to persuade all others to ride
bare-back. I shall send the pamphlet up into the Indian country, and pay
some scholar to have it translated into the Mohawk tongue, in order that
the famous chief Schendoh, when the missionaries shall have taught him to
read, may entertain right views of equivalents! I am not certain that I
may not make the worthy divines a present, to help the good fruits to
ripen."

The Alderman leered round upon his auditors, and, folding his hands meekly
on his breast, he appeared to leave his eloquence to work its own effects.

"These opinions favor but little the occupation of the--the gentleman--who
now honors us with his company," said Ludlow, regarding the gay-looking
smuggler with an eye that showed how much he was embarrassed to find a
suitable appellation for one whose appearance was so much at variance with
his pursuits. "If restrictions are necessary to commerce, the lawless
trader is surely left without an excuse for his calling."

"I as much admire your discretion in practice, as the justice of your
sentiments in theory, Captain Ludlow;" returned the Alderman. "In a
rencontre on the high seas, it would be your duty to render captive the
brigantine of this person; but, in what may be called the privacy of
domestic retirement, you are content to ease your mind in moralities! I
feel it my duty, too, to speak on this point, and shall take so favorable
an occasion, when all is pacific, to disburthen myself of some sentiments
that suggest themselves, very naturally, under the circumstances." Myndert
then turned himself towards the dealer in contraband, and continued, much
in the manner of a city magistrate, reading a lesson of propriety to some
disturber of the peace of society. "You appear here, Master Seadrift," he
said, "under what, to borrow a figure from your profession, may be called
false colors. You bear the countenance of one who might be a useful
subject, and yet are you suspected of being addicted to certain practices
which--I will not say they are dishonest, or even discreditable--for on
that head the opinions of men are much divided, but which certainly have
no tendency to assist Her Majesty, in bringing her wars to a glorious
issue, by securing to her European dominions that monopoly of trade, by
which it is her greatest desire to ease us of the colonies of looking any
further after our particular interests, than beyond the doors of her own
custom-houses. This is an indiscretion,