These two worthy gentlemen soon discovered that Mr. O. had made representations not altogether correct. They therefore ordered the hatches to be taken off, and proper bread to be served out, and so the dispute ended. What added to our present satisfaction was, that _Mr. my Lord Beasly_ was to allow us two pence half penny sterling per day, for coffee, tobacco, &c. We now, to use the sailor's own expressive phrase, looked up one or two points nearer the wind than ever. That Mr. O. had been in the royal navy from his infancy, and now, at the age of forty five, ranks no higher than a lieutenant. He once commanded a sloop, and had the character of severity. He had an amiable wife and many children, who lived in the prison ship. Lieut. O. was not the wisest man in all England. He exercised his cunning, it was said, in making money out of his station; but he was under the immediate control of two _honorable_ gentlemen, otherwise, it is probable, we should have felt more instances of his revenge than he dared, at all times, show. CHAPTER VI. It is now the last day of February, 1814. The severity of an English winter, which is generally milder than the winters of New-England, is past; and we are as comfortable as can be expected on board a prison ship; we have a few cents a day to buy coffee, sugar or tobacco; add to these, we have the luxury of newspapers, which is a high gratification to the well known curiosity of a _genuine Yankee_, by which cant term we always mean a New-England man. We have been laughed at, by the British travellers, for our insatiable curiosity; but such should remember, that their great moralist, Johnson, tells us that curiosity is the thirst of the soul, and is a never-failing mark of a vigorous intellect. The Hottentot has no curiosity--the woolly African has no curiosity--the vacant minded Chinese has no curiosity--but the brightest sons of Old England and New, are remarkable for it; insomuch that they are often the dupes of it. How many thousand guineas a year are acquired by artful foreigners, in feeding this appetite of our relation, the renowned _John Bull_? and yet he is never satisfied; his mouth is open still, and so wide, very lately, that Bonaparte had like to have jumped into it, suit and all!!