ed to explain matters, but only made them
worse. The result was that all three were in a short hour transported to
the _Macedonian_ in irons. Protest was useless; the _Macedonian_ was
short of hands and they were forced to go.

They were not even permitted to write letters home. However, the skipper
had their names, and the whole affair was printed in the _Baltimore
Sun_, and copies were sent to the parents of the young men.

Captain Snipes of the English frigate was one of those barbarous,
tyrannical sea captains, more brute than human, and, in an age when the
strict discipline of the navy permitted tyranny to exist, he became
a monster.

The three recruits were added to his muster-roll and gradually initiated
into the mysteries of sailor's life on a war vessel.

Poor Sukey for several days was fearfully seasick; but he recovered and
was assigned to his mess. Fortunately they were all three assigned to
the same mess. The common seamen of the _Macedonian_ were divided into
thirty-seven messes, put down on the purser's book as Mess No. 1, Mess
No. 2, Mess No. 3. The members of each mess clubbed their rations of
provisions, and breakfasted, dined and supped together at allotted
intervals between the guns on the main deck.

They found that living on board the _Macedonian_ was like living in a
market, where one dresses on the door-step and sleeps in the cellar.
They could have no privacy, hardly a moment seclusion. In fact, it was
almost a physical impossibility ever to be alone. The three impressed
Americans dined at a vast _table d'h