who protested that their conduct was tyrannous: 'and,' said he, very
generously, 'to-morrow night I too propose to say my prayers.
If any one object, he may fight me." Thus, being a handy lad with
his fists, he established the right of religious liberty on board.
By-and-by one or two of the better disposed midshipmen followed his
example: by degrees the custom spread along the lower deck, where the
dispute had happened in full view of the whole ship's company, seamen
and marines; and by the time she reached her port of Halifax she
hadn't a man on board (outside the ward-room) but said his prayers
regularly."

"A notable Christian triumph," was the Vicar's comment.

"Quite so. At Halifax," pursued my father, "Captain Byng took aboard
out of hospital another small midshipman, who on his first night no
sooner climbed into his hammock than the entire mess bundled him out
of it. 'We would have you to know, young man,' said they, 'that
private devotion is the rule on board our ship. It's down on your
knees this minute or you get the strap.'

"I leave you," my father concluded, "to draw the moral. For my part
the tale teaches me that in any struggle for freedom the real danger
begins with the moment of victory."

Said my uncle Gervase after a pause, "Then these Corsicans of yours,
brother, stand as yet in no real danger, since the Genoese are yet
harrying their island with fire and sword."

"In no danger at all as regards their liberty," answered my father,
poising his knife for a first cut into the saddle of mutton, "though