This might be, and I suppose was, true; but it is
as true that, if he was able to write, and had pen, ink, and paper on
board, he might have sent a written answer, and that it was the part of
a gentleman so to have done; but this is a character seldom maintained
on the watery element, especially by those who exercise any power on it.
Every commander of a vessel here seems to think himself entirely free
from all those rules of decency and civility which direct and restrain
the conduct of the members of a society on shore; and each, claiming
absolute dominion in his little wooden world, rules by his own laws and
his own discretion. I do not, indeed, know so pregnant an instance
of the dangerous consequences of absolute power, and its aptness to
intoxicate the mind, as that of those petty tyrants, who become such in
a moment, from very well-disposed and social members of that communion
in which they affect no superiority, but live in an orderly state of
legal subjection with their fellow-citizens.

Saturday, July 6.--This morning our commander, declaring he was sure the
wind would change, took the advantage of an ebbing tide, and weighed
his anchor. His assurance, however, had the same completion, and his
endeavors the same success, with his formal trial; and he was soon
obliged to return once more to his old quarters. Just before we let go
our anchor, a small sloop, rather than submit to yield us an inch of
way, ran foul of our ship, and carried off her bowsprit. This obstinate
frolic would have cost those aboard the sloop very dear, if our
steersman had not been too generous to exert his superiority, the
certain consequence of which would have been the immediate sinking
of the other. This contention of the inferior with a might capable of
crushing it in an instant may seem to argue no small share of folly
or madness, as well as of impudence; but I am convinced there is very
little danger in it: contempt is a port to which the pride of man
submits to fly with reluctance, but those who are within it are always
in a place of the most assured security; for whosoever throws away his
sword prefers, indeed, a less honorable but much safer means of avoiding
danger than he who defends himself with it. And here we shall offer
another distinction, of the truth of which much reading and experience
have well convinced us, that as in the most absolute governments there
is a regular progression of slavery downwards, from the top to the