had been a soldier, and delighted, like his guest, in the title of
captain. He had been fighting in Mexico and California with the
'Injuns.' As he of Doty Island had a proposal to make to British
sportsmen, so Captain Ezekiah Conclin Brum had 'a proposal to make to
the British government.' He had heard of our Cape and Caffre war, and
wondering how and why we did not make a shorter work of that awkward
business, he sent to England for a British infantry musket, which he
produced. 'Well, captin, did ever you see such a clumsy varment in all
your born days? Now, captin, look out of the doorway: do you see that
_blazed_ stump? It is seven feet high, and broader than any man. It's
exactly one hundred and fifty yards from my door. I have fired that
clumsy varment at the stump till my head ached and my shoulder was
quite sore, and have hardly hit it once. Now, then, captin, look 'ee
here (taking up his seven-barrelled revolving rifle, and letting fly
one barrel after the other): I guess you will find seven bullets in
the _blazed_ stump. I will, however, stick seven playing cards on the
stump, in different places, and, if you choose, hit them all.' After
sundry but unaccepted offers to his English brother-militant for a
trial of mutual destructiveness, he made his offer to the British
government through its representative, but which that loyal subject,
in a fit of mortification, declined to convey, on the ground that if
he 'made the finest offer in the world to the British government, they
would only sneer' at him. However (to give, as before, the substance
of what is here detailed with amusing effect), the offer of Captain
Brum was to enlist 5000 Yankee marksmen, each armed with a
seven-barrelled revolving rifle, and kill 'all the Injuns' at the Cape
in six months for the sum of 5,000,000 dollars! 'We should be ekal,'
quoth he, 'to thirty thousand troops with such tarnal, stiff, clumsy
consarns as them reg'lation muskets is. We should do it slick, right
away.' This may seem only a piece of fun, but such it does not appear
to the author, who turns from fun to facts and figures, and calculates
what would be the result of an encounter between English and American
men-of-war, if the latter had ten men in each top handling Captain
Brum's weapon with Captain Brum's skill; and the result he comes to
is, that they could, in one minute and a half, dispose of 210 men on
the opposite deck. _This would amount to the destruction of the whol