'Commodore Trysail:
'Respected Sir:—I am very happy to inform you, that through the aid of Divine Providence, I have brought the Lady Washington into port. To prevent her driving on the beach, I was obliged to cut away my masts, but am busy rigging jury masts to enable us to reach the city, as I do not feel it safe to lie in the outer harbor, should the blockading squadron return to their cruising ground. We have received otherwise but trifling damage. I shall do myself the honor of waiting upon you the moment I place my ship in the hands of your consignees.
'The bearer of this will tell you his own story. He has been a fine fellow on board, and whatever may have been his errors in past days, seems to have taken a new turn.
'Your obedient servant,
'S. Oakum.'
The Commodore, having run over the letter, began to put sundry questions to the sailor, who answered in a style that was perfectly intelligible to the Commodore, but which would have been to ordinary listeners very much like a foreign language. Our friend Peter was an attentive listener. He was standing just without the door, with his head bent over, and turned one side, so as to permit his left ear to have a chance at what was going on. His long queue hung down over his left shoulder, and he was pulling away at it in great earnest. Peter could stand considerable in the way of excitement, but it is not in human nature to stand every thing. To hear such a glowing description of the doings of one that he loved as his own soul, given in a dialect that was sufficient of itself to work up the mind of an old sailor; his feelings got the better of his judgment, and no sooner was the tale over, than, swinging his old hat, he gave three hearty cheers, and stumped it away towards the mansion of Major Morris.
The Commodore had too much of the sailor in him to be surprised at this outbreak of feeling. He smiled as he looked through the door, and saw how Peter was excited, and then addressing himself to the seaman—
'Captain Oakum informs me, my good fellow, that you have something of consequence to say to me on your own account.'
'I have, sir, if you can spare a few moments' leisure.'
The Commodore then excused himself to Mr. Rutherford, and taking the man aside into a private apartment, 'Now, my good fellow, tell me your story without restraint. I am an old sailor, you know, and have lost none of my feelings for a shipmate in trouble.'
'God bless you, sir; but it is an ugly story I have to tell, and if you can have patience to hear me out, you may do with the information what you please.'
Ha then began and gave a short-hand account of his career; that he was born and brought up in a place called Barrens, near by—that he had gotten into bad company, and in the employ of a bad man—that at the instigation of this man, he had been guilty of many improper acts, but that one of these, and the last one in which he had taken a part, had stuck in his heart like a dagger from the moment he did it—that he and his companion, in order to escape punishment in case the crime was found out, and to get away from the man who had exerted his power over them for such shameful purposes, had shipped to sea—that his messmate had taken sick and died, and that his last hours were full of misery on account of what he had done.
'I have therefore, sir, made a clean breast of it all to Captain Oakum, and I am on my way to see the man I once injured so much; but Captain Oakum thought how as you, sir, could tell me what was best to do, and that I might let you know, sir, just the whole on it.'
'But you haven't told me, yet, my man, what this crime you speak of was. You have not murdered any one, surely?'