About ten o’clock my persecutor raised his head through the cabin door, to announce that dinner was ready, and to request my company: upon descending I found some soup, and beef roasted after the German fashion, and that the director had, while I was above, been taken ill, from the occasional agitation of the boat, that to allay his sickness he had asked one of the gentlemen on board for some brandy, and of which he had evidently taken a great deal too much: the spirit rapidly operated upon his head, and a more abominable nuisance in the shape of man I never beheld: incapable of sitting at table with such a miscreant, I resumed my old place where I had not been seated long before I heard him abusing all the passengers, except myself, for whom he again expressed “the assurance of his high consideration,” and threatening to order them all to be thrown overboard, which he seemed to be perfectly able to do himself, for he was one of the most powerful men I ever beheld: upon which they relinquished the cabin to himself, and, excepting a very pretty French girl, came upon deck. Upon hearing her scream violently, I went below to see what _influence his countryman_ could now have over the director: as I was handing her out of the cabin, he forcibly pulled me back, closed the door, and said, in a manner which was perfectly intelligible, though occasionally interrupted by the spasms of intoxication, “I know you, though you think I do not; you are _no American_, you are an Englishman, and a son of Mr. Erskine the orator; you are here on a secret mission, and your life is in my hands, but I will not betray you.” The reply I made was, “I am engaged in no secret mission, my soul would revolt at it, nor can I be the son of my Lord Erskine, for he is now upon the ocean, as ambassador from the court of Great Britain to my country;” to which I added, “that it was in vain for him to attempt to deceive me any longer, for I was satisfied, by his observations respecting America, that he had not been born in that country:” to which, to my no little consternation, he replied, “No, nor have I ever been there, I am a German by birth, I was educated by an Englishman who lived at my father’s, and I am now in the service of one of the greatest heroes, and the most illustrious of men.”