n
the surloin with as much assiduity as though no interruption had taken
place.

"Honest Joe Joram always makes a friend of his butcher," he said, after
ending a draught that threatened to drain the mug to the bottom. "There is
such a flavour about his beef, that one might mistake it for the fin of a
halibut. You have been in foreign parts, shipmate, or I may call you
'messmate,' since we are both anchored nigh the same kid--but you have
doubtless been in foreign countries?"

"Often; I should else be but a miserable seaman."

"Then, tell me frankly, have you ever been in the kingdom that can furnish
such rations--fish, flesh, fowl, and fruits--as this very noble land of
America, in which we are now both moored? and in which I suppose we both
of us were born?"

"It would be carrying the love of home a little too far, to believe in
such universal superiority," returned Wilder, willing to divert the
conversation from his real object, until he had time to arrange his ideas,
and assure himself he had no other auditor but his visible companion. "It
is generally admitted that England excels us in all these articles."

"By whom? by your know-nothings and bold talkers. But I, a man who has
seen the four quarters of the earth, and no small part of the water
besides, give the lie to such empty boasters. We are colonies, friend, we
are colonies; and it is as bold in a colony to tell the mother that it has
the advantage, in this or that particular, as it would be in a foremast
Jack to tell his officer he was wrong, though he knew it to be true. I am
but a poor man, Mr--By what name may I call your Honour?"

"Me! my name?--Harris."

"I am but a poor man, Mr Harris; but I have had charge of a watch in my
time, old and rusty as I seem, nor have I spent so many long nights on
deck without keeping thoughts at work, though I may not have overhaul'd as
much philosophy, in so doing, as a paid parish priest, or a fee'd lawyer.
Let me tell you, it is a disheartening thing to be nothing but a dweller
in a colony. It keeps down the pride and spirit of a man, and lends a hand
in making him what his masters would be glad to have him. I shall say
nothing of fruits, and meats, and other eatables, that come from the land
of which both you and I have heard and know too much, unless it be to
point to yonder sun, and then to ask the question, whether you think King
George has the power to make it shine on the bit of an island where he
lives, as