moment the horizon narrowed around her, so that it was only at uncertain intervals the men aloft could distinguish the position of the chase.  While the two vessels were thus situated, Ludlow joined his guests on the quarter-deck.

“A wise man will trust to his wits, what cannot be done by force;” said the Alderman.  “I do not pretend to be much of a mariner, Captain Ludlow, though I once spent a week in London, and I have crossed the ocean seven times to Rotterdam.  We did little in our passages, by striving to force nature.  When the nights came in dark, as at present, the honest schippers were content to wait for better times; by which means we were sure not to miss our road, and of finally arriving at the destined port in safety.”

“You saw that the brigantine was opening his canvas, when last seen; and he that would move fast, must have recourse to his sails.”

“One never knows what may be brewing, up there in the heavens, when the eye cannot see the color of a cloud.  I have little knowledge of the character of the ‘Skimmer of the Seas,’ beyond that which common fame gives him; but, in the poor judgment of a landsman, we should do better by showing lanterns in different parts of the ship, lest some homeward-bound vessel do us an injury, and waiting until the morning, for further movements.”