On board this brig were two London mechanics, recently pressed in the streets of the capital of the English nation--a nation that has long boasted of its liberty and humanity. These cocknies wore long coats, drab-coloured velvet breeches, and grey stockings. They were constantly followed by the boatswain's mate; who often impressed his lessons, and excited their activity with a rope's end which he carried in his hat. The poor fellows were extremely anxious to avoid such repeated hard arguments; and they kept at as great a distance from their tyrant as possible, who seemed to delight in beating them. It appeared to me to be far out-doing in cruelty, the Algerines. They looked melancholy, and at times, very sad. May America never become the greatest of naval powers, if to attain it, she must allow a brutal sailor to treat a citizen, _kidnapped_ from his family in the streets of our cities, worse than we use a dog. I again repeat it, for the thousandth time, the English are a hard hearted, cruel and barbarous race; and, on this account alone, I have often been ashamed, that we, Americans, descended mostly from them. When a man is ill used, it invites others to insult him. One of our prisoners, who had been treated with a drink of grog, took out his knife, and, as the cockney's face was turned the other way, cut off one skirt of his long coat. This excited peals of laughter. When the poor Londoner saw that this was done by a roguish American, at the instigation of his own countrymen, the tear stood in his eye. Even our jolly, big bellied captain, enjoyed the joke, and ordered the boatswain's mate to cut off the other skirt, who, after viewing him amidst shouts of laughter, damned him for a land lubber, and said, now he had lost his ring-tail, he looked like a gentleman sailor. Although our good natured captain laughed at this joke, I confess I could not; all the horrors of impressment rushed on my mind. This mechanic may have left a wife and children, suffering and starving, from having her husband and their father kidnapped, like a negro on the coast of Guinea, and held in worse than negro slavery. But this is _Old England_, the residence of liberty and equal laws; and the _bulwark of our holy religion_! The crimes of nations are punished in this world; and we may venture to predict, that _the impressment of seamen_, and _cruel military punishments_, will operate the downfal of this splendid imposter, whose proper emblem is a bloated figure, seated on a throne, made of dead mens' bones, with a crown on its head, a sword in one hand, and a cup filled with the tears of widows and orphans in the other.