"O, lud, Dick! you are safe—how many are killed?"
"You are the only one, I believe, John."
"Me? I aint hit, be I?"
"Pshaw, John, get up," said Mr. Williams, approaching him angrily; "don't you see everybody is laughing at you?"
John rose slowly, anxiously eyeing the merchantman, as if ready to dodge the first flash.
"A fortunate escape, Dick."
"Yes, another adventure to tell the girls in Lonnon."
"Don't now, Dick."
The merchantman was richly laden, and the honest captain, who doubtless had his own interest in her cargo, actually shed tears as he saw the greater portion of it removed to the privateer. The crew of the latter could not but pity his distress, but they thought, and none could dispute the truth, that an English cruiser would have hardly been moved by the sorrow and complaints of one of their own captains, if he should fall into his hands. It was, moreover, in accordance with the law and usage of nations at war, and the English captain felt that he was kindly dealt with, when informed that he would be allowed to depart with his vessel, on condition of conveying a number of his own countrymen to their native shore. He contented himself, therefore, with cursing the war, and all who caused it. As the peaceful mariner, he neither knew why the two nations were at war, nor could he feel the justice of any laws which involved him in ruin while quietly following his avocation, content to let others alone if the same privilege could be extended to him.
Strong arguments have indeed been urged against the right of the system of privateering! It is no part of our task either to defend or to condemn it, yet it would seem evident that, looking at it as a means of crippling an enemy more efficacious than any other that can be devised, thereby hastening a return to peace, it cannot in its broadest sense be deemed unjust or cruel. Private individuals must suffer in every war, and fortune had ordained that the poor merchantman should be one of them. It would doubtless have been difficult to have persuaded him that he was suffering for the good of his country. He certainly did not look nor feel remarkably like a patriot, and would have much preferred not to have been used as a means to accomplish the end of war, and the restoration of peace between the two great contending powers.