formed my principal stock. To this I added a pot of butter, with some
capital smoked herrings, and some anchovies. We lived well in the cabin of
the Dawn, and there was no difficulty in making all the provision that six
or eight men would have needed for a month. Perceiving that the raft, now
it was relieved from the weight of the sails and rigging, was not much
affected by the stores, I began to look about me in quest of anything
valuable I might wish to save. The preparations I had been making created
a sort of confidence in their success; a confidence (hope might be the
better word) that was as natural, perhaps, as it was unreasonable. I
examined the different objects that offered, with a critical comparison
of their value and future usefulness, that would have been absurd, had it
not afforded a melancholy proof of the tenacity of our desires in matters
of this nature. It is certainly a sad thing to abandon a ship, at sea,
with all her appliances, and with a knowledge of the gold that she cost.
The Dawn, with her cargo, must have stood me in eighty thousand dollars,
or even more; and here was I about to quit her, out on the ocean, with an
almost moral certainty that not a cent of the money could be, or would be,
recovered from the insurers. These last only took risks against the
accidents of the ocean, fire included; and there was a legal obligation on
the insured to see that the vessel was properly found and manned. It was
my own opinion that no accident would have occurred to the ship, in the
late gale, had the full crew been on board; and that the ship was not
sufficiently manned was, in a legal sense my own fault. I was bound to let
the English carry her into port, and to await judgment,--the law supposing
that justice would have been done in the premises. The law might have been
greatly mistaken in this respect; but potentates never acknowledge their
blunders. If I was wronged in the detention, the law presumed suitable
damages. It is true, I might be ruined by the delay, through the debts
left behind me; but the law, with all its purity, cared nothing for that.
Could I have shown a loss by means of a falling market, I might have
obtained redress, provided the court chose to award it, and provided the
party did not appeal; or, if he did, that the subsequent decisions
supported the first; and provided,--all the decrees being in my
favour,--my Lord Harry Dermond could have paid a few thousands in
damages:--a problem