older than his ship; a worthy man, but too old for the duty required of him. He was an Irishman, dressed with all the neatness and precision of a Quaker, and he uniformly wore a coat of a bright green color. The mate (Mattson) was a Swede, a clever fellow, and every inch a sailor, and was, I believe, the only one of the ship's company who was adequate to his station. My little captain, in his capacity as agent, had charge of all the stores and provisions that were on board for the subsistence of the Americans, and the quantity to be distributed to each was prescribed by regulation, and was the same as allowed on board of our national vessels. It was my duty, each day, to see to the distribution of the provisions, and to keep an account of them. In cutting up and serving out I had two men to assist me. With the exception of the eleven in the cabin, all the Americans lodged in the main bold; the crew of the ship in the forecastle.

We put to sea on the 3d, and had a tolerable fair time of it for three or four days, when we encountered a storm, which severely tried the mettle of our crazy old ship, and carried away her topmasts. With the assistance of the Americans, when the gale abated, she was soon put to rights. The gale, however, increased our leak, and it was lucky for us that after this we had fair weather.

After awhile the agent began to be unpopular. He had been "hail fellow, well met" with every one in Dartmoor, but he began to put on "quarter-deck airs," and these, his old associates could not away with. It was, besides, suspected that he was partial to the cabin mess, and it was rumored that sundry bottles of good wine, and some porter, which had been laid in as hospitalstores, had been made free with in the cabin.

There was too much truth in this, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the surgeon, a worthy young Englishman, an assistant-surgeon in the royal navy, and yclept Lichmore Hathaway. I foresaw the brewing storm, and warned him of it; but the captain was a child of destiny, and did not heed the warning. At last, one day, it was discovered that part of the contents of a cask of oatmeal had been abstracted, and no " burgoo" had been served to

the messes. to the train, and the explosion followed. A meeting was called, forward of the mainmast; the case was stated to them; speeches were made; and finally, a resolution was unanimously passed, requiring the captain to abdicate. This he refused to do, stating, that the provisions were put under his charge by Mr. Ingraham, and that he was accountable to our government for their proper disposal. Things seemed now to be taking an angry turn, when the matter was compromised by an agreement, that the captain should remain nominally as agent, but that the distribution of the provisions should be under my charge, and that the men in the hold should choose a committee of three of their number to see fair play. Tranquillity was restored, and the committee was chosen.

The match was now put

I got along now very well in distributing the provisions; there was no complaining, except from an old Connecticut captain of three score years, who had become querulous from age and infirmities. He fancied that his own and some other messes were not dealt justly with, in the distribution of the fat pieces of beef, and he endeavored to stir them up to a " sudden flood of mutiny." I do not know but that he would have succeeded, had not the triumvirs stood by me, and one of them was, next to "big Dick," the primest boxer of Dartmoor.

We had the small-pox on board, having brought the infection from the depot; three or four were sick, but recovered; but the last one who took it, notwithstanding the most assiduous attentions of our surgeon, died. I know not his name nor his history; for he was delirious when I first visited him in company with the surgeon, and he seemed to be a lonely and neglected one. None came near him, either from dread of the infection, or from some circumstances in his character and life, but us two, and an old weather-beaten and one-eyed sailor of three-score years of age; he waited upon him with the affection of a father, and handled him as tenderly as he would a child. I was with him when he died, a mild afternoon, in the early days of June; the sun, which was fast sinking into its bed in the far-off ocean horizon, threw a

SO

few faint, slanting beams down the small aperture of "the sick-bag." His last words were a few snatches of simple hymns, which he had probably learned in his childhood; and with his last expiring breath, the murmur was, scarcely audible, "my mother". indelible are the impressions of our childhood. This man was far from the scenes of his infant days; his life had been one of wandering and suffering, probably of guilt; he had not for many years been within his native land, (for I understood that he was an impressed man,) and yet, when the sands of life were almost run out, and reason had deserted him, his last words were the songs of his childhood; his last thoughts were on the home of his infancy; the last image present to his mind, was the guardian of his hours of thoughtlessness and innocence-his mother. We sewed him up in a tarred sheet, and at night, by the brilliant light of the full moon, which was careering high above us, but two or three to witness it, without a prayer, and without a tear shed to his memory, we launched his body over the side of the ship; and the parting waters received it, and he was borne down to his long resting-place, in the deep bottom of the ocean caverns. We made but slow progress. Our ship was a dull sailer; her sails were old, and would not hold the wind, and our rigging was rotten. The captain, timidly cautious by age, was part owner of the ship, and he would not crack on her, so we went plodding along with the speed of a sand barge.

