ship, all you have to do is to get on board if you can, and let us see the
style in which you handle yards. As to the people now stationed at the
braces, the trumpet that will make them stir is not to be spoken through
at the Admiralty. The fellow has spirit in him, and I like his principles
as an officer, but I cannot admit his conclusions as a jurist. If he
flatters himself with being able to frighten us into a new category, now,
that is likely to impair national rights, the lad has just got himself
into a problem that will need all his logic, and a good deal of his
spirit, to get out of again."

"You will scarcely think of resisting a king's officer in British waters!"
said the young man with that haughtiness that the meekest tempers soon
learn to acquire under a pennant.

"Resisting, my dear sir! I resist nothing. The misconception is in
supposing that you sail this ship instead of John Truck. That is my name,
sir; John Truck. Do your errand in welcome, but do not ask me to help you.
Come aboard, with all my heart; nothing would give me more pleasure than
to take wine with you; but I see no necessity of stopping a packet, that
is busy on a long road, without an object, as we say on the other side of
the big waters."

There was a pause, and then the lieutenant, with the sort of hesitation
that a gentleman is apt to feel when he makes a proposal that he knows
ought not to be accepted, called out that those in the boat with him would
pay for the detention of the ship. A more unfortunate proposition could
not be made to Captain Truck, who would have hove-to his ship in a moment
had the lieutenant proposed to discuss Vattel with him on the
quarter-deck, and who was only holding out as a sort of salve to his
rights, with that disposition to resist aggression that the experience of