the carpenter and the doctor, d—­e, but I would have tried the carpenter first, for I felt pretty certain he would have been the most likely to get through with the job.”  “In old times,” said the other, “when a chaplain joined a ship, the question immediately arose, whether the mess were to convert the chaplain, or the chaplain, the mess; and the mess generally got the best of it.”  There was very little exaggeration in either of these opinions.  But, happily, all this is changed vastly for the better, and a navy-surgeon is necessarily a man of education and experience; in very many instances, men of high talents are to be found among them; while chaplains can do something better than play at backgammon, eat terrapins, when in what may be called terra-pin-ports, and drink brandy and water, or pure Bob Smith.1

“It is a great mistake, Wallace, to fancy that the highest duty a man owes, is either to his ship or to his country,” observed the Rey.  Mr. Hollins, quietly.  “The highest duty of each and all of us, is to God; and whatever conflicts with that duty, must be avoided as a transgression of his laws, and consequently as sin.”

“You surprise me, reverend and dear sir!  I do not remember ever to have heard you broach such opinions before, which might be interpreted to mean that a fellow might be disloyal to his flag.”

“Because the opinion might be liable to misinterpretation.  Still, I do not go as far as many of my friends on this subject.  If Decatur ever really said, `Our country, right or wrong,’ he said what might be just enough, and creditable enough, in certain cases, and taken with the fair limitations that he probably intended should accompany the sentiment; but, if he meant it as an absolute and controlling principle, it was not possible to be more in error.  In this last sense, such a rule of conduct might, and in old times often would, have justified idolatry; nay, it is a species of idolatry in itself, since it is putting country before God.  Sailors may not always be able to make the just distinctions in these cases, but the quarter-deck should be so, irreverend and dear sir.”

Wallace laughed, and then he turned the discourse to the subject more properly before them.

“I understand you to say, Mr. Mulford,” he remarked, “that, in your opinion, the Swash has gone to try to raise the unfortunate Mexican schooner, a second time, from the depths of the ocean?”

“From the rock on which she lies.  Under the circumstances, I hardly think he would have come hither for the chain and cable, unless with some such object.  We know, moreover, thut such was his intention when we left the brig.”

“And you can take us to the very spot where that wreck lies?”

“Without any difficulty.  Her masts are partly out of water, and we hung on to them, in our boat, no later than last night, or this morning rather.”

“So far, well.  Your conduct in all this affair will be duly appreciated, and Captain Mull will not fail to represent it in a right point of view to the government.”