"Now," said he, addressing the three prisoners, "you have been found guilty of an offence against the good order and discipline of this ship, which cannot be permitted, and which must positively be put a stop to. Heretofore it has not occurred, and I trust this will be the last case. Do you admit that you deserve punishment?"
No answer.
"Have you anything to advance why you should not be punished?"
The fellows nodged one another, scraped the deck with their feet, fumbled with their hats and waist-bands, and muttered something about "a letter they had written to the officer what reported them."
"Letter!" exclaimed the captain; "let me see it."
The epistle being handed to the captain, he read it aloud to the assembled ship's company, who listened with all their ears. At the conclusion, he folded it up, and, turning to the officer, asked,—
"What have you to say to this?"
"Nothing, sir—nothing," was the obdurate reply.
"Well now, my lads," observed the captain to the crew, after a pause of several minutes, "I shall give you a chance. These fellows appear, by their own confession, to have done what they knew to be wrong; and accordingly, as you perceive, they have brought themselves close aboard of the gangway. It would serve them all perfectly right to give each of them a good sound punishment. But I am willing to hope, that if I forgive them on your account—that is to say, if I let them off in consideration of the good conduct of the ship's company, and in confidence of your all behaving well in future—they will be quite as much disposed to exert themselves to recover their characters, as if they had tasted the bitterness of the gangway: at all events, I'll try them and you for once. Pipe down!"
It is only necessary to state further, that for nearly a year afterwards there occurred no instance of drunkenness or neglect at the watering parties.