Although there will be frequent occasion to mention this cruiser, the
circumstances are of so recent occurrence, that we do not choose to
give either her name, or that of any one belonging to her. We shall,
consequently, tell the curious, who may be disposed to turn to their
navy-lists and blue-books, that the search will be of no use, as all the
names we shall use, in reference to this cruiser, will be fictitious.
As much of the rest of our story as the reader please may be taken for
gospel; but we tell him frankly, that we have thought it most expedient
to adopt assumed names, in connection with this vessel and all her
officers. There are good reasons for so doing; and, among others, is
that of abstaining from arming a clique to calumniate her commander,
(who, by the way, like another commander in the Gulf that might be
named, and who has actually been exposed to the sort of tracasserie to
which there is allusion, is one of the very ablest men in the service,)
in order to put another in his place.
The officer who now came over the side of the Swash we shall call
Wallace; he was the second lieutenant of the vessel of war. He was about
thirty, and the midshipman who followed him was a well-grown lad of
nineteen. Both had a decided man-of-war look, and both looked a little
curiously at the vessel they had boarded.
“Your servant, sir,” said Wallace, touching his cap in reply to Spike's
somewhat awkward bow. “Your brig is the Molly Swash, Stephen Spike,
bound from New York to Key West and a market.”
“You've got it all as straight, lieutenant, as if you was a readin' it
from the log.”
“The next thing, sir, is to know of what your cargo is composed?”
“Flour; eight hundred barrels of flour.”
“Flour! Would you not do better to carry that to Liverpool? The
Mississippi must be almost turned into paste by the quantity of flour it
floats to market.”
“Notwithstanding that, lieutenant, I know Uncle Sam's economy so
well, as to believe I shall part with every barrel of my flour to his
contractors, at a handsome profit.”
“You read Whig newspapers principally, I rather think, Mr. Spike,”
answered Wallace, in his cool, deliberate way, smiling, however, as he
spoke.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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