There were also many well-meaning citizens, who sincerely desired to have the balloon of inflation come down, but strenuously objected to have this result effected by any diminution of the volume of gas contained in it. All the first-cousins of the man who waited for the river to run by before crossing were certain the balloon would come down, if people would only be patient, keep a sharp lookout, and wait. But to this it was objected, that if people were obliged to consume a large part of their time in watching the balloon, to avoid having their heads smashed by its swayings and fluctuations, there would ultimately be a scarcity of victuals and drink; and that, rendered desperate with watching, and want of employment, food, and clothing, those interested would finally insist on pulling open the valves, and letting the whole volume of gas escape at once. Some proposed to imitate the example of "Peter the Headstrong" in fighting the Yankees, and bring down the balloon by proclamation; while others professed to have great faith in family prayer. Eminent patriotic constitutional lawyers maintained that the military necessity that authorized and created the bluebacks must necessarily limit their duration solely to the period of their military necessity; and that their continued re-issue and use after the repulse of the cannibals was but a prolongation of the war--not against the enemy, but against their own people. The astute elongated copper-head lawyers held, on the other hand, that an instrument of military necessity, once created, remains such an instrumentality for continued use for all time; and, therefore, that a bullet or shell, once lawfully employed for effecting destruction in time of war, could legitimately be reissued or reshot in time of peace, without matter as to whom it might hit or what property it might destroy; and that, in fact, to go on reloading and refiring these instruments, and thereby killing and destroying, were not crimes, but high acts of patriotism. This theory, however, alarmed some timid people, who said that one shell or one bullet thus re-used indefinitely might destroy all the property, or kill all the people on the island; and they rather regretted, in view of such a construction, that they did not at once succumb to the cannibals, whose appetites, in time, might have become cloyed, or whose diet might have been changed through indigestion or moral suasion. In the period of doubt and perplexity which thus came to the community, those fond of precedents carefully searched the old chronicles and records of other nations for lessons of experience; and, among various things which profited them greatly, they found, among the chronicles of the learned Spanish historian, Fray Antonio Agapida, the following account of what the veteran soldier, Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, Count de Tendilla, did, when, besieged by the Moors in the town of Alhama, he had also serious financial difficulties to contend with: