y. This was a happy event for me, my whole body being
blistered by the sun, and my limbs benumbed by want of motion: but I
could scarce persuade the Welshman to accept of this indulgence, he
persisted in his obstinacy to remain in irons, until he should be
discharged by a court-martial, which, he believed would also do him
justice on his enemies. At length I represented to him the precarious
issue of a trial, the power and interest of his adversaries, and
flattered his revenge with the hope of wreaking his resentment with his
own hands upon Mackshane after our return to England. This last argument
had more weight with him than all the rest, and prevailed upon him to
repair with me to the cockpit, which I no sooner entered, than the idea
of my departed friend presented itself to my remembrance, and filled my
eyes with tears. We discharged from our mess the boy who had acted so
perfidiously, notwithstanding his tears, intreaties, and of penitence
for what he had done; but not before he had confessed that the surgeon
had bribed him to give evidence against us, with a pair of stockings and
a couple of old check shirts, of which his servant had since plundered
him.

The keys of our chests and lockers being sent to us by the doctor,
we detained the messenger until we had examined the contents; and my
fellow-mate, finding all his Cheshire cheese consumed to a crust, his
brandy exhausted, and his onions gone, was seized with a fit of choler,
which he discharged on Mackshane's man in oaths and execrations,
threatening to prosecute him as a thief. The fellow swore in his turn,
that he never had the keys in his possession till that time, when he
received them from his master with orders to deliver them to us. "As Cot
is my judge," cried Morgan, "and my salfation, and my witness; whosoever
has pilfered my provisions is a lousy, peggarly, rascally knave! and by
the soul of my grandsire, I will impeach, and accuse, and indict him, of
a roppery, if I did but know who he is." Had this misfortune happened
at see, where we could not repair the loss, in all probability this
descendant of Caractacus would have lost his wits entirely; but, when I
observed how easy it would be to remedy this paltry mischance, he became
more calm, and reconciled himself to the occasion.

A little while after this transport the surgeon came into the birth,
under pretence of taking something out of the medicine chest, and, with
a smiling aspect, wished us joy