"'Yes, Hornblower, I know your owner to be conscientious and pious; that is why I always let you off so easy.' And the collector would look so credulously good-natured that I couldn't help drawing out a roll of cigars, telling him they were pure Havanas, when presenting them. It used to do me good to see how it--small as it was--softened things about his heart. I would immediately follow the cigars with the papers, taking good care to have merchandise enough in the hold to correspond with what was set forth on the clearance and manifest. 'Ye see, sir,' I'd remark, 'I never smuggles, except it is a few cigars now and then, for my own smoking! Old Jacob Grimes says, when a government makes laws what people can't live to, you must live round them; but them ain't my principles.' "'Thank you, Mr. Hornblower, I am sure you have more regard for your honor than to smuggle,' he would resume, keeping his eyes fixed upon me. "'I am obliged to you for the confidence--the confidence of superiors in spirit or body; and I hope I may never do anything but what will merit yours. It has been my motto through life to keep before me the words of my good old mother. Ah! she was a mother. Fond soul, she used to say, 'Solomon, my boy, let your dealing with the world be marked by honesty, and remember that one small error in your life may stain forever your character. The eyes of an unforgiving world once excited to suspicion will ever wear the same glasses.'' Having said this, nothing more was wanted to make complete the Squire's confidence. Without further detention, he would have the papers made out, and having received them, we would trim our sheets and sail away up the river, Old Tom boarding us off Pin Point, and laughing himself almost out of his black skin--welcoming us after the fashion of friends met after a long absence. All this time the Squire would be impatiently waiting on the wharf at the little town of Annapolis--so glad to see Hornblower! 'No contraband goods on board, eh, Hornblower?' he would inquire, affecting such an amount of piety that it made me laugh in my shoes. "'Not so much as a plug of tobacco!' I would reply, contemplatively, as the crew commenced putting out the few things we had entered at Her Majesty's Custom House. We had great regard for Her Majesty; nor have I the least doubt of the Squire's honesty, which would have been all right had it not been for the law and parliament. We have only to add that, having played his part after the manner of a good Christian, he would seek his way home, there to arrange an evening prayer-meeting.