own where his fiat must be received without
a murmur by hundreds who can reason as well as himself it is absolutely
requisite that he should be invested with an authority amounting to
despotism. True it is that he is held responsible to his superiors for
any undue exercise of this authority: but amongst so many to whom it is
confided, there must be some who, from disposition, or the bad example
of those under whom they have served, will not adhere to the limits
which have been prescribed. This, however, is no reason for reducing
that authority, which, as you govern wholly by opinion, is necessary for
the discipline which upholds the service; but it is a strong reason for
not delegating it to those who are not fit to be intrusted.

Captain Bradshaw had many redeeming qualities. Oppressor as he was, he
admired a spirit of resistance in an officer when it was shown in a just
cause, and, upon reflection, was invariably his friend, for he felt that
his own natural temperament was increased by abject obedience. Raynal,
I think it is, has said that "the pride of men in office arises as much
from the servility of their inferiors or expectants as from any other
cause." In our service they are all inferiors, and all expectants. Can
it then be surprising that a captain occasionally becomes tyrannical?
But Captain Bradshaw was not naturally tyrannical: he had become so,
because, promoted at an early age, he had never been afterwards opposed;
no one contradicted him; every one applauded his jokes, and magnified
his mirth into wit. He would try by a court-martial an officer who had
committed a slight error, and on the same day would open his purse and
extend his patronage to another whom he knew not, but had been informed
that he was deserving, and had no friends. To his seamen he was as
lavish with his money as he was with the cat. He would give a man a new
jacket one day, and cut it to pieces on his back with a rope's end on
the next. Yet it was not exactly inconsistency--it was an eccentricity
of character--not natural, but created by the service. The graft was of
a worse quality than the parent stock, and the fruit was a compound of
the two. The sailors, who are of the most forgiving temper in the
world, and will pardon a hundred faults for one redeeming quality,
declared that "he warn't a bad captain after all."

His violent and tyrannical disposition made him constantly at variance
with his officers, and continual c