associate himself with such of the crew as possessed habits and opinions the least at variance with his own. By a singular fatality, the chaplain of the frigate was, as respects associates, in a condition nearly assimilated to that of this veteran tar. An earnest desire to ameliorate the situation of those who were doomed to meet death on the great deep had induced an experienced and simple-hearted divine to accept this station, in the fond hope that he might be made the favored instrument of salvation to many, who were then existing in a state of the most abandoned self-forgetfulness. Neither our limits, nor our present object, will permit the relation of the many causes that led, not only to an entire frustration of all his visionary expectations, but to an issue which rendered the struggle of the good divine with himself both arduous and ominous, in order to maintain his own claims to the merited distinctions of his sacred office. The consciousness of his backsliding had so far lessened the earthly, if not the spiritual, pride of the chaplain, as to induce him to relish the society of the rude master, whose years had brought him, at times, to take certain views of futurity that were singularly affected by the peculiar character of the individual. It might have been that both found themselves out of their places--but it was owing to some such secret sympathy, let its origin be what it would, that the two came to be fond of each other's company. On the night in question, Mr. Boltrope had invited the chaplain to accompany him in the Alacrity; adding, in his broad, rough language, that as there was to be fighting on shore, “his hand might come in play with some poor fellow or other.” This singular invitation had been accepted, as well from a desire to relieve the monotony of a sea-life by any change, as perhaps with a secret yearning in the breast of the troubled divine to get as nigh to terra firma as possible. Accordingly, after the Pilot had landed with his boisterous party, the sailing-master and the chaplain, together with a boatswain's mate and some ten or twelve seamen, were left in quiet possession of the cutter. The first few hours of this peaceable intercourse had been spent by the worthy messmates, in the little cabin of the vessel, over a can of grog; the savory relish of which was much increased by a characteristic disquisition on polemical subjects, which our readers have great reason to regret it is not our present humor to record. When, however, the winds invited the near approach to the hostile shores already mentioned, the prudent sailing-master adjourned the discussion to another and more suitable time, removing himself and the can, by the same operation, to the quarter-deck.