f my
accuser,--the provocation was taken into consideration, and the services
I had rendered during eleven years in storm and battle. I was dismissed.
Mr. Elliott, the planter, offered me a home. I had saved considerable
prize money. I was disgusted with England, and I loved. He, himself,
offered me his daughter, and she did not refuse me. We lived together
three happy years, when she died in giving birth to a daughter. Oh! she
was beautiful,--most beautiful, but linked to my wayward fate, she
perished.'

There was a softened shade over the seaman's face, and the stern
expression had gone,--he brushed some moisture from his eyes with his
strong hand, and turned aside for a moment; the young man was deeply
moved.

'A life of inactivity gave no balm to my wounded spirit, and I burned
for action. Mr. Elliott saw it; "Side with us," said he, "there has been
a Tea Party in Boston harbor that will bring thunder ere long, and I
will procure you a command;" he did so. I joined the Navy of the United
States, and bore the stars and stripes aloft through many a scene of
peril and of death. Mr. Elliott doted on his grandchild, and she
remained with him. Those were times that tried men's hearts, and my
father-in-law was chivalrous as he was generous--he gave the bulk of his
fortune to his country's need, and confiding my daughter, then a child
some two years old, to a distant relative, carried his grey head and
feeble limbs to join the ranks of those who fought for liberty. He fell
gloriously in battle, and when, after years of active service, peace was
declared, and I came home to seek my daughter, the lady who had her in
charge had died of fever, and my child had been taken away, no one could
tell me by whom or where:--all traces of her were lost. I now longed to
see my father, peace was declared, the Independence of America admitted,
and as I had fought under an assumed name, I anticipated no danger. I
was received as one from the grave. I never mentioned my marriage, even
to my father, but accounted for my absence and my silence, by saying
that, ashamed to come home after being dismissed, I had gone in a
merchant vessel to India, and had there been taken prisoner by the
Lootees, a species of banditti, while on an excursion inland. My tale
was easily believed; to please my father, I married again. The sister of
good Mrs. Ally, my second wife, was a good and kind woman, and after the
birth of my daughter Mary, I again hoped for