These honest people have an easy way of getting rid of money committed to their charge. A ship brings captured vessels into harbour; on board comes Mr. A., B., C, or D., with a smirking face and soft tongue, making low bows, hoping he may have the honour,--being an accredited agent under a bond for £20,000,--to transact the affairs of H.M. ship! Officers generally being strangers in the port, and having orders frequently to proceed to sea again in forty-eight hours, after completing water and provisions, have no time to look after or make inquiries about _stability_ of prize agents, and therefore trust the concerns to the first that comes. The moment a ship is fitted out she goes to sea on another cruise--probably for three or four months; the prizes in the meanwhile are sold by the agent. Now, what does he generally do with the money? Why! speculates with it on his own account. If the scheme answers, he puts the amount of his speculation into his own pocket--we, whose the money ought to be, never getting any part of it. If it fails, the prize agent breaks, and off he starts, paying perhaps not a shilling in the pound. Oh! but then you have got his bond for £20,000! What matters this amongst a whole fleet, when he runs away with perhaps more than £100,000 of their money! I am not putting an extreme case--this did happen more than once--and it would astonish the public if the whole system of prize-plundering agents that was carried on last war could be laid open. They would, indeed, wonder men could be so easily led to trust persons with large sums of money without knowing more about them. My reply is, necessity obliges them. Now, the remedy I propose is this. Let the Government, in the event of another war, take the prize agency into their own hands, and deduct an eighth or a quarter to cover all expenses, and, whenever ships leave a station, let the money be sent to England. Government would have the use of it; the officers and ships’ companies would be sure to receive the remainder; and it would be much better to give up an eighth or a quarter to Government to make sure of the rest than to lose, as has happened in many cases, every sixpence of our hard-earned reward. But to return to our cruise. One morning watch, during the time we were washing decks, and when the after-skylight gratings were off, a strange sail was seen from the topmast-head. Without thinking of such things as hatchways, back I ran from the fore part of the quarter-deck to hail the maintop-masthead, and to ask the man looking out what she looked like, when, just as I had placed my speaking-trumpet to my mouth, head over heels down the after-hatchway I fell, bang into the gun-room. Fortunately, I came off with only a severe bruise, and the spraining of my right ankle, which laid me up for three weeks.