to snap them up, giving little or nothing in return. I
thought that it was a great pity that there were no means to enable
these poor people to obtain better information before they left home, to
have saved them the expense of dragging so much useless lumber about
with them. I pitied them, not because they were going to another land
where they could get food and employment, but for their helpless
ignorance, and the want of any one fit to lead or direct them, as also
for the treatment they were receiving at the hands of the countrymen
they were leaving for ever.

Many of them resented bitterly the impositions practised on them; and I
saw some of them, with significant gestures, take off their shoes and
shake the dust over the ship's side as they stepped on board, while they
gave vent to their feelings in oaths not lowly muttered. Henceforth,
instead of friends and supporters, they were to be foes to England and
the English--aliens of the country which should have cherished and
protected them, but did not. Such things were--such things are: when
will they cease to be? What a strange mixture of people there were,
from all parts of the United Kingdom--aged men and women; young brides
and their husbands; mothers with tribes of children, some with their
infants still unweaned--talking many different dialects, weeping,
laughing, shrieking, and shouting! At last they got their berths
allotted to them, and they began to stow away their provisions and
baggage between decks. Some kept going backwards and forwards from the
ship to the shore, and no notice being given, many of them were left
behind when the ship hauled out of dock, and had to come on board in
boats, at a considerable expense, after being well frightened at the
thoughts that we had sailed without them.

We lay out in the stream for another whole day, with the Blue Peter
flying, to show that we were ready for sea, and to summon any passengers
who might yet remain on shore. Silas Flint was one of the last to come
on board, before we left the dock. He appeared following a porter, who
wheeled down his chest, containing all his property. He did not even
give me a look of recognition as he passed me; but he at once plunged
below with his chest, and he studiously avoided coming near me. This I
thought odd and unkind, nor could I comprehend the cause of this
behaviour.

I was sitting very disconsolate by myself among the emigrants, and
wondering when the capta