and had the character of severity. He had an
amiable wife and many children, who lived in the prison ship. Lieut.
O. was not the wisest man in all England. He exercised his cunning, it
was said, in making money out of his station; but he was under the
immediate control of two _honorable_ gentlemen, otherwise, it is
probable, we should have felt more instances of his revenge than he
dared, at all times, show.

CHAPTER VI.

It is now the last day of February, 1814. The severity of an English
winter, which is generally milder than the winters of New-England, is
past; and we are as comfortable as can be expected on board a prison
ship; we have a few cents a day to buy coffee, sugar or tobacco; add
to these, we have the luxury of newspapers, which is a high
gratification to the well known curiosity of a _genuine Yankee_, by
which cant term we always mean a New-England man. We have been laughed
at, by the British travellers, for our insatiable curiosity; but such
should remember, that their great moralist, Johnson, tells us that
curiosity is the thirst of the soul, and is a never-failing mark of a
vigorous intellect. The Hottentot has no curiosity--the woolly African
has no curiosity--the vacant minded Chinese has no curiosity--but the
brightest sons of Old England and New, are remarkable for it; insomuch
that they are often the dupes of it. How many thousand guineas a year
are acquired by artful foreigners, in feeding this appetite of our
relation, the renowned _John Bull_? and yet he is never satisfied; his
mouth is open still, and so wide, very lately, that Bonaparte had like
to have jumped into it, suit and all!!

We should have taken, perhaps, more satisfaction in the perusal of
these newspapers, had they not been so excessively expensive. We took
the _Statesman_, the _Star_, and _Bell's Weekly Messenger_; and some
part of the time, the _Whig_. The expense of the Statesman was
defrayed by the sale of green fish to the contractor. The Star was
taken by the Frenchmen; the Whig and Bell's Weekly Messenger, by
individuals. We paid twenty-eight shillings sterling per month, for
the Statesman, which is twice the price of a newspaper in Boston, for
a whole year. Besides it costs us sixteen shillings per month to get
these papers conveyed on board. The reader will probably say, in the
language of Dr. Franklin's allegory, that considering our destitute
condition, "we paid dear for our whistle." These newspapers were