Common to all of these is one general principle, that as the goods to be conveyed are usually the larger, so they are to be chiefly considered in the conveyance; the owner being indeed little more than an appendage to his trunk, or box, or bale, or at best a small part of his own baggage, very little care is to be taken in stowing or packing them up with convenience to himself: for the conveyance is not of passengers and goods, but of goods and passengers.

Secondly, From this conveyance arises a new kind of relation, or rather of subjection in the society; by which the passenger becomes bound in allegiance to his conveyer. This allegiance is indeed. only temporary and local, but the most absolute during its continuance of any known in Great-Britain, and, to say truth, scarce consistent with the liberties of a free people; nor could it be reconciled with them, did it not move downwards, a circumstance universally apprehended to be incompatible to all kinds of slavery. For Aristotle, in his Politicks, hath proved abundantly to my satisfaction, that no men are born to be slaves, except barbarians; and these only

to such as are not themselves barbarians : and indeed Mr. Montesquieu hath carried it very little farther, in the case of the Africans; the real truth being, that no man is born to be a slave, unless to him who is able to make him so.

Thirdly, This subjection is absolute, and consists of a perfect resignation both of body and soul to the disposal of another; after which resignation, during a certain time, his subject retains no more power over his own will, than an Asiatic slave, or an English wife, by the laws of both countries, and by the customs of one of them. If I should mention the instance of a stage-coachman, many of my readers would recognize the truth of what I have here observed; all indeed, that ever have been under the dominion of that tyrant, who, in this free country, is as absolute as a Turkish Bashaw. In two particulars only his power is defective; he cannot press you into his service, and if you enter yourself at one place, on condition of being discharged at a certain time at another, he is obliged to perform his agreement, if God permit: but, all the intermediate time, you are absolutely under his government; he

carries you how he will, when he will, and whither he will, provided it be not much out of the road; you have nothing to eat, or to drink, but what, and when, and where he pleases. Nay, you cannot sleep, unless he pleases you should; for he will order you sometimes out of bed at midnight, and hurry you away at a moment's warning: indeed, if you can sleep in his vehicle, he cannot prevent it; nay, indeed, to give him his due, this he is ordinarily disposed to encourage; for the earlier he forces you to rise in the morning, the more time he will give you in the heat of the day, sometimes even six hours at an alehouse, or at their doors, where he always gives you the same indulgence which he allows himself; and for this he is generally very moderate in his demands. I have known a whole bundle of passengers charged no more than half a crown for being suffered to remain quiet at an alehouse door, for above a whole hour, and that even in the hottest day in summer.

But as this kind of tyranny, tho' it hath escaped our political writers, hath been, I think, touched by our dramatic, and is more trite among the generality of

readers; and as this and all other kinds of such subjection are alike unknown to my friends, I will quit the passengers by land, and treat of those who travel by water for whatever is said on this subject is applicable to both alike, and we may bring them together as closely as they are brought in the liturgy, when they are recommended to the prayers of all Christian congregations; and (which I have often thought very remarkable) where they are joined with other miserable wretches, such as, women in labour, people in sickness, infants just born, prisoners and captives.

Goods and passengers are conveyed by water in divers vehicles, the principal of which being a ship, it shall suffice to mention that alone. Here the tyrant doth not derive his title, as the stagecoachman doth, from the vehicle itself, in which he stows his goods and passengers, but he is called the captain; a word of such various use and uncertain signification, that it seems very difficult to fix any positive idea to it: if indeed there be any general meaning which may comprehend all its different uses, that of the head, or chief, of any body of men, seems

to be most capable of this comprehension; for whether they be a company of soldiers, a crew of sailors, or a gang of rogues, he who is at the head of them is always stiled the captain.

The captain, whose fortune it was to stow us aboard, laid a farther claim to this appellation than the bare command of a vehicle of conveyance. He had been the captain of a privateer, which he looked upon as being in the king's service; and in this capacity he had gained great honour, having distinguished his bravery in some very warm engagements, for which he had justly received public thanks; and from hence he derived a right of hoisting the military ornament of a cockade over the button of his hat, and of wearing a sword of no ordinary length.

Now, as I saw myself in danger from these unavoidable delays, and as the wind had been long nested, as it were, in the south-west, where it constantly blew hurricanes, I began with great reason to apprehend that our voyage might be long, and that my belly, which began already to be much extended, would require the water to be let out at a time when no