But we should not judge too harshly of those who have gone before us. Of the sea-savouring greatly were the friends and acquaintances of my youth. Scarcely a town by the margin of the ocean could be more salt in its people than the men of Liverpool of the last century: so barbarous were they in their amusements, bull-baitings and cock and dog-fightings, and pugilistic encounters. What could we expect when we opened no book to the young, and employed no means of imparting knowledge to the old?--deriving our prosperity from two great sources--the slave-trade and privateering. What could we expect but the results we have witnessed? Swarming with sailor men flushed with prize money, was it not likely that the inhabitants generally would take a tone from what they daily beheld and quietly countenanced? Have we not seen the father investing small sums in some gallant ship fitting out for the West Indies or the Spanish Main, in the names of each of his children, girls and boys? Was it not natural that they should go down to the "Old Dock," or the "Salthouse," or the "New Dock," and there be gratified with a sight of a ship of which they--little as they were--were still part-owners? We took them on deck and showed them where a bloody battle had been fought--on the very deck and spot on which their little feet pattered about. And did we not show them the very guns, and the muskets, the pistols and the cutlasses, the shot-lockers and magazines, and tell them how the lad, scrubbing a brass kettle in the caboose, had been occupied as a powder-monkey and seen blood shed in earnest? And did we not moreover tell them that if the forthcoming voyage was only successful, and if the ships of the enemy were taken--no matter about the streams of blood that might run through the scuppers--how their little ventures would be raised in value many hundredfold--would not young imaginations be excited and the greed for gain be potent in their young hearts? No matter what woman might be widowed--parent made childless, or child left without protector--if the gallant privateer was successful that was all they were taught to look for. And must not such teaching have had effect in after life? I have seen these things, and know them to be true; but I have seen them, I am glad to say, fade away, while other and better prospects have, step by step, presented themselves to view.