We were bound to Norfolk, in Virginia, where the captain expected to get a freight for Europe, but on examination it was found that all but twenty of the Americans belonged north of New-York. Most of them were nearly destitute of clothing-all of money, and they did not relish the idea of being landed so far from home. After consultation, it was determined that we should enter New-York; and a deputation waited on the captain, and requested him to lay the ship's head that way. He refused, pleading his orders, the risk of losing his insurance, &c. The men kept quiet for a little time, as they did not wish to annoy the good old gentleman unnecessarily; but some of them had watched the ship's run from the beginning of the voyage, and they

knew where we were, and when was the proper time to act.

We were drawing near the coast, and this day, the 1st of June, the deputation again went aft, and requested the captain to haul up north by west, and proceed to New-York. On his refusing, one of the deputies seized the wheel, and brought the ship up to the point. The others went into the cabin, and requested an American there (a New-York ship master) to take charge of the ship, and navigate her to New-York. This matter had been all arranged some time before, and was well understood by us in the cabin; but the captain, for form's sake, refused; they urged and he refused; they urged and urged again; finally they threatened to throw him out of the cabin windows unless he complied, when he proceeded on deck, took the speaking trumpet, and assumed command.

"You all do know, that in the Lupercal
We thrice presented him the kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse."

In the meanwhile the old captain was haranguing the men on what he termed their criminal and mutinous conduct; told them they were guilty of piracy, for which he should feel obliged to bring them to condign punishment in the United States. At this time they were all assembled on the quarter-deck, and they treated the old gentleman as tenderly as possible. They told him that he did but his duty, and they commended him for it, but that they all belonged to the middle and northern states, and had no means of getting home from Norfolk; that they had made up their minds and were willing to take the responsibility of their actions; that they knew that he could not deviate from his orders, and this act of theirs freed him from all responsibility; they further told him that they respected his advanced age, and were grateful to him for his uniform courtesy to them, and advised him to go into his cabin, make the best of what he could not help, and amuse himself the best way he could. This advice the old gentleman complied with, and in a few hours was as tranquil as ever. They now went to work in good earnest, unbent the old sails and bent a new suit, which was below in the sail-room, overhauled the rigging, splicing and strengthening old ropes

here, and bending new ones there; and having got the dainty Ariel somewhat in flying order, they cracked on her. By night-fall the old ship seemed to have renewed her age again, and she bounded through the water "like a thing of life." She seemed to answer the commands of her new masters, as if they possessed the magic of Prospero. We now walked over the waters merrily; every thing went on prosperously and harmoniously, and in eight days we cast anchor in New-York, it being the 9th of June.

The Americans immediately left the ship, each one scattering in such direction as pleased him; and in an hour, Captain Falvey would have been puzzled to find them, if he had persevered in his determination to punish them. My mess-mate was well acquainted in New-York; he went to a tip-top boarding house, taking me with him, after we had performed thorough ablutions, and deposited our old clothes, charged with the filthy vermin of Dartmoor, in the bottom of the river. I remained here two or three days, and then left in a sloop bound for Providence. She had been taken up by the corporation of New-York, to convey to that port the released captives who belonged in the

eastern states.

I parted at New-York with my little mess-mate, and I never saw him again under circumstances that gave me any pleasure in the recognition. Once or twice I had the opportunity (which I hope I improved) of repaying him in some measure his many acts of kind

ness.

