ce with which he
resented any affront to his person or orders, disobedience to which he
could in no instance brook in any person on board, he was one of
the best natured fellows alive. He acted the part of a father to his
sailors; he expressed great tenderness for any of them when ill, and
never suffered any the least work of supererogation to go unrewarded by
a glass of gin. He even extended his humanity, if I may so call it,
to animals, and even his cats and kittens had large shares in his
affections.

An instance of which we saw this evening, when the cat, which had shown
it could not be drowned, was found suffocated under a feather-bed in
the cabin. I will not endeavor to describe his lamentations with more
prolixity than barely by saying they were grievous, and seemed to have
some mixture of the Irish howl in them. Nay, he carried his fondness
even to inanimate objects, of which we have above set down a pregnant
example in his demonstration of love and tenderness towards his boats
and ship. He spoke of a ship which he had commanded formerly, and which
was long since no more, which he had called the Princess of Brazil, as a
widower of a deceased wife. This ship, after having followed the honest
business of carrying goods and passengers for hire many years, did at
last take to evil courses and turn privateer, in which service, to use
his own words, she received many dreadful wounds, which he himself had
felt as if they had been his own.

Thursday.--As the wind did not yesterday discover any purpose of
shifting, and the water in my belly grew troublesome and rendered me
short-breathed, I began a second time to have apprehensions of wanting
the assistance of a trochar when none was to be found; I therefore
concluded to be tapped again by way of precaution, and accordingly I
this morning summoned on board a surgeon from a neighboring parish, one
whom the captain greatly recommended, and who did indeed perform his
office with much dexterity. He was, I believe, likewise a man of great
judgment and knowledge in the profession; but of this I cannot speak
with perfect certainty, for, when he was going to open on the dropsy
at large and on the particular degree of the distemper under which I
labored, I was obliged to stop him short, for the wind was changed, and
the captain in the utmost hurry to depart; and to desire him, instead
of his opinion, to assist me with his execution. I was now once more
delivered from my burden,