Captain Wallingford," commenced the
_Colonel_, all New York editors of a certain calibre seeming to be,
ex-officio, of that blood-and-thunder rank, "and are impatient to place
you, as it might be, _rectus in curia_, before the nation. Your case
excited a good deal of feeling some months since, and the public mind may
be said to be prepared to learn the whole story; or, in a happy condition
to indulge in further excitement. If you will have the goodness to furnish
me with the outlines, sir," coolly producing pen, ink, and paper without
further ceremony, and preparing to write, "I promise you that the whole
narrative shall appear in the Freeman of to-morrow, related in a manner of
which you shall have no reason to complain. The caption is already
written, and if you please, I will read it to you, before we go any
further." Then without waiting to ascertain whether I did or did not
please to hear him, the colonel incontinently commenced reading what he
called his caption.

"'In the Schuylkill, arrived lately at Philadelphia, came passenger our
esteemed fellow-citizen Captain Miles Wallingford"--in 1804, everybody had
not got to be '_esquires_,' even the editors not yet assuming that title
of gentility _ex officio_. "This gentleman's wrongs have already been laid
before our readers. From his own mouth we learn the following outline of
the vile and illegal manner in which he has been treated by an English
man-of-war called the Speedy, commanded by a sprig of nobility y'clepped
Lord"--I have left a blank for the name--"an account which will awaken in
the bosom of every true-hearted American sentiments of horror and feelings
of indignation, at this new instance of British faith and British
insolence on the high-seas. It will be seen by this account, that not
satisfied with impressing all his crew, and in otherwise maltreating them,
this scion of aristocracy has violated every article of the treaty between
the two countries, as respects Captain Wallingford himself, and otherwise
trodden on every principle of honour; in a word--set at naught all the
commandments of God. We trust there will be found no man, or set of men in
the country, to defend such outrageous conduct, and that even the minions
of England, employed around the Federal presses of _our_ country, will be
ready to join with us, on this occasion, in denouncing British aggression
and British usurpation.' There, sir, I trust that is quite to
your liking."

"It is a li