had this piratical
privilege: and as, in former days, sextants and chronometers were
unknown, sea-faring men incurred more risk than they do at present, and
the wrecks which strewed the coast were of very great value. I had a
proof the other day that this right is still exacted; that is as far as
regards property _unclaimed_. I had arrived at Plymouth from the
Western Islands. When we hove up our anchor at St. Michael's, we found
another anchor and cable hooked most lovingly to our own, to the great
joy of the first-lieutenant who proposed buying silk handkerchiefs for
every man in the ship, and expending the residue in paint. But we had
not been at anchor in Plymouth Sound more than twenty four hours, and he
hardly had time to communicate with the gentlemen-dealers in marine
stores, when I received a notification from some lynx-eyed agent of the
present admiral of the coast (who is a lawyer, I believe), requesting
the immediate delivery of the anchor and cable,--upon the plea of his
seignoral rights of _flotsam_ and _jetsam_. Now the idea was as
preposterous as the demand was impudent. We had picked up the anchor in
the roadstead of a _foreign power_, about fifteen hundred miles distant
from the English coast.

We are all lawyers, _now_, on board ship; so I gave him one of my legal
answers, "that in the first place, _flotsam_ meant floating, and anchors
did not float; in the second place, that _jetsam_ meant thrown up, and
anchors never were thrown up; in the third and last place, _I'd see him
damned first_!"

My arguments were unanswerable. Counsel for the plaintiff (I presume)
threw up his brief, for we heard no more of "_Mr Flotsam and Jetsam_."

But to proceed:--The man and boy, who, with Newton, composed the whole
crew, seemed perfectly to acquiesce in the distribution made by the
master of the sloop; taking it for granted that their silence, as to the
liquor being on board, would be purchased by a share of it, as long as
it lasted.

They repaired forward with a panikin from the cask, with which they
regaled themselves, while Newton stood at the helm. In half an hour
Newton called the boy aft to steer the vessel, and lifted the trunk into
the cabin below, where he found that Thompson had finished the major
part of the contents of the mug, and was lying in a state of drunken
stupefaction.

The hasp of the lock was soon removed by a claw-hammer, and the contents
of the trunk exposed to Newton's view.