it should be doubted whether we can bring this case within the letter
of any capital law now subsisting, I am ashamed to own it cannot; for
surely no crime better deserves such punishment; but the remedy may,
nevertheless, be immediate; and if a law was made at the beginning of
next session, to take place immediately, by which the starving thousands
of poor was declared to be felony, without benefit of clergy, the
fishmongers would be hanged before the end of the session. A second
method of filling the mouths of the poor, if not with loaves at least
with fishes, is to desire the magistrates to carry into execution one at
least out of near a hundred acts of parliament, for preserving the small
fry of the river of Thames, by which means as few fish would satisfy
thousands as may now be devoured by a small number of individuals. But
while a fisherman can break through the strongest meshes of an act
of parliament, we may be assured he will learn so to contrive his own
meshes that the smallest fry will not be able to swim through them.

Other methods may, we doubt not, he suggested by those who shall
attentively consider the evil here hinted at; but we have dwelt too long
on it already, and shall conclude with observing that it is difficult to
affirm whether the atrocity of the evil itself, the facility of curing
it, or the shameful neglect of the cure, be the more scandalous or more
astonishing.

After having, however, gloriously regaled myself with this food, I was
washing it down with some good claret with my wife and her friend, in
the cabin, when the captain's valet-de-chambre, head cook, house and
ship steward, footman in livery and out on't, secretary and fore-mast
man, all burst into the cabin at once, being, indeed, all but one
person, and, without saying, by your leave, began to pack half a
hogshead of small beer in bottles, the necessary consequence of which
must have been either a total stop to conversation at that cheerful
season when it is most agreeable, or the admitting that polyonymous
officer aforesaid to the participation of it. I desired him therefore to
delay his purpose a little longer, but he refused to grant my request;
nor was he prevailed on to quit the room till he was threatened with
having one bottle to pack more than his number, which then happened to
stand empty within my reach. With these menaces he retired at last, but
not without muttering some menaces on his side, and which, to our great