d there, and
every where, you find a lively singing Frenchman, working in hair; or
carving out of a bone, a lady, a monkey, or the central figure of the
crucifixion! Among the specimens of American ingenuity, I most admired
their ships, which they built from eight inches to five feet long.
Some of them were said by the navy officers, to be perfect, as
regarded proportion, and exact, as it regarded the miniature
representation of a merchantman, sloop of war, frigate, or ship of the
line. By the specimens of ingenuity of these people, of different
nations, you could discover their respective _ruling passions_.

Had not the French proved themselves to be a very brave people, I
should have doubted it, by what I observed of them on board the
prison-ship. They would scold, quarrel and fight, by slapping each
other's chops with the flat hand, and cry like so many girls. I have
often thought that one of our Yankees, with his iron fist, could, by
one blow, send monsieur into his nonentity. Perhaps such a man as
Napoleon Bonaparte, could make any nation courageous; but there is
some difference between courage and bravery. I have been amused, amid
captivity, on observing the volatile Frenchman singing, dancing,
fencing, grinning and gambling, while the American tar lifts his hardy
front and weather beaten countenance, despising them all, but the
dupe of them all; just about as much disposed to squander his money
among girls and fiddlers, as the English sailor; but never so in love
with it, as to study the arts, tricks and legerdemain to obtain it. I
have, at times, wondered that the hard fisted Yankee did not revenge
impositions on the skulls of some of these blue-skinned sons of the
old continent. Is there not a country, where there is one series or
chain of impositions, from the Pope downwards? There is no such thing
in the United States. That is a country of laws; and their very
sailors are all full of "rights" and "wrongs;" of "justice and
injustice;" and of defining crimes, and ascertaining "the butts and
bounds" of national and individual rights.

It was a pleasant circumstance, that I could now and then obtain some
entertaining books. I had read most of _Dean Swift's_ works, but had
never met with his celebrated allegory of _John Bull_, until I found
it on board this prison-ship. I read this little work with more
delight than I can express. I had always heard the English nation,
including kings, lords, commons, country sq