“Samuel was the fifth son and of them all the most like his father, who was a famous seaman and had been thrice around the world, and many times about the Horn. When Samuel and Dorothy were married there was feasting and dancing in the old Marshall home at Norfolk, and good wishes from high and low. They were so young, so handsome, so fortunate, that only one cloud could be discovered anywhere on their horizon, and that was that either they must be apart, or Dorothy must follow the fortunes of the sea with her husband. This she would gladly have done had it not been that her mother, whose only daughter she was, suffered poor health and could not endure to have her daughter leave her. So it was decided that Samuel was to make one journey more, for which he had signed, and that he would then give up his sailor’s life and conduct a ship chandlery at home. “With that Dorothy begged him to go with her for one last journey over the mountains, that they might be together in solitude for a while. So he took his fine roan, Pacolet, and she her little mare, Bess, and they rode away for a wonderful month among the mountains, stopping where they pleased, and seeing the homes and plantations of their fellow Virginians, and everywhere they were entertained with great consideration, for two handsomer or more charming young people it would have been difficult to find. Moreover, Samuel loved his horse Pacolet better than anything in the world save his bride, and to feel this faithful and spirited steed under him, and to see the fair face of his love shining with health and joy, was, he thought, all that any man could ask of fate. “So it was with a stout heart that at last he sailed away as commander of his elder brother’s merchantman, _The Adventure_, carrying cotton to France and tobacco to Algiers and gold to Constantinople. For you must know, Azalea, that at that time—I think it must have been about 1794, America did a good trade among the ports of the Mediterranean and even beyond. Perhaps, too, if you have read your history, you will know how the corsairs of the Barbary States preyed upon these merchantmen, so that it was necessary for America to place a fleet of battleships to guard the African coast in order to protect the merchant ships from the pirates. Notwithstanding this, many a ship was held against its will and its officers and crews made prisoners, and it was a common thing for notices to be read in American churches, giving the names of those in captivity in Tripoli or Algiers. Then would the friends and relatives of the imprisoned men raise money and buy them out again. “But Samuel Bings had no fear. The Bings were brave men and subtle men, and they reckoned with their wits to keep them out of trouble.