, leaping for the chance again to attack the oppressor,
as at Bunker Hill, now be kidnapped to fight that oppressor's battles
on the endless drifts of the Bunker Hills of the billows? But like many
other repiners, Israel was perhaps a little premature with upbraidings
like these.

Plying on between Scilly and Cape Clear, the Unprincipled--which vessel
somewhat outsailed her consorts--fell in, just before dusk, with a large
revenue cutter close to, and showing signals of distress. At the moment,
no other sail was in sight.

Cursing the necessity of pausing with a strong fair wind at a juncture
like this, the officer-of-the-deck shortened sail, and hove to; hailing
the cutter, to know what was the matter. As he hailed the small craft
from the lofty poop of the bristling seventy-four, this lieutenant
seemed standing on the top of Gibraltar, talking to some lowland peasant
in a hut. The reply was, that in a sudden flaw of wind, which came nigh
capsizing them, not an hour since, the cutter had lost all four foremost
men by the violent jibing of a boom. She wanted help to get back to
port.

"You shall have one man," said the officer-of-the-deck, morosely.

"Let him be a good one then, for heaven's sake," said he in the cutter;
"I ought to have at least two."

During this talk, Israel's curiosity had prompted him to dart up the
ladder from the main-deck, and stand right in the gangway above, looking
out on the strange craft. Meantime the order had been given to drop a
boat. Thinking this a favorable chance, he stationed himself so that he
should be the foremost to spring into the boat; though crowds of English
sailors, eager as himself for the same opportunity to escape from
foreign service, clung to the chains of the as yet imperfectly
disciplined man-of-war. As the two men who had been lowered in the boat
hooked her, when afloat, along to the gangway, Israel dropped like a
comet into the stern-sheets, stumbled forward, and seized an oar. In a
moment more, all the oarsmen were in their places, and with a few
strokes the boat lay alongside the cutter.

"Take which of them you please," said the lieutenant in command,
addressing the officer in the revenue-cutter, and motioning with his
hand to his boat's crew, as if they were a parcel of carcasses of
mutton, of which the first pick was offered to some customer. "Quick and
choose. Sit down, men"--to the sailors. "Oh, you are in a great hurry to
get rid of the king's servic