we
felt ashamed of a conquest purchased with such unutterable anguish.
The noise of this renewed combat had brought down the captain; he
ordered the lady to be taken away from this scene of horror, and to be
carefully tended in his own cabin; the wound of the son, who was found
still alive, was immediately dressed, and the prisoners were secured.
I returned on deck, still oppressed with the scene I had witnessed,
and when I looked round me, and beheld the deck strewed with the dead
and dying--victors and vanquished indiscriminately mixed up
together--the blood of both nations meeting on the deck and joining
their streams--I could not help putting the question to myself, "Can
this be right and lawful--all this carnage to obtain the property of
others, and made legal by the quarrels of kings?" Reason, religion,
and humanity, answered, "No."

I remained uneasy and dissatisfied, and felt as if I were a murderer;
and then I reflected how this property, thus wrested from its former
possessor, who might, if he had retained it, have done much good with
it, would now be squandered away in riot and dissipation, in
purchasing crime and administering to debauchery. I was young then,
and felt so disgusted and so angry with myself and everybody else,
that if I had been in England, I probably should never again have put
my foot on board of a privateer.

But employment prevented my thinking; the decks had to be cleaned, the
bodies thrown overboard, the blood washed from the white planks, the
wounded to be removed, and their hurts dressed, the rigging and other
damages to be repaired, and when all this had been done, we made sail
for Jamaica with our prize. Our captain, who was as kind and gentle to
the vanquished as he was brave and resolute in action, endeavoured by
all the means he could think of to soften the captivity and sufferings
of the lady. Her clothes, jewels, and every thing belonging to her,
were preserved untouched; he would not even allow her trunks to be
searched, and would have secured for her even all her husband's
personal effects, but the crew had seized upon them as plunder, and
refused to deliver them up. I am almost ashamed to say that the sword
and watch of her husband fell to my lot, and whether from my wearing
the sword, or from having seen me fire the pistol which had killed
him, the lady always expressed her abhorrence of me whenever I entered
her presence. Her son recovered slowly from his wound, and, on o