te, the hotter the better, where Prizes
are rich, and the King's writ in Assault and Battery runneth not,--nor
for a great many other things ayont Assault and Battery,--and where, up
a snug creek, of which he knows the pilotage well, he may give a good
account of a King's ship when he finds her. He who does any thing
contrair to English law within five hundred leagues of an English lawyer
or an English law-court is a very Ass and Dolt. Fees and costs will have
their cravings; and from the process-server to the Hangman all will have
their due. Give me an offing, where there is no law but that of the
strong hand and the bold Heart. Any sharks but land-sharks for John
Dangerous. I never see a parchment-visaged, fee-clutching limb of the
law but I long to beat him, and, if I had him on blue water, to trice
him up higher than ever he went before. But for a keg of brandy! But for
a packet of treason-papers! Shame! 'tis base, 'tis idiotic. And this
did the unlucky Handsell find to his cost. I believe he was slain in a
midnight affray with some Riding Officers of the Customs close unto
Deal, about two years after his going into a trade that was as mean as
it was perilous.

So no more Hope for me from that quarter. The skipper of _The Protestant
Pledge_ would have retained me on board for a Carouse; but I had too
much care for my Head and my Liver for such pranks, and went back, as
dolefully as might be, to keep Maum Buckey's washing-books. I chafed at
the thought that I could do no more. I told her the grim news I had
heard of her brother-in-law, whereat she wept somewhat; for where Whites
were concerned she was not a hard-hearted woman. But she cheered up
speedily, saying that Sam had come to as sorry an end, and that she
supposed there was but one way with the Handsells, Rum and Riot being
generally their Ruin.

As it is one of the failings of youth not to know when it is well off,
and to grow A-weary even of continued prosperity, I admit that the life
I led palled upon me, and that I longed to change it. But it was not,
all things considered, so very unpleasant a one. True, the employment
was a sorry one, and utterly beneath the dignity of a Gentleman, such as
bearing fardels in the streets or unloading casks and bales at the
wharf, for instance. But it is in man's nature never to be satisfied,
and when he is well to long to be better, and so, by force of striving,
to tumble into a Hole, where indeed he is at the Best, for