divided into
Messes among them, to the end they might the sooner learn their language,
be sensible of the Obligations they had to them, and more capable and
zealous to defend that Liberty they owed to their Justice and Humanity."
This speech was met with general applause, and once again the good ship
_Victoire_ rang with cries of "Vive le Capitaine Misson!" The negroes were
freed of their irons, dressed up in the clothes of their late Dutch
masters, and it is gratifying to read that "by their Gesticulations, they
shew'd they were gratefully sensible of their being delivered from their
Chains." But alas! a sad cloud was creeping insidiously over the fair
reputation of these super-pirates. Out of the last slave ship they had
taken, a number of Dutch sailors had volunteered to serve with Misson and
had come aboard as members of his crew. Hitherto no swearword was ever
heard, no loose or profane expression had pained the ears of Captain
Misson or his ex-priestly lieutenant. But the Dutch mariners began to lead
the crew into ways of swearing and drunkenness, which, coming to the
captain's notice, he thought best to nip these weeds in the bud; so,
calling both French and Dutch upon deck, and desiring the Dutch captain to
translate his remarks into the Dutch language, he told them that--

"Before he had the Misfortune of having them on Board, his Ears were never
grated with hearing the Name of the great Creator profaned, tho' he, to
his Sorrow, had often since heard his own Men guilty of that Sin, which
administer'd neither Profit nor Pleasure, and might draw upon them a
severe Punishment: That if they had a just Idea of that great Being, they
wou'd never mention him, but they wou'd immediately reflect on his Purity,
and their own Vileness. That we so easily took Impression from our
Company, that the Spanish Proverb says: 'Let a Hermit and a Thief live
together, the Thief wou'd become Hermit, or the Hermit thief': That he saw
this verified in his ship, for he cou'd attribute the Oaths and Curses he
had heard among his brave Companions, to nothing but the odious Example of
the Dutch: That this was not the only Vice they had introduced, for before
they were on Board, his Men were Men, but he found by their beastly
Pattern they were degenerated into Brutes, by drowning that only Faculty,
which distinguishes between Man and Beast, Reason. That as he had the
Honour to command them, he could not see them run into these odious Vices
w