I commend the subject to your enlightened consideration, and ask for an earnest appeal to the next Congress in behalf of suffering fishermen. If we cannot obtain redress by peaceful means, let us have it by force. I am ready to overturn the government, massacre the people, burn the cities and carry desolation, devastation and death into every home in the land, rather than to permit these outrages against justice longer to continue and these unhappy men to endure further persecution.
There are indications that the course of Bob Parker's true love will not run entirely smooth. The officers stationed at Fort Delaware, below here, come up to the village constantly upon social errands, and they are exceedingly popular with the young ladies. Lieutenant Smiley is, I think, the favorite; and as he has become a somewhat frequent visitor at Magruder's, Bob's jealousy has been aroused. He hates Smiley with a certain deadly hatred. Mr. Parker is not naturally warlike in his tendencies, but I believe he would willingly engage in hostilities with the lieutenant with an utterly reckless disregard of the consequences.
Smiley comes to see us sometimes; and Bob, I fear, regards even this family with gloom and suspicion because we receive the lieutenant courteously. But he says very little upon the subject; for when he begins to abuse Smiley, I always ask him why he does not propose to Miss Magruder at once and thus relieve himself from his agony of apprehension. Then he beats a retreat. He would rather face a regiment of Smileys armed with Dahlgren guns than to discuss the subject of his cowardice respecting the beautiful Magruder.
We like the lieutenant well enough, and we should like him better but for his propensity for telling incredible stories. He was in the naval service for eight or ten years; and when he undertakes to give accounts of his adventures, he is very apt to introduce anecdotes of which Munchausen would have been ashamed. It is one of Smiley's favorite theories that he sojourned for a considerable period among the Fiji Islands, and many of his narratives relate his experiences in that region. There was a missionary meeting at the church a night or two ago, and the lieutenant, having been defeated by Bob in his attempt to escort Miss Magruder to her home, came to our house; and very naturally he began the conversation with a story of missionary enterprise with which he assumed to have become familiar during his visit to the South Seas.
"Mr. Adeler," he said, "I was very much interested in the proceedings at that meeting to-night, but it seems to me that there is one defect in the system of preparing men for the work of propagating the gospel among the heathen."
"What is that?"