in four hours we had three hundred and fifty tons on board, all stowed away.  I made all hands work.  The admiral himself was up to the neck in water, with the rest of them.  ‘D——­n it, admiral,’ says I, ’no skulking.’  Well—­we sailed the next day; and such a gale of wind I never saw in all my life—­away went all our masts, and we had nearly been swamped with the weather-roll.  One of the boats was blown off the booms, and went clean out of sight before it touched the water.  You may laugh at that, but that was nothing to the Swallow sloop of war.  She was in company with us; she wanted to scud for it, but, by Jupiter, she was blown two miles up the country—­guns, men, and all; and the next morning they found her flying jib-boom had gone through the church-window, and slap into the cheek of the picture of the Virgin Mary.  The natives all swore it was done on purpose by d——­d heretics.  The captain was forced to arm his men, and march them all down to the beach, giving the ship up to the people, who were so exasperated that they set her on fire, and never thought of the powder which was on board.  All the priests were in their robes, singing some stuff or another, to purify the church; but that was so much time thrown away, for in one moment away went church, priests, pictures, and people, all to the devil together.”

Here he indulged himself in some vile language and scurrilous abuse of religion and its ministers.  All priests were hypocritical scoundrels.  If he was to be of any religion at all, he said, he should prefer being a Roman Catholic, “because, then, you know,” added he, “a man may sin as much as he likes, and rub off as he goes, for a few shillings.  I got my commission by religion, d——­n me.  I found my old admiral was a psalm-singer; so says I, ’my old boy, I’ll give you enough of that,’ so I made the boatswain stuff me a hassock, and this I carried with me every where, that I might save my trowsers, and not hurt my knees; so then I turned to and prayed all day long, and kept the people awake, singing psalms all night.  I knelt down and prayed on the quarter-deck, main-deck, and lower deck.  I preached to the men in the tiers, when they coiled the cables, and groaned loud and deep when I heard an oath.  The thing took—­the admiral said I was the right sort, and he made a commander out of the greatest atheist in the ship.  No sooner did I get hold of the sheepskin, than to the devil I pitched hassock and bible.”

How long he might have gone on with this farrago, it is difficult to say; but we were getting tired of him, so we passed the bottle till he left off narrative, and took to friendship.

“Now I say (hiccup), you Frank, you are a devilish good fellow; but that one-eyed son of a gun, I’ll try him by a court-martial, the first time I catch him drunk; I’ll hang him at the yard-arm, and you shall be my first lieutenant and custos-rot-torum, d——­n me.  Only you come and tell me the first time he is disguised in liquor, and I’ll settle him, d——­n his cock eye—­a saucy, Polyphemus-looking son of a—­ (hiccup) a Whitechapel bird-catcher.”