“I cannot say that I have exactly served. But I have visited both the Indias, East and West; and have seen some smart fighting—where they say peace never comes—beyond the Line, I mean, with the Dons, both in Darien and Peru.”
“Ha! but you have indeed seen the world, for one so young as you; and yet I think you have not sailed in the king’s ships, nor held rank in the service.”
“No, Sir Miles, I am but a poor free-trader; and yet sometimes I think that we have carried the English flag farther, and made the English name both better known, and more widely feared, than the cruisers of any king who has sat on our throne, since the good old days of Queen Bess.”
“His present majesty did good service against the Dutch, young man. And what say you to Blake? Who ever did more gloriously at sea, than rough old Blake?”
“Ay, sir, but that was in Noll’s days, and we may not call him a king of England, though of a certainty he was her wise and valiant ruler. And for his present majesty, God bless him! that Opdam business was when he was the Duke of York; and he has forgotten all his glory, I think, now that he has become king, and lets the Frenchman and the Don do as they please with our colonists and traders, and the Dutchman, too, for that matter.”
The old man paused, and shook his head gravely for a moment, but then resumed with a smile,
“So, so, my young friend, you are one of those bold spirits who claim to judge for yourselves, and make peace or war, as you think well, without waiting the slow action of senates or kings, who hold that hemispheres, not treaties, are the measure of hostility or amity.”
“Not so, exactly, noble sir. But where we find peace or war, there we take them; and if the Dons wont be quiet on the other side the Line, and our good king wont keep them quiet, why we must either take them as we find them, or give up the great field to them altogether.”
“Which you hold to be unEnglish and unmanly?”
“Even so, sir.”