"And so say you all?"
"Ess, one and all."
"And your verdict is that the cask of brandy, seized in the Queen's name, is brackish?"
"That is our verdict."
"Then I order the cask to be stove in and its contents run upon the beach."
And when the head was stove in, he turned his back upon us, and every can and jug and pitcher was filled, and, if we'd only known, we'd have had more pails and buckets and pitchers.
"I've got a drop still left, and 'tis precious," said Uncle Bill.
This medicine-bottle was his gift to us, and we now knew the flavour of cognac cast upon the shore, which had never paid the Queen's penny.
"I don't wonder that smuggling was popular," said Guy.
Smuggling made the sort of sailor that Nelson loved, a man who could fight and forgive when worsted, like the old smuggler of Talland, who had it recorded on his tombstone that he prayed God to pardon those wicked preventive men who shed his innocent blood.