een left a widow with two
daughters, and a fine estate to share between them. The daughters were
handsome; but the estate was so much handsomer, that it set all the
mandolins of the Portuguese inamoratos strumming under the windows of
the lady's abode from sunset to the dawn of day.

Now it did so occur that a young English clerk in a mercantile house,
who had a fresh complexion and a clean shirt to boast of (qualifications
unknown to the Portuguese), won the heart of the eldest daughter; and
the old lady, who was not a very strict Catholic, gave her consent to
this heretical union. The Catholic priests, who had long been trying to
persuade the old lady to shut up her daughters in a convent, and endow
the church with her property, expressed a holy indignation at the
intended marriage. The Portuguese gentlemen, who could not brook the
idea of so many fair hills of vines going away to a stranger were
equally indignant: in short, the whole Portuguese population of the
island were in arms; but the old lady, who had always contrived to have
her way before her husband's death, was not inclined to be thwarted now
that she was her own mistress; and, notwithstanding threats and
expostulations from all quarters, she awaited but the arrival of an
English man-of-war that the ceremony might be performed, there being at
that time no Protestant clergyman on the island; for the reader must
know that a marriage on board of a king's ship, by the captain duly
entered in the log-book, is considered as valid as if the ceremony were
performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I once married couple on board of a little ten-gun brig of which I
condescended to take the command, to oblige the first lord of the
Admiralty; offered, I believe to _provide_ for me, and rid the Board of
all future solicitations for employment or promotion.

It was one of my sailors, who had come to a determination to make an
honest woman of Poll and an ass of himself, at one and the same time.
The ceremony took place on the quarter-deck. "Who gives this woman
away?" said I, with due emphasis, according to the ritual. "I do,"
cried the boatswain in a gruff voice, taking the said lady by the arm
and shoving her towards me, as if he thought her not worth keeping.
Every thing went on seriously, nevertheless. The happy pair were
kneeling down on the union-jack, which had been folded on the deck in
consideration of the lady's knees, and I was in the middle of the
b