“Because the opinion might be liable to misinterpretation. Still, I do not go as far as many of my friends on this subject. If Decatur ever really said, “our country, right or wrong,” he said what might be just enough, and creditable enough, in certain cases, and taken with the fair limitations that he probably intended should accompany the sentiment; but, if he meant it as an absolute and controlling principle, it was not possible to be more in error. In this last sense, such a rule of conduct might, and in old times often would, have justified idolatry; nay, it _is_ a species of idolatry in itself, since it is putting country before God. Sailors may not always be able to make the just distinctions in these cases, but the quarter-deck should be so, _ir_reverend and dear sir.” Wallace laughed, and then he turned the discourse to the subject more properly before them. “I understand you to say, Mr. Mulford,” he remarked, “that, in your opinion, the Swash has gone to try to raise the unfortunate Mexican schooner, a second time, from the depths of the ocean?” “From the rock on which she lies. Under the circumstances, I hardly think he would have come hither for the chain and cable, unless with some such object. We know, moreover, that such _was_ his intention when we left the brig.” “And you can take us to the very spot where that wreck lies?” “Without any difficulty. Her masts are partly out of water, and we hung on to them in our boat, no later than the last night, or this morning rather.” “So far, well. Your conduct in all this affair will be duly appreciated, and Capt. Mull will not fail to represent it in a right point of view to the government.” “Where is the ship, sir? I looked for her most anxiously, without success, last evening; nor had Jack Tier, the little fellow I have named to you, any better luck; though I sent him aloft, as high as the lantern in the light-house, for that purpose.” “The ship is off here to the northward and westward, some six leagues or so. At sunset she may have been a little further. We have supposed that the Swash would be coming back hither, and had laid a trap for her, which came very near taking her alive.” “What is the trap you mean, sir?—though taking Stephen Spike alive is sooner said than done.”