there is so much apparent correctness in all he advances, that we too often believe his sly quizzing rodomontades. He mentions and describes the man who informed him, states little particulars, and relates circumstances, so closely connected with acknowledged facets, that the most cautious and incredulous are often taken in by him. He is a constitutional liar; and the fellow has such a plausible mode of lying, and wears throughout such a fixed and solemn phiz, that his news has been circulated by us all, with all our wise reasons, and explanations, and conjectures, that although we are sometimes angry enough to knock his brains out, we cannot help laughing at the _hoax_. To the name of lying Bob, we have added that of "_Printer to Prince Belzebub's Royal Gazette._" This little community of ours, crowded within the planks of a single ship, is but the prototype of the great communities on the land. Here we see working, all those passions, hopes, fears, emulations, envies, and even contentions for distinction, which, like the winds and tides of the ocean, keep the human mind healthy, vigorous, and progressing to general benefit. Amidst it all, we could discover "_the ruling passion_," the love of country, and a firm belief that our countrymen understood rational liberty better, and could defend it longer, than any nation now in existence. Many people are beguiled with an idea, that sailors have no serious thoughts of religion; because they use swearing, and, too often, a profane phraseology, without any meaning. But seamen generally have as serious ideas of religion, as landsmen; and are, in my opinion, full as good. Hypocrisy is not among their vices. They never pretend to more religion than their conduct proclaims. You see and hear the worst of them; and that cannot always be said of our brethren on shore. We have had a methodist preacher exhorting us twice a week, until lately; but he has discontinued his visits; for he found the hearts of _some_ of our fellows as hard as their faces, and he relinquished the hope of their conversion to methodism. There was, at one time, on board our ship, a little, ugly French surgeon's mate, who had lived several years in London, and in the southern part of America. He could speak, and read the English language equally well with his own. He ridiculed _all_ religion, and talked in such an irreverent style of the bible, of Jesus Christ, and of the Virgin Mary, that our sailors would not associate with him, nor, at times, eat with him. On one occasion, his profanity was so shocking, that he ran some risk of being thrown overboard. He was a witty, comical fellow, and they would listen and laugh at his drollery; but they finally stopped his mouth from uttering things, for which he would be severely punished in England and in America; and skinned, or fried, or slowly roasted, in Spain.