"I couldn't think of it, Gar'ner. 'Twould make an awful talk on the Vineyard, was I to do anything of the sort. 'Stick by your consort,' is an eleventh commandment, in our island."
"Which is the reason why there are so many old maids there, I suppose, Daggett," cried Roswell Gardiner, laughing. "Well, I thank you for your kindness, and will endeavour to remember it when you may have occasion for some return. But, the tide must be making, and we ought to lose no time, unnecessarily. Here's a lucky voyage to us both, Captain Daggett, and a happy return to sweethearts and wives."
Daggett tossed off his glass to this toast, and the two then went on deck. Roswell Gardiner thought that a kinder ship's company never sailed together than this of the Sea Lion of Holmes' Hole; for, notwithstanding the interest of every man on board depended on the returns of their own voyage, each and all appeared willing to stick by him and his craft so long as there was a possibility of being of any service.
Whalers and sealers do not ship their crews for wages in money, as is done with most vessels. So much depends on the exertions of the people in these voyages, that it is the practice to give every man a direct interest in the result. Consequently, all on board engage for a compensation to be derived from a division of the return cargo. The terms on which a party engages are called his "lay;" and he gets so many parts of a hundred, according to station, experience and qualifications. The owner is paid for his risk and expenses in the same way, the vessel and outfits usually taking about two-thirds of the whole returns, while the officers and crew get the other. These conditions vary a little, as the proceeds of whaling and sealing rise or fall in the market, and also in reference to the cost of equipments. It follows that Captain Daggett and his crew were actually putting their hands into their own pockets, when they lost time in remaining with the crippled craft. This Gardiner knew, and it caused him to appreciate their kindness at a rate so much higher than he might otherwise have done.
At first sight, it might seem that all this unusual kindness was superfluous, and of no avail. This, however, was not really the case, since the crew of the second schooner was of much real service in forwarding the equipment of the disabled vessel. Beaufort has an excellent harbour for vessels of a light draught of water like our two sealers; but the town is insignificant, and extra labourers, especially those of an intelligence suited to such work, very difficult to be had. At the bottom, therefore, Roswell Gardiner found his friendly assistants of much real advantage, the two crews pushing the work before them with as much rapidity as suited even a seaman's impatience. Aided by the crew of his consort, Gardiner got on fast with his repairs, and on the afternoon of the second day after he had entered Beaufort, he was ready to sail once more; his schooner probably in a better state for service than the day she left Oyster Pond.
The lightning-line did not exist at the period of which we are writing. It is our good fortune to be an intimate acquaintance of the distinguished citizen who has bestowed this great gift on his own country--one that will transmit his name to posterity, side by side with that of Fulton. In his case, as in that of the last-named inventor, attempts have been made to rob him equally of the honours and the profits of his very ingenious invention. As respects the last, we hold that it is every hour becoming less and less possible for any American to maintain his rights against numbers. There is no question that the government of this great Republic was intended to be one of well-considered and upright principles, in which certain questions are to be referred periodically to majorities, as the wisest and most natural, as well as the most just mode of disposing of them. Such a government, well administered, and with an accurate observance of its governing principles, would probably be the best that human infirmity will allow men to administer; but when the capital mistake is made of supposing that mere numbers are to control all things, regardless of those great fundamental laws that the state has adopted for its own restraint, it may be questioned if so loose, and capricious, and selfish a system, is not in great danger of becoming the very worst scheme of polity that cupidity ever set in motion. The tendency--not the spirit of the institutions, the two things being the very antipodes of each other, though common minds are so apt to confound them--the tendency of the institutions of this country, in flagrant opposition to their spirit or intentions, which were devised expressly to restrain the disposition of men to innovate, is out of all question to foster this great abuse, and to place numbers above principles, even when the principles were solemnly adopted expressly to bring numbers under the control of a sound fundamental law. This influence of numbers, this dire mistake of the very nature of liberty, by placing men and their passions above those great laws of right which come direct from God himself, is increasing in force, and threatens consequences which may set at naught all the well-devised schemes of the last generation for the security of the state, and the happiness of that very people, who can never know either security or even peace, until they learn to submit themselves, without a thought of resistance, to those great rules of right which in truth form the spirit of their institutions, and which are only too often in opposition to their own impulses and motives.
We pretend to no knowledge on the subject of the dates of discoveries in the arts and sciences, but well do we remember the earnestness and single-minded devotion to a laudable purpose, with which our worthy friend first communicated to us his ideas on the subject of using the electric spark by way of a telegraph. It was in Paris, and during the winter of 1831-2, and the succeeding spring, a time when we were daily together; and we have a satisfaction in recording this date, that others may prove better claims if they can. Had Morse set his great invention on foot thirty years earlier, Roswell Gardiner might have communicated with his owner, and got a reply, ere he again sailed, considerable as was the distance between them. As things then were, he was fain to be content with writing a letter, which was put into the deacon's hand about a week after it was written, by his niece, on his own return from a short journey to Southold, whither he had been to settle and discharge a tardy claim against his schooner.
"Here is a letter for you, uncle," said Mary Pratt, struggling to command her feelings, though she blushed with the consciousness of her own interest in the missive "It came from the Harbour, by some mistake; Baiting Joe bringing it across just after you left home."
"A letter with a post-mark--'Beaufort, N.C.'--Who in natur' can this letter be from?--What a postage, too, to charge on a letter! Fifty cents!"
"That is a proof, sir, that Beaufort must be a long way off. Besides, the letter is double. I think the hand-writing is Roswell's."