them as a preservation against, or a punishment for, injury
and insult. I know that most of my male, and many of my female readers,
will think my conduct throughout pusillanimous or abject. My mother's
milk, as it were, still flowed in my veins, and with that no ill blood
could amalgamate. All I can say is, that now I am either so much better
or so much worse, that I should have adopted towards Captain Reud a much
more decided course of proceedings.

My second remark is, that this captain had really a good heart, but was
one of the most striking instances that I ever knew of the demoralising
effect of a misdirected education, and the danger of granting great
powers to early years and great ignorance. With good innate feelings,
no man ever possessed moral perceptions more clouded.

And lastly, that this statement is not to be construed into a libel on
the naval service, or looked upon in the least as an exaggerated
account. As to libel, the gentlemanly deportment, the parental care of
their crews, and the strict justice of thousands of captains, cannot in
the least be deteriorated by a single act of tyranny, by a solitary
member of their gallant body; and, as to exaggeration, let it be
remembered that, in the very same year, and on the very same station
that my tricing-up to the truck occurred, another post-captain tarred
and feathered one of his young gentlemen, and kept him in that state, a
plumed biped, for more than six weeks in his hen-coop. This last fact
obtained much notoriety, from the aggrieved party leaving the service,
and recovering heavy damages from his torturer in the court of civil
law. My treatment never was known beyond our frigate.

CHAPTER FORTY SIX.

RALPH ENTERETH INTO THE REGIONS OF ROMANCE AND PRIVATEERING, CARRIED
THITHER BY A PILOT, malgre lui--AN INOPPORTUNE VISIT.

Shortly after the illegal suspension of the Habeas Corpus that I
recorded in the last chapter, the portion of the navy stationed in the
West Indies became actively employed in the conquest of those islands
still in the possession of the French. Some fell almost without a
struggle, others at much expense of life, both of the military and naval
forces. As everyone, who could find a publisher, has written a book on
all these events, from the capture of the little spot Deseada, to the
subduing the magnificent island of Guadaloupe, and the glorious old
stone-built city of Domingo, I may well be excused detailing the
o