g to the
other men, he put the same question to them both in succession, and
received the same positive answers; so that I really began to think I
had been at the mast-head all the time, and had been dreaming I was in
the top. At last, turning to me, he said, "Now, sir, I ask you on your
honour, as an officer and a gentleman, where were you when I first
hailed?"

"At the mast-head, sir," said I.

"Be it so," he replied; "as you are an officer and a gentleman, I am
bound to believe you." Then turning on his heels, he walked away in a
greater rage than I ever remember to have seen him.

I plainly perceived that I was not believed, and that I had lost his
good opinion. Yet, to consider the case fairly and impartially, how
could I have acted otherwise? I had been much too long confined to the
mast-head--as long as a man might take to go from London to Bath in a
stage-coach; I had lost all my meals; and these poor fellows, to save me
from further punishment, had voluntarily exposed themselves to a
flogging at the gangway by telling a barefaced falsehood in my defence.
Had I not supported them, they would certainly have been flogged, and I
should have lost myself with every person aboard; I therefore came to
that paradoxical conclusion on the spot, namely, that, as a man of
honour and a gentleman, I was bound to tell a lie in order to save these
poor men from a cruel punishment.

I am sensible that this is a case to lay before the bench of bishops;
and though I never pretended to the constancy of a martyr, had the
consequences been on myself alone, I should have had no hesitation in
speaking the truth. The lieutenant was to blame, first, by too great a
severity; and, secondly, by too rigid an inquiry into a subject not
worth the trouble. Still my conscience smote me that I had done wrong;
and when the rage of the lieutenant had abated, so as to insure the
impunity of the men, I took the earliest opportunity of explaining to
him the motives for my conduct, and the painful situation in which I
stood. He received my excuses coldly, and we never were friends again.

Our captain, who was a dashing sort of a fellow, contrived to brush up
the enemy's quarters, on the coast of France. On one of our boat
expeditions, I contrived to slip away with the rest; we landed, and
surprised a battery, which we blew up, and spiked the guns. The French
soldiers ran for their lives, and we plundered the huts of some poor
fishermen.