He has gone home, but he has children and friends yet remaining, and I have purposely omitted his name and some facts, that they may not recognise in my description the faults and follies of their friend and father. Some few who knew me at Dartmoor, and they are but a few, (for to the mass I was wholly unknown,) will recognise in these pages the writer; they will also recognise my messmate; and they will do me the justice to bear witness that, in the portraiture, I have softened down the faults, and thrown into prominence the good qualities of the object. We arrived at Providence after a run of 24 hours, and immediately took stage-coaches for Boston. We reached Boston about 10 o'clock at night, in as

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profuse a rain as the month of June ever produces. We went to a tavern, (I suppress the locality.) but the barkeeper refused to entertain us, and the master of the house had retired. told him that we could pay for our entertainment; it mattered not to him, we should not stay there; we requested leave to sleep in the barn, but he was inexorable, and trudge we must. I must confess that our appearance was not very prepossessing, for we were prison-worn, travel-worn, and weatherworn. At last, one of my companions, then a sailor, now a retired ship-master, enjoying a well-earned competency, proposed to me to accompany him to a boarding-house in Ann-street, where he was acquainted, and he offered to be the pilot. I accepted the proposition, and we started; we went up one street and down another, the rain falling in torrents, till at last he acknowledged that he had lost his reckoning. We saw no house open, and we might as well walk as stand still, so on we trudged, splashing the mud about us, abiding "the peltings of the pitiless storm," till at last we came to a bridge; we thought it was Charles river bridge, and we kept on, meaning to foot it to Salem, over the turnpike. On the middle of the bridge we were met by two watchmen; we told them our story, and they informed us that we were on the road to Cambridge, and they proposed to us to accompany them to the watchhouse. This we declined, with thanks for their civility, and trudged on until nearly morning, when we came again to the inhospitable tavern, which we found open, for after we had left it, the master was awakened by the noise of the altercation, and had come down, and given permission to our men to remain in his bar-room. His beds he preserved intact to their pressure, for he was afraid of the vermin, and it was not an unwise precaution. Before morning, one of the coachmen of the Salem line, who lodged in this house, came down below. Those of us who belonged to Salem and Beverly freighted his coach, and before it was still light, we were rattling over the turnpike road to Salem. When the sun was just rising, I hove in sight of the humble dwelling of my parents, to which, in all my wanderings,

"Still had I turned with ceaseless pain, And dragged at each remove, a length'ning

chain."

My mother was the only one up. They had heard nothing of me since the Doctor left us at Barbadoes, for the

letters which I had written home were never received. They knew that the prisoners had been concentrated at Dartmoor, but they were not aware of the certainty of my being among them Let the meeting be conceived.

In England every subject acknowledges a superior. In the United States no citizen admits that he has any. The moment we examine the differential scale of the two political systems, we perceive so little in common, that it is an impossibility that both can sail in the same ship, under the same commander, or with the same creed. But that is no reason why we should set hostile flags, arm ourselves for combat, and labor to run each other under water. It is just as well-nay, infinitely wiser and safer, to agree upon points of difference, than to limit our agreement to points of union. If I find any particular in England essentially different in character and application from the same thing in the United States, as for example, an established church, my inquiry is not whether it be a good or a bad thing to have a church establishment, but whether it be suited to the habits, wants, and circumstances of that country. If it be, it is a good thing for that people. So I think a foreigner travelling in the United States, when he meets, as he certainly will meet with, many particulars differing from those he left in his own country, and in reference to which, inconsistent with fitness and propriety, will do well to inquire whether such particulars are compatible with the circumstances in which the people of the United States are placed, and if so, it is enough. We are exposed to just reproach, not for having those particulars as they are, but for changing them for something that is not.

Although nations cannot and will not unite in one universal form of government, or in one universal mode of worship, yet all may unite in universal benevolence; in alleviating sorrow, and mitigating distress; in bearing one another's burthens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ. If we cast an eye upon the structure of the general and state governments of the United States, we shall recognise so complete and comprehensive a monopoly of political power in the hands of the people; so unlimited a toleration of, and equal protection of religion; so few galling and oppressive restraints of any kind; so perfect an abolition of hereditary rank; so unquenchable an equality of all classes, and so great a jealousy of the accumulation of any unusual share of wealth, or popularity, or distinction, in the person of any individual, that we shall have little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that there is no feudal spirit here. The little that was imported under the flag of royalty perished when that flag was struck. A new career opened to a new nation. The sagacity of thought and of mind drifted away from aristocratic principles of ancient dynasties, and settled down upon the eternal rock of public liberty. The customs, manners, and habits of the whole population naturally and necessarily shaped themselves in conformity with this new state of things.

