wounded, most part of whom afterwards died. My fellow-mates
had no sooner despatched their business in the cock-pit, than, full of
friendly concern, they came to visit me. Morgan, ascending first, and
seeing my face almost covered with brains and blood, concluded I was
no longer a man for this world; and, calling to Thompson with great
emotion, bade him come up, and take his last farewell of his comrade
and countryman, who was posted to a better place, where there were no
Mackshanes nor Oakums to asperse and torment him. "No," said he, taking
me by the hand, "you are going to a country where there is more respect
sown to unfortunate shentlemen, and where you will have the satisfaction
of peholding your adversaries tossing upon pillows of purning
primstone." Thompson, alarmed at this apostrophe, made haste to the
place where I lay, and sitting down by me, with tears in his eyes
inquired into the nature of my calamity. By this time I had recollected
myself so far as to be able to converse rationally with my friends,
whom, to their great satisfaction, I immediately undeceived with regard
to their apprehension of my being mortally wounded.

After I had got myself disengaged from the carnage in which I wallowed,
and partaken of a refreshment which my friends brought along with them,
we entered into discourse upon the hardships we sustained, and spoke
very freely of the author of our misery; but our discourse being
overheard by the sentinel who guarded me, he was no sooner relieved than
he reported to the captain every syllable of our conversation, according
to the orders he had received. The effect of this information soon
appeared in the arrival of the master-at-arms, who replaced Morgan in
his former station, and gave the second mate a caution to keep a strict
guard over his tongue, if he did not choose to accompany us in our
confinement. Thompson, foreseeing that the whole slavery of attending
the sick and wounded, as well as the cruelty of Mackshane, must now fall
upon his shoulders, grew desperate at the prospect, and, though I never
heard him swear before, imprecated dreadful curses on the heads of his
oppressors, declaring that he would rather quit life altogether than
be much longer under the power of such barbarians. I was not a little
startled at his vivacity, and endeavoured to alleviate his complaints,
by representing the subject of my own, with as much aggravation as it
would bear, by which comparison he might s