, sirrah. Good stout Ash and good strong Cordovan leather
are the things fittest to meet your impertinences with;" and so I held
out my Foot, and shook my Staff at the titivilitium coxcomb; and he was
so civil to me during the rest of the evening as to allow me to pay his
clog-shot for him.

The chief delight I derive from ending my days in Hanover Square is the
knowledge that the house is Mine Own. I bought it with the fruit of mine
own earnings, mine own moneys--not gotten from grinding the faces and
squeezing the vitals of the Poor, but acquired by painful and skilful
Industry, and increased by the lawful spoil of War. For booty, as I have
heard a great commander say in Russia, is a Holy Thing. I have not
disdained to gather moderate riches by the buying and selling of lawful
Merchandize; albeit I always looked on mere Commerce and Barter as
having something of the peddling and huxtering savour in them. My notion
of a Merchant is that of a Bold Spirit who embarks on his own venture in
his own ship, and is his own supercargo, and has good store of guns and
Bold Spirits like himself on board, and sails to and fro on the High
Seas whithersoever he pleases. As to the colour of the flag he is under,
what matters it if it be of no colour at all, as old Robin Roughhead
used to say to me,--even Black, which is the Negation of all colour? So
I have traded in my way, and am the better by some thousands of pounds
for my trading, now. That much of my wealth has its origin in lawful
Plunder I scorn to deny. If you slay a Spanish Don in fair fight, and
the Don wears jewelled rings and carcanets on all his fingers, and
carries a great bag of moidores in his pocket, are you to leave him on
the field, prithee, or gently ease him of his valuables? Can the crows
eat his finery as well as his carcase? If I find a ship full of golden
doubloons and silver candlesticks destined for the chapel of St. Jago de
Compostella, am I to scuttle the ship and let her go down with all these
good things on board; or am I to convey them to mine own lockers, giving
to each of my Valiant Comrades his just and proper share? The governor
of Carthagena will never get the doubloons, St. Jago of Compostella will
never see his candlesticks; why should not I and my Brave Hearts enjoy
them instead of the fishes and the mermaids? They have Coral enough down
there, I trow, by the deep, nini; what do they want with Candlesticks?
If they lack further ornament, there a