“Speak freely, Sir, and fear not to offend.  We of the brigantine are accustomed to divers epithets that might startle less practised ears.  We are not to learn, at this late hour, that, in order to become respectable, roguery must have the sanction of government.  You were pleased, Captain Ludlow, to name the mystifications of the Water-Witch; but you seem indifferent to those that are hourly practised near you in the world, and which, without the pleasantry of this of ours, have not half its innocence.”

“There is little novelty in the expedient of seeking to justify the delinquency of individuals, by the failings of society.”

“I confess it is rather just than original.  Triteness and Truth appear to be sisters!  And yet do we find ourselves driven to this apology, since the refinement of us of the brigantine has not yet attained to the point of understanding all the excellence of novelty in morals.”

“I believe there is a mandate of sufficient antiquity, which bids us to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.”

“A mandate which our modern Caesars have most liberally construed!  I am a poor casuist, Sir; nor do I think the loyal commander of the Coquette would wish to uphold all that sophistry can invent on such a subject.  If we begin with potentates, for instance, we shall find the Most Christian King bent on appropriating as many of his neighbors’ goods to his own use, as ambition, under the name of glory, can covet; the Most Catholic, covering with the mantle of his Catholicity, a greater multitude of enormities on this very continent, than even charity itself could conceal; and our own gracious Sovereign, whose virtues and whose mildness are celebrated in verse and prose, causing rivers of blood to run, in order that the little island over which she rules may swell out, like the frog in the fable, to dimensions that nature has denied, and which will one day inflict the unfortunate death that befell the ambitious inhabitant of the pool.  The gallows awaits the pickpocket; but your robber under a pennant is dubbed a knight!  The man who amasses wealth by gainful industry is ashamed of his origin; while he who has stolen from churches, laid villages under contribution, and cut throats by thousands, to divide the spoils of a galleon or a military chest, has gained gold on the highway of glory!  Europe has reached an exceeding pass of civilization, it may not be denied; but before society inflicts so severe censure on the acts of individuals, notwithstanding the triteness of the opinion, I must say it is bound to look more closely to the example it sets, in its collective character.”

“These are points on which our difference of opinion is likely to be lasting;” said Ludlow, assuming the severe air of one who had the world on his side “We will defer the discussion to a moment of greater leisure, Sir.  Am I to learn more of Mr. Van Staats, or is the question of his fate to become the subject of a serious official inquiry?”