at no action
can be well fought unless there is a considerable loss. Having no other
method of judging of the merits of an action, he appreciates it
according to the list of killed and wounded. A merchant _in toto_, he
computes the value of an object by what it has cost him, and imagines
that what is easily and cheaply obtained cannot be of much value. The
knowledge of this peculiar mode of reasoning on his part, has very often
induced officers to put down very trifling _contusions_, such as a
prize-fighter would despise, to swell up the sum total of the loss to
the aggregate of the honest man's expectations.

To proceed. As usual in cases of defeat, a small degree of accusation
and recrimination took place. The army thought that the navy might have
beaten down stone ramparts, ten feet thick; and the navy wondered why
the army had not walked up the same ramparts, which were thirty feet
perpendicular. Some of the ships accused others of not having had a
sufficient number of men killed and wounded; and the boats' crews,
whenever they met on shore, fought each other desperately, as if it were
absolutely necessary, for the honour of the country, that more blood
should be spilt. But this only lasted three weeks, when a more
successful attempt made them all shake hands, and wonder what they had
been squabbling about.

There was, however, one circumstance, which occurred during the action,
that had not been forgotten. It had been witnessed by the acting
captain of the ship, and had been the theme of much comment and
admiration among the officers and men. This was the daring feat of our
little hero, in rolling the shell over the side. Captain M--- (the new
commander), as soon as his more important avocations would permit, made
inquiries among the officers (being himself a stranger in the ship),
relative to Willy. His short but melancholy history was soon told; and
the disconsolate boy was summoned from under the half-deck, where he sat
by the body of Adams, which, with many more, lay sewed up in his
hammock, and covered over with the union-jack, waiting for the evening,
to receive the rites of Christian burial, before being committed to the
deep.

Knowing that Adams had been his only protector, a feeling of compassion
for the bereaved and orphan boy, and admiration of his early tokens of
bravery, induced Captain M---, who never formed a resolution in haste,
or abandoned it if once formed, to take the boy under his