blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;
Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
Their children's cries unheard.
MILTON.

Once more the _Aspasia_ flew upon the wings of the northern gale to
secure her country's dominion over far-distant seas; and many an anxious
eye, that dwelt upon the receding shore, and many an aching heart, that
felt itself severed from home and its endearments, did she carry away in
her rapid flight. Some there were to whom the painful reflection
presented itself--"Shall I e'er behold those cherished shores again?"
This, however, was but a transitory feeling, soon chased away by Hope,
who delights to throw her sunny beams on the distance, while she leaves
the foreground to the dark reality of life. All felt deeply, but there
was none whose mental sufferings could be compared with those of
Seymour.

Captain M--- opened his sealed orders, and found that he was directed to
proceed forthwith to the East Indies. He had been prepared for this, by
indirect hints given to him by the First Lord of the Admiralty. There
is nothing so tedious as making a passage, and, of all others, that to
the East Indies is the most disagreeable, especially at the time of
which we are writing, when Sir H. Popham had not added the Cape of Good
Hope to the colonial grandeur of the country,--so that, in fact, there
was no resting-place for the wanderer, tired with the unvarying monotony
of sky and water. We shall, therefore, content ourselves with stating,
that at the end of three months His Majesty's ship _Aspasia_ dropped her
anchor in Kedgeree Roads, and the captain of the same pilot schooner,
who had taken charge of her off the Sand-heads, was put in requisition
to convey Captain M--- and his despatches up to Calcutta. Courtenay,
Macallan, and Seymour, were invited to be of the party; and the next
morning they shifted on board the pilot schooner, and commenced the
ascent of the magnificent and rapid Hoogly.

The pilot captain, who, like all those who ply in this dangerous and
intricate navigation, had been brought up to it from his youth, was a
tall gaunt personage, of about fifty years of age, and familiar in his
manner. Whether he had found some difficulty in keeping in check the
passengers from the Indiamen, whom he had been in the habit of taking up
to Calcutta (whose spirits were, in all probability, rather buoyant upon
their first release from the confinement of a tedious passage), or