seen us! If we can give this fellow the slip, as we did the
old Leander, Captain Wallingford, the Dawn will become as famous as the
Flying Dutchman! See, there he jogs on, as if going to mill, or to church,
and no more stir aboard him than there is in a Quaker meetin'! How my good
old soul of a mother would enjoy this!"

There the frigate went, sure enough, without the smallest sign of any
alarm having been given on board her. The vessels had actually passed each
other, and the mist was thickening again. Presently, the veil was drawn,
and the form of that beautiful ship was entirely hid from sight. Marble
rubbed his hands with delight; and all our people began to joke at the
expense of the Englishman. 'If a merchantman could see a man-of-war,' it
was justly enough said, 'a man-of-war ought certainly to see a
merchantman.' Her look-outs must have all been asleep, or it would not
have been possible for us to pass so near, under the canvass we carried,
and escape undiscovered. Most of the Dawn's crew were native Americans,
though there were four or five Europeans among them. Of these last, one
was certainly an Englishman, and (as I suspected) a deserter from a
public ship; and the other, beyond all controversy, was a plant of the
Emerald Isle. These two men were particularly delighted, though well
provided with those veracious documents called protections, which, like
beggars' certificates, never told anything but truth; though, like
beggars' certificates, they not unfrequently fitted one man as well as
another. It was the well-established laxity in the character of this
testimony, that gave the English officers something like a plausible
pretext for disregarding all evidence in the premises. Their mistake was
in supposing they had a right to make a man prove anything on board a
foreign ship; while that of America was, in permitting her citizens to be
arraigned before foreign judges, under any conceivable circumstances. If
England wanted her own men, let her keep them within her own jurisdiction;
not attempt to follow them into the jurisdiction of neutral states.

Well, the ship had passed; and I began myself to fancy that we were quit
of a troublesome neighbour, when Neb came down the rigging, in obedience
to an order from the mate.

"Relieve the wheel, Master Clawbonny," said Marble, who often gave the
negro his patronymic, "we may want some of your touches, before we reach
the foot of the danse. Which way was John Bul