defrauding _the people_, I could not but say to myself, Well, after
all, though this man is a most wicked one indeed, yet is he even more
luckless than depraved.

Besides, a studied observation of Bland convinced me that he was an
organic and irreclaimable scoundrel, who did wicked deeds as the cattle
browse the herbage, because wicked deeds seemed the legitimate
operation of his whole infernal organisation. Phrenologically, he was
without a soul. Is it to be wondered at, that the devils are
irreligious? What, then, thought I, who is to blame in this matter? For
one, I will not take the Day of Judgment upon me by authoritatively
pronouncing upon the essential criminality of any man-of-war's-man; and
Christianity has taught me that, at the last day, man-of-war's-men will
not be judged by the _Articles of War_, nor by the _United States
Statutes at Large_, but by immutable laws, ineffably beyond the
comprehension of the honourable Board of Commodores and Navy
Commissioners. But though I will stand by even a man-of-war thief, and
defend him from being seized up at the gangway, if I can--remembering
that my Saviour once hung between two thieves, promising one
life-eternal--yet I would not, after the plain conviction of a villain,
again let him entirely loose to prey upon honest seamen, fore and aft
all three decks. But this did Captain Claret; and though the thing may
not perhaps be credited, nevertheless, here it shall be recorded.

After the master-at-arms had been adrift among the ship's company for
several weeks, and we were within a few days' sail of home, he was
summoned to the mast, and publicly reinstated in his office as the
ship's chief of police. Perhaps Captain Claret had read the Memoirs of
Vidocq, and believed in the old saying, _set a rogue to catch a rogue_.
Or, perhaps, he was a man of very tender feelings, highly susceptible
to the soft emotions of gratitude, and could not bear to leave in
disgrace a person who, out of the generosity of his heart, had, about a
year previous, presented him with a rare snuff-box, fabricated from a
sperm-whale's tooth, with a curious silver hinge, and cunningly wrought
in the shape of a whale; also a splendid gold-mounted cane, of a costly
Brazilian wood, with a gold plate, bearing the Captain's name and rank
in the service, the place and time of his birth, and with a vacancy
underneath--no doubt providentially left for his heirs to record his
decease.

Certain it was tha