iously
expostulated with our companions, on their returning to the pernicious
practice of gambling, after they had had the virtue of refraining on
board the Crown Prince; and our advice induced nearly all of them to
renounce the destructive practice. I had read, but never saw
convincing evidence before, of gaming being a passion, that rages in
proportion to the degrees of misery, until it becomes a species of
insanity.

We, new comers, introduced certain measures that had a tendency to
harmonize our sailors and soldiers. The disorders on board the Bahama
arise, principally, from having on board a number of these two classes
of men. Our sailors view a soldier as belonging to an order of men
below them; and it must be confessed that our first crop of recruits,
that were huddled together soon after the declaration of war, in some
measure justified this notion. They were, many of them, idle,
intemperate men, void of character and good constitutions. The high
flying _federal clergy_, among other nonsense, told their flocks that
the war would demoralize the people; whereas it had the contrary
effect, as it regarded the towns an hundred miles from the sea coast.
It absolutely picked all the rags, dirt, and vice, from our towns and
villages, and transported them into Canada, where they were either
captured, killed, or died with sickness, so that our towns and
villages on the Atlantic, were cleared of idlers and drunkards, and
experienced the benefit of their removal. The second crop of recruits,
in 1814, were of a different cast. The high bounty, and the love of
country, induced the embargoed sailor to turn soldier; to these were
added young mechanics, and the sons of farmers. These were men of good
habits, and of calculation. They looked forward to their bounty of
land, with a determination of settling on their farms at the close of
the war. These were moral men, and they raised the character of the
soldier, and of their country. These were the men who conquered at
Chippewa, Bridgewater, Erie, and Plattsburg. Of such men was composed
that potent army of well disciplined militia, who reposed within
twenty miles of the sea shores of New-England, during 1814 and
1815--especially of Massachusetts and Connecticut; and who, had the
British attempted a landing, would have met them, with the bayonet, at
the water's edge, and crimsoned its tide.

Our captivated sailors knew nothing of this fine army; they only knew
the first recruit