it.  Let me put this proposition to them.  Here is a vessel, it may be, out on a trackless ocean hundreds of miles from land, her forecastle hands consisting of a gang of murderous ruffians ready to make lawful authority impotent, and, if need be, to enforce their own by overpowering the captain and officers and making an opportunity for mutiny.  Let the moralists think of it; four or five men at the mercy of a score of hang-dog scoundrels who despise every moral law, and who talk lightly of murder and every form of violent death!  Let me ask them what their feelings would be suppose any of their near relations were placed in the position of having to fight for lawful supremacy and even for life?  I think this might be trying to their faith in theoretic and sentimental government.  But the question might be made more impressive still by devoting a chapter to the hideous butchery which horrified creation when the news came of the mutiny of the Flowery Land and the Caswell.  I should like people who are so deadly virtuous as to repudiate self-preservation to picture the decks of these two vessels washed in human blood, and to imagine (if it is not too dreadful to do so) that some of it belonged to a kinsman who was very dear to them.  I think if they are not past praying for they would then give up dispensing cant, and direct their sympathies to a policy that has the merit of being not only humane but logical.  I well know how narrow the dividing line is between proper and improper discipline; and know also the care that should be used in such circumstances to act with fairness and even kindness.  But I am writing about a section of men who mistake kindness for weakness, and who can only be appealed to and swayed by the magic of fear.  I could find material to fill a three-hundred page book with the experiences of that one eventful and hazardous voyage.  Space forbids my giving more than a brief account of it.

After ten months’ absence from Liverpool we arrived at Antwerp.  The conduct of some of the crew had been so shocking that they feared the penalty of it, and they absconded immediately on arrival, and were never heard of by us again.  The Irishman fulfilled his pledge so thoroughly that he was not only pardoned but kept by the vessel.  The more defiant of them saw the thing through, and received only a portion of their wages, the bulk of it being deducted for fines and forfeitures.  I am bound to say these men got what they richly deserved.  They had on several occasions endangered the safety of a handsome and valuable vessel and the lives of all aboard.  But for the loyalty of the petty officers and the unyielding firmness of a strong, capable captain underwriters would have had a heavy loss to pay for.

The tale I have been unfolding shows one unwholesome and vicious aspect of sailor life.  There is, happily, a more attractive, peaceful, and manifestly brighter and purer aspect; and those who live in it are beloved by every one.