“Some likes a barky, and some wouldn’t touch a rope in any craft but a schooner; and there’s others, again, swears a king’s cutter will show her heels to the liveliest of ’em, with a stiffish breeze and a bobble of sea on. I ain’t a-goin’ to dispute it. Square-rigged, or fore-and-aft, if so be she’s well-found and answers her helm, I ain’t a-goin’ to say but what she’ll make good weather of it the whole voyage through. Men thinks different, young chap; that’s where it is. Now you asks me _my_ opinion, and I’ll give it you, free. I’m a old man-of-war’s man, I am. I’ve eat the king’s biscuit and drank the king’s allowance ever since I were able to eat and drink at all. Now I’ll tell you, young man, a-cause you’ve asked me, free. The king’s sarvice is a good sarvice; I ain’t a-goin’ to say as it isn’t, but for two things: there’s too much of one, and too little of the other. The fuss is the work, and the second is the pay. If they’d halve the duty, and double the allowance, and send all the officers before the mast, I ain’t goin’ to dispute but the king’s sarvice would be more to my fancy than I’ve ever found it yet. You see the difference atwixt one of our lads when he gits ashore and the Dutch! I won’t say as the Dutchman is the better seaman, far from it; though as long as he’s got a plank as’ll catch a nail, an’ a rag as’ll hold a breeze, he’ll weather it _somehow_; nor I won’t say but what Mynheer is as ugly a customer as a king’s ship can get alongside of, yard-arm to yard-arm, and let the best man win! But you see him ashore! Spree, young man? Why, a Dutchman _never_ has his spree out! You take and hail a man before the mast, able seaman or what not, when he’s paid off of a cruise—and mind ye, he doesn’t engage for a long spell, doesn’t Mynheer—and he’ll tow you into dry dock, and set you down to your grub, and blow you out with _schnaps_ as if he was a admiral. Such a berth as he keeps ashore! Pots and pans as bright as the Eddystone; deck scoured and holystoned, till you’d like to eat your rations off of it. Why, Black Sam, him as was boatswain’s mate on board of the ‘Mary Rose,’ sitting with me in the tap of the Golden Lion, at Amsterdam, he gets uneasy, and he looks here and there an’ everywhere, first at the white floor, then at the bright stove, turning his quid about and about, till at last he ups and spits right in the landlord’s face. There _was_ a breeze then! I’m not a-goin’ to deny it, but Sam he asks pardon quite gentle and humble-like, ‘for what could I do?’ says he; ‘it was the only dirty place I could find in the house,’ says he. Young chap, I’m not a-goin’ to say as you should take and ship yourself on board a Dutchman; ’cause why—maybe if he struck his colours and you was found atween decks, you’d swing at the yard-arm, but if you be thinking of the king’s sarvice, and you asks my advice, says I, think about it a little longer, says I. Young chap, I gives you _my_ opinion, free. What say you, messmate? Bear a hand