January 22, 1738, he requests Mr. Peter Baynton to advise him, on several points--"_also what good French brandy is worth, and if it be possible to cloak it so, as to ship it for rum_." On the 13th of March, in the same year, he writes Mr. Peter Baynton, that he has sent him four hogsheads of brandy, and adds--"_Pray be as cautious as possible, in taking them on shore, by reason the man has signed bills of lading, for four hogsheads rum, not knowing the contents, which it is not convenient he should_." What a goodly number will openly pronounce Peter a very bad fellow, who, if they have not done this identical thing, have done things, quite as exceptionable, or more so, and who are willing to-- "Compound for sins they are inclined to, By damning those they have no mind to." Merchant princes, if I am rightly instructed, do not place the offence of cheating the Government, in the category of cardinal, or unpardonable, sins. And, notwithstanding all, that we so frequently hear, of commercial integrity, and the chivalry of trade; I rather doubt, upon the whole, if traffic is really the "_ne plus ultra strap_," upon which the very finest possible edge can be given to the moral sense. Exceptions there are, but they only establish, more fully, the general rule: and, in accordance with the spirit of the old, prudential legend, we are rather too much in the habit of postponing prayers, till we have sanded the sugar, and watered the molasses. I have long entertained the opinion, that a cheap _vade mecum_ edition of Dr. Chalmers' Commercial Discourses, for New Year's gifts, might be very beneficially distributed. Exceptions certainly there are. I have one, within my own memory. The collector of a Southern port--a Huguenot withal--of whom my personal recollections are exceedingly agreeable, and whose integrity was a proverb, was surprised one day, upon his return, at the dinner hour, by the display of a costly service of plate, which his lady had procured from London. A few inquiries developed the fact, that, by the agency of a gentleman, a friend of the family, it had been gotten over, with _his_ baggage, duty free--in other words, _smuggled_. In an instant, the old gentleman ordered his wife's whole service of silver to the public stores; and seized it for the government. Such cases, I apprehend, are not of frequent occurrence. If Peter Faneuil made not broad his phylactery, he made broad that mantle of charity, which covereth a multitude of sins. If such had not been the fact, and notoriously so, Master Lovell would not have ventured to proclaim, in Faneuil Hall, one hundred and eight years ago, and before a scanty population, as cognizant, as the population of a village, of all the shortcomings of their neighbors that--