It was the great craft that George had distended upon, and the veritable captain of the right stripe, who promised to toe the mark according to secession principles, but made no stipulations for the nigger feed that was the cause of the excitement.  The captain, a Baltimore coaster, and accustomed to good feed in his vessels at home, had been induced by a large representations to take charge of the craft and run her in the Pedee trade, bringing rice to Charleston.  On being told the craft was all ready for sea, he repaired on board, and, to his chagrin, found two black men for a crew, and a most ungainly old wench, seven shades blacker than Egyptian darkness, for a cook.  This was imposition enough to arouse his feelings, for but one of the men knew any thing about a vessel; but on examining the stores, the reader may judge of his feelings, if he have any idea of supplying a vessel in a Northern port, when we tell him that all and singular the stores consisted of a shoulder of rusty Western bacon, a half-bushel of rice, and a jug of molasses; and this was to proceed the distance of a hundred miles, But to add to the ridiculous farce of that South Carolina notion, when he remonstrated with them, he was very indifferently told that it was what they always provided for their work-people.

“Take your’ little jebacca-boat and go to thunder with her,” said the captain, commencing to pick up his duds.

“Why, captain, I lent you my gun, and we always expect our captains to make fresh provision of game as you run up the river,” said George.

“Fresh provisions, the devil!” said the captain.  “I’ve enough to do to mind my duty, without hunting my living as I pursue my voyage, like a hungry dog.  We don’t do business on your nigger-allowance system in Maryland.”  And here we leave him, getting one of the negroes to carry his things back to his boarding-house.

A few days after the occurrence we have narrated above little Tommy, somewhat recovered from his cold, shipped on board a little centre-board schooner, called the Three Sisters, bound to the Edisto River for a cargo of rice.  The captain, a little, stubby man, rather good looking, and well dressed, was making his maiden voyage as captain of a South Carolina craft.  He was “South Carolina born,” but, like many others of his kind, had been forced to seek his advancement in a distant State, through the influence of those formidable opinions which exiles the genius of the poor in South Carolina.  For ten years he had sailed out of the port of Boston, had held the position of mate on two Indian voyages under the well-known Captain Nott, and had sailed with Captain Albert Brown, and received his recommendation, yet this was not enough to qualify him for the nautical ideas of a pompous South Carolinian.