n, seeing this,
darted from the stern like a Newfoundland dog, swam to the weakest,
supported him to the rudder chains, and, leaving him, went to another,
bringing him to the stern of the vessel, and making a rope fast under
his arms. In this way he succeeded in saving the whole of these poor
fellows. Two of the five would certainly have sank but for his timely
assistance, for they were some time before another boat could be got
ready; and the other three owned that they much doubted whether they
could have reached the vessel without help.

This conduct of Thompson was much applauded by all on board, and some
asked him why he ventured his life for people who had used him so ill:
he answered, that his mither and his Bible taught him to do all the
good he could: and as God had given him a strong arm, he hoped he
should always use it for the benefit of his brother in need.

It might have been supposed that an act like this would have prevented
the recurrence of any further insult; but the more the Americans
perceived Thompson's value, the more eager were they to have him as
their own. The second mate, whom I have already described as a rough
and brutal fellow, one day proposed to him to belong to their vessel,
certain, he added, that he would make his fortune by the capture of
two, if not three, extra Indiamen, which they had information of on
their passage.

Thompson looked the man fully in the face, and said, "Did ye no hear
what I telled the captain the ither day?"

"Yes," said the man, "I knew that, but that's what we call in our
country 'all my eye.'"

"But they do not call it so in my country," said the Caledonian, at
the same time planting his fist so full and plump in the left eye of
the mate, that he fell like the "_humi bos_," covering a very large
part of the deck with his huge carcase.

The man got up, found his face bleeding plentifully, and his eye
closed; but instead of resenting the insult himself, went off and
complained to the captain. Many of the Americans, either from hatred
or jealousy, went along with him, and clamorously demanded that the
Englishman should be punished for striking an officer. When the story,
however, came to be fairly explained, the captain said he was bound
to confess that the second mate was the aggressor, inasmuch as he had
acknowledged that he knew the penalty of the transgression before he
committed the act; that he (the captain) had told Thompson, when
he made the decla