ence and mildness in the tones of
his voice that rendered it quite musical, and never failed to prepossess
in his favour all those who heard him, and to make them forget the usual
sullenness of his manner. During the whole time he had sailed for the
Baltimore house, he had shown himself a model of trustworthiness and
seamanship, and enjoyed the full confidence of his employers. It was said,
however, that his early life had not been irreproachable; that when he
first, and as a very young man, had command of a Philadelphian ship,
something had occurred which had thrown a stain upon his character. What
this was, I had never heard very distinctly stated. He had favoured the
escape of a malefactor, ensnared some officers who were sent on board his
vessel to seize him. All this was very vague, but what was positive was
the fact, that the owners of the ship he then commanded, had had much
trouble about the matter, and Ready himself remained long unemployed,
until the rapid increase of trade between the United States and the infant
republics of South America had caused seamen of ability to be in much
request, and he had again obtained command of a vessel.

We were seated one afternoon outside the French coffeehouse at Lima. The
party consisted of seven or eight captains of merchant vessels that had
been seized, and they were doing their best to kill the time, some
smoking, others chewing, but nearly all with penknife and stick in hand,
whittling as for a wager. On their first arrival at Lima, and adoption of
this coffeehouse as a place of resort, the tables and chairs belonging to
it seemed in a fair way to be cut to pieces by these indefatigable
whittlers; but the coffeehouse keeper had hit upon a plan to avoid such
deterioration of his chattels, and had placed in every corner of the rooms
bundles of sticks, at which his Yankee customers cut and notched, till the
coffeehouse assumed the appearance of a carpenter's shop.

The costume and airs of the patriots, as they called themselves, were no
small source of amusement to us. They strutted about in all the pride of
their fire-new freedom, regular caricatures of soldiers. One would have on
a Spanish jacket, part of the spoils of Ayacucho--another, an American
one, which he had bought from some sailor--a third a monk's robe, cut
short, and fashioned into a sort of doublet. Here was a shako wanting a
brim, in company with a gold-laced velvet coat of the time of Philip V.;
there, a