e is invested with a prerogative which,
according to monarchical jurists, is inseparable from the throne--the
plenary pardoning power. He may pardon all offences committed in the
squadron under his command.

But this prerogative is only his while at sea, or on a foreign station.
A circumstance peculiarly significant of the great difference between
the stately absolutism of a Commodore enthroned on his poop in a
foreign harbour, and an unlaced Commodore negligently reclining in an
easy-chair in the bosom of his family at home.

CHAPTER LXIX.

PRAYERS AT THE GUNS.

The training-days, or general quarters, now and then taking place in
our frigate, have already been described, also the Sunday devotions on
the half-deck; but nothing has yet been said concerning the daily
morning and evening quarters, when the men silently stand at their
guns, and the chaplain simply offers up a prayer.

Let us now enlarge upon this matter. We have plenty of time; the
occasion invites; for behold! the homeward-bound Neversink bowls along
over a jubilant sea.

Shortly after breakfast the drum beats to quarters; and among five
hundred men, scattered over all three decks, and engaged in all manner
of ways, that sudden rolling march is magical as the monitory sound to
which every good Mussulman at sunset drops to the ground whatsoever his
hands might have found to do, and, throughout all Turkey, the people in
concert kneel toward their holy Mecca.

The sailors run to and fro-some up the deck-ladders, some down--to gain
their respective stations in the shortest possible time. In three
minutes all is composed. One by one, the various officers stationed
over the separate divisions of the ship then approach the First
Lieutenant on the quarter-deck, and report their respective men at
their quarters. It is curious to watch their countenances at this time.
A profound silence prevails; and, emerging through the hatchway, from
one of the lower decks, a slender young officer appears, hugging his
sword to his thigh, and advances through the long lanes of sailors at
their guns, his serious eye all the time fixed upon the First
Lieutenant's--his polar star. Sometimes he essays a stately and
graduated step, an erect and martial bearing, and seems full of the
vast national importance of what he is about to communicate.

But when at last he gains his destination, you are amazed to perceive
that all he has to say is imparted by a Freemason touch