rean government, having the
charge and management of certain public moneys, and in consequence, the
"authorities" thought it worth their while to ask a few questions about
his "taking off." Longford was well aware of these facts, and with
considerable difficulty and danger made his escape to the other side of
the river.

After remaining concealed for some time, he ventured down to Monte
Video, where he found the English brig Swan, bound round Cape Horn. Her
crew, deluded by the false and extravagant promises of privateering
captains and owners, had all deserted. In this dilemma the captain was
compelled to supply their places with such materials as could be picked
up in the streets of Monte Video, and which were as bad as bad could be.
Indeed, from the lawless state of all South America, it would have been
next to impossible to have procured, "for love or money," twenty good
and orderly seamen, from Darien to Patagonia. Among these vagabonds
Longford recognised many of his gaming-table acquaintances at Buenos
Ayres, who had left that city to get out of the way of certain
impertinent questions that the police had taken the liberty to ask
concerning the murder that has already been mentioned. These fellows had
imbibed a notion that seems to be an easily-besetting one among sailors
who enter on board a ship in the middle of her voyage, namely, that
there is money on board; which notion is but too often followed by an
exceedingly strong inclination to appropriate it to their own use and
behoof. Sailors seem to understand but confusedly the tenth commandment,
which forbids us to covet any thing that is our neighbor's.

The subject was discussed on the passage, the plan arranged, and the
unsuspecting officers, passengers, and two lads, apprentices to the
captain, murdered and thrown overboard. My readers would be, perhaps,
but little edified by a more circumstantial narrative. There is so
little variation in the details of shipwreck, acts of piracy, obituary
notices, ordinations, commencements, murders, suicides, mammoth turnips,
and Fourth of July celebrations, that printers would find it a great
saving of time, money, and labor, to have regular and approved forms of
each stereotyped, with blank spaces for names and dates.

This bloody deed was executed near the southern extremity of the then
half province and half republic of Chili; and the murderers, with
considerable difficulty, succeeded in running the ship between the