cted, had we any seamen in the House of Commons. Not that I
would insinuate that the legislature wants a supply of many gentlemen in
the sea-service; but, as these gentlemen are by their attendance in the
house unfortunately prevented from ever going to sea, and there learning
what they might communicate to their landed brethren, these latter
remain as ignorant in that branch of knowledge as they would be if none
but courtiers and fox-hunters had been elected into parliament, without
a single fish among them. The following seems to me to be an effect of
this kind, and it strikes me the stronger as I remember the case to have
happened, and remember it to have been dispunishable. A captain of a
trading vessel, of which he was part owner, took in a large freight of
oats at Liverpool, consigned to the market at Bearkey: this he carried
to a port in Hampshire, and there sold it as his own, and, freighting
his vessel with wheat for the port of Cadiz, in Spain, dropped it at
Oporto in his way; and there, selling it for his own use, took in a
lading of wine, with which he sailed again, and, having converted it in
the same manner, together with a large sum of money with which he was
intrusted, for the benefit of certain merchants, sold the ship and cargo
in another port, and then wisely sat down contented with the fortune
he had made, and returned to London to enjoy the remainder of his days,
with the fruits of his former labors and a good conscience.

The sum he brought home with him consisted of near six thousand pounds,
all in specie, and most of it in that coin which Portugal distributes so
liberally over Europe.

He was not yet old enough to be past all sense of pleasure, nor so
puffed up with the pride of his good fortune as to overlook his old
acquaintances the journeymen tailors, from among whom he had been
formerly pressed into the sea-service, and, having there laid the
foundation of his future success by his shares in prizes, had afterwards
become captain of a trading vessel, in which he purchased an interest,
and had soon begun to trade in the honorable manner above mentioned. The
captain now took up his residence at an ale-house in Drury-lane, where,
having all his money by him in a trunk, he spent about five pounds a
day among his old friends the gentlemen and ladies of those parts. The
merchant of Liverpool, having luckily had notice from a friend during
the blaze of his fortune, did, by the assistance of a justic