yet, with all the despotism of the deck, what kindly spirits are
these old sea-captains with the freckled hard knuckled hands and the grim
storm-seamed faces! What honest genuine hearts are lying buttoned beneath
those rough pea-jackets! If all despots had been of that kind perhaps we
shouldn't have known quite as much about Parliamentary Institutions as we
do.

And now, while we have been talking thus, the "Samaria" has been getting
far out into mid Atlantic, and yet we know not one among our
fellow-passengers, although they do not number much above a dozen: a
merchant from Maryland, a sea-captain-from Maine, a young doctor from
Pennsylvania, a Massachusetts man, a Rhode Islander, a German geologist
going to inspect seams in Colorado, a priest's sister from Ireland going
to look after some little property left her by her brother, a poor fellow
who was always ill, who never appeared at table, and who alluded to the
demon sea-sickness that preyed upon him as "it". "It comes on very bad at
night. It prevents me touching food. It never leaves me," he would say;
and in truth this terrible "it" never did leave him until the harbour of
Boston was reached, and even then, I fancy, dwelt in his thoughts during
many a day on shore.

The sea-captain from Maine was a violent democrat, the Massachusetts man
a rabid republican; and many a fierce battle waged between them on the
vexed questions of state rights, negro suffrage, and free trade in
liquor. To many Englishmen the terms republican and democrat may seem
synonymous; but not between radical and conservative, between outmost
Whig and inmost Tory exist more opposite extremes than between these
great rival political parties of the United States. As a drop of
sea-water possesses the properties of the entire water of the ocean, so
these units of American political controversy were microscopic
representatives of their respective parties. It was curious to remark what
a prominent part their religious convictions played in the war of words.
The republican was a member of the Baptist congregation; the democrat held
opinions not very easy of description, something of a universalist and
semi-unitarian tendency; these opinions became frequently intermixed with
their political jargon, forming that curious combination of ideas which
to unaccustomed ears sounds slightly blasphemous. I recollect a very
earnest American once saying that he considered all religious, political,
social, and hist