al Reminiscences" in the New
England Magazine, says, no author ever stopped at the second book; and
he very gravely proceeds to recommend that my number three should savor
more of the style of Goldsmith or Washington Irving. I should have no
objection whatever to writing like either of these distinguished
authors, _if I could_; but as the case is, I must be content to write as
well as I can. The whole article in Mr. B's magazine bore no faint
resemblance to a dose of calomel and jalap, administered in a
table-spoonful of molasses, in which the sweet and the nauseous are so
equally balanced, that the patient is in doubt whether to spit or to
swallow. I was, however, exceedingly flattered with the notice bestowed
upon me by this literary cynic, as he was never before known to speak
well, even moderately, of any author, except natives of Boston, or
professors in Harvard University.

"Morton" is founded upon an old tradition, now forgotten, but well
known when I first went to sea, of the exploits of some of our
adventurous and somewhat lawless traders in the Pacific. A number of the
crew of one of these smuggling vessels were taken in the act, and, after
a hasty trial, ordered to be sent to the mines. The route to their place
of condemnation and hopeless confinement lay near the coast. A large
party of seamen landed from two or three ships that were in the
neighborhood, waylaid the military escort, knocked most of them on the
head, rescued the prisoners, and got safe off without loss. The story
says nothing of female influence or assistance, but knowing it to be
morally impossible to get through a story without the assistance of a
lady, I pressed one into the service, and took other liberties with the
original, till it became what peradventure the reader will find it. Many
stories are told of the skirmishes, or as sailors call them,
"scrammidges," between our "free-traders" and the guarda-costas in
different parts of the Pacific. In particular, the ship D----, of
Boston, is said to have had a "regular-built fight" with a guarda-costa
of forty-four guns, that retired from the action so miserably mauled,
that it is doubtful to this day whether she ever found her way back into
port. An old sea-dog who was on board the D----, furnished me with many
details of the proceedings of our merchantmen on the coasts of
California, and Mexico, some thirty years since, but most of them have
escaped my memory.

I have inadvertently, in o