Europeans are not likely to bring with them anything, in a social point of view, that will benefit our country, and less likely to gather any thing here that

will benefit their own. There is no reciprocity in the case. Nothing imaginable can be more unsuited to each country than the manners and customs of the other. Europeans in the United States must feel themselves restrained by liberty far more than by distinction of rank at home. Every European writer upon America proves it. Checked at every turn by a courteous familiarity to which he is an entire stranger, the spirits flag, and he sighs for rank. The atmosphere of a republic is not congenial, and the rude winds, unrestrained by law and custom, sweeping over the prairies of society, offend. They naturally look to the high and to the low, and when they find neither, are distressed for the want of that appropriate niche in which they can see and feel themselves lodged.

The people of Europe, from generation to generation, time out of mind, have been accustomed to have their eyes dazzled by the splendid trappings of office, and cheerfully and gladly pay for the gratification. Official dignity, if periodical shows may be so called, is far more expensive to the people than official services. In the United States extreme simplicity is the ruling feature. And I suppose if a senator, returned to Congress by the vote of the people, were to set up his coach and four, with liveried servants, postillion, and out-riders bedizened with gold lace, and glittering in state, he would not only soon spend his fortune, but lose his character, and be hooted by the boys in the streets as a fool and a blockhead. So far from supplying a cent for the expense of such exhibitions, no American would tolerate any man who would spend his own money in that way. Such is the feeling and custom of the republic, and right or wrong, immovably and unalterably fixed. Here, that immense class of people who in Europe are boors, and vassals, and operatives, and field-laborers, and tenants at will or upon lease; whose dependance for their daily bread rests, for the most part, upon the will of their masters, and who are partitioned off from the higher ranks of society, ceases, as Bonaparte used to say of conquered kingdoms, to exist. From the deep solitudes of nature God called a new world into light, and peopled it with a race who inherit the hardiness and boldness to think for themselves, to

shake off the bonds of servitude and exclusiveness, and to apply the force of native genius, talent and industry to supplying their own wants. In the resumption of the natural energies and independence of mind, there is something signally grand and august; something which pre-supposes that the habitment of servitude, in whatever form, and with whatever address they may have been fitted, must be thrown off; something which beforehand fixes the mind upon the certain result that new manners and new habits must grow up, adapted to the new conditions of society, and totally at variance with the old mildewed notions of monarchial rules. Every individual is equally interested in sustaining his personal sovereignty in the general prosperity of the state; and hence we see a freshness, a vigor, and a growth which, like the forest oak, shoots far its luxuriant branches, and overshadows the land with rich and gladdening foliage. The majority of republican institutions has no association with that artificial splendor and luxurious idleness which riot in prodigality at the expense of toil and abstinence entailed upon dependants.

The manners of the republic, in their broad and general feature, must be those of farmers, and not of courtiers. They have not leisure nor inclination to study the arts of dissimulation-to teach their minds to resist their thoughts and to decorate themselves in artificial plumes. They handle their minds as they do their ploughs and scythes, for direct purposes of utility. No force of hydraulic pressure can bend their stubborn minds to the gauge of political trickery, and therefore they are of the right stuff to maintain equality of rights and free institutions. Equality of condition is a palpable absurdity—the product of visionary brains, and about as wise as to attempt to make fiddles of the moon and fiddle-sticks of the stars. Seeing the agricultural class constitutes four-fifths of the population of the country, and that there are no hereditary, no exclusive privileges in the keeping of the remainder, it follows that the cultivators of the soil are the real practical sovereigns of the country. The comparatively small commercial and manufacturing portion of the community is necessarily under the government of the landed interest. It is right