Teag. O, my dear, we are all kept there until a general review, which is commonly once in the week; and then we are drawn up like as many young recruits, and all the blackguard scoundrels is picked out of the ranks, and one half of them is sent away to the Elysian fields, to curry the weeds from among the potatoes, the other half of them to the River sticks, to catch fishes for Shaint Patrick's table, and them that is owing the priests any money is put in the black hole, and then given to the hands of a great black bitch of a devil, which is keeped for a hangman, who whips them up and down the smoky dungeon every morning for six months.
Tom. Well, Paddy, are you to do as much justice to a Protestant as a Papist?
Teag. O, my dear shoy, the most justice we are commanded to do a Protestant, is to whip and torment them until they confess themselves in the Romish faith; and then cut their throats that they may die believers.
Tom. What business do you follow after at present?
Teag. Arra, dear shoy, I am a mountain sailor and my supplication is as follows—
PADDY'S HUMBLE PETITION, OR SUPPLICATION.
Good Christian people, behold me a man! who has com'd through a world of wonders, a hell full of hardships, dangers by sea, and dangers by land, and yet I am alive; you may see my hand crooked like a fowl's foot, and that is no wonder at all considering my sufferings and sorrows. Oh! oh! oh! good people. I was a man in my time who had plenty of the gold, plenty of the silver, plenty of the clothes, plenty of the butter, the beer, beef, and biscuit. And now I have nothing: being taken by the Turks and relieved by the Spaniards, lay sixty-six days at the siege of Gibraltar, and got nothing to eat but sea wreck and raw mussels; put to sea for our safety, cast upon the Barbarian coast, among the wicked Algerines, where we were taken and tied with tugs and tadders, horse locks, and cow chains: then cut and castcate yard and testicle quite away, put in your hand and feel how every female's made smooth by the sheer bone, where nothing is to be seen but what is natural. Then made our escape to the desart wild wilderness of Arabia; where we lived among the wild asses, upon wind, sand, and sapless ling. Afterwards put to sea in the hull of an old house, where we were tossed above and below the clouds, being driven through thickets and groves by fierce, coarse, calm, and contrary winds: at last, was cast upon Salisbury plains, where our vessel was dashed to pieces against a cabbage stock. And now my humble petition to you, good Christian people, is for one hundred of your beef, one hundred of your butter, another of your cheese, a cask of your biscuit, a tun of your beer, a keg of your rum, with a pipe of your wine, a lump of your gold, a piece of your silver, a few of your half-pence or farthings, a waught of your butter milk, a pair of your old breeches, stockings, or shoes, even a chaw of tobacco for charity's sake.