, or
an accidental forbearance."

"So much the more fortunate for him. I congratulate you, young sir, on
this triumph of principle, or of temperament, or of both. We belong to a
profession, in which the bottle is an enemy more to be feared, than any
that the king can give us. A sailor can call in no ally as efficient in
subduing this mortal foe, as an intelligent and cultivated mind. The man
who really _thinks_ much, seldom _drinks_ much; but there are
hours--nay, weeks and months of idleness in a ship, in which the
temptation to resort to unnatural excitement in quest of pleasure, is
too strong for minds, that are not well fortified, to resist. This is
particularly the case with commanders, who find themselves isolated by
their rank, and oppressed with responsibility, in the privacy of their
own cabins, and get to make a companion of the bottle, by way of seeking
relief from uncomfortable thoughts, and of creating a society of their
own. I deem the critical period of a sailor's life, to be the first few
years of solitary command."

"How true!--how true!" murmured Mrs. Dutton. "Oh! that cutter--that
cruel cutter!"

The truth flashed upon the recollection of Bluewater, at this unguarded,
and instantly regretted exclamation. Many years before, when only a
captain himself, he had been a member of a court-martial which cashiered
a lieutenant of the name of Dutton, for grievous misconduct, while in
command of a cutter; the fruits of the bottle. From the first, he
thought the name familiar to him; but so many similar things had
happened in the course of forty years' service, that this particular
incident had been partially lost in the obscurity of time. It was now
completely recalled, however; and that, too, with all its attendant
circumstances. The recollection served to give the rear-admiral renewed
interest in the unhappy wife, and lovely daughter, of the miserable
delinquent. He had been applied to, at the time, for his interest in
effecting the restoration of the guilty officer, or even to procure for
him, the hopeless station he now actually occupied; but he had sternly
refused to be a party in placing any man in authority, who was the
victim of a propensity that not only disgraced himself, but which, in
the peculiar position of a sailor, equally jeoparded the honour of the
country, and risked the lives of all around him. He was aware that the
last application had been successful, by means of a court influence it
wa