“No doubt, sir, no doubt.—I defy any man in the ship to say that I am a backbiter, even against my wife, with whom I have a sort of lawful right to deal candidly. I make no complaints, and am a happy man at sea, and I piously hope Mrs. Trysail knows how to submit to her duty at home.—I suppose you see, sir, that the chase has hauled his yards, and is getting his fore-tack aboard?” Ludlow, whose eye did not often turn from the brigantine, nodded assent; and the master, having satisfied himself, by actual inspection, that every sail in the Coquette did its duty, continued—“The night is coming on thick, and we shall have occasion for all our eyes to keep the rogue in view, when he begins to change his bearings—but, as I was saying, if the commander of yonder half-rig is too vain of her good looks, he may yet wreck her, in his pride! The rogue has a desperate character as a smuggler, though, for my own part, I cannot say that I look on such men with as unfavorable an eye as some others. This business of trade seems to be a sort of chase between one man’s wits and another man’s wits, and the dullest goer must be content to fall to leeward. When it comes to be a question of revenue, why, he who goes free is lucky, and he who is caught, a prize. I have known a flag-officer look the other way, Captain Ludlow, when his own effects were passing duty-free; and as to your admiral’s lady, she is a great patroness of the contraband. I do not deny, sir, that a smuggler must be caught, and when caught, condemned, after which there must be a fair distribution among the captors; but all that I mean to say is, that there are worse men in the world than your British smuggler—such, for instance, as your Frenchman, your Dutchman, or your Don.” “These are heterodox opinions for a Queen’s servant;” said Ludlow, as much inclined to smile as to frown. “I hope I know my duty too well to preach them to the ship’s company, but a man may say that, in a philosophical way, before his captain, that he would not let run into a midshipman’s ear. Though no lawyer, I know what is meant by swearing a witness to the truth and nothing but the truth. I wish the Queen got the last, God bless her! several worn-out ships would then be broken up, and better vessels sent to sea in their places. But, sir, speaking in a religious point of view, what is the difference between passing in a trunk of finery, with a duchess’s name on the brass plate, or in passing in gin enough to fill a cutter’s hold?” “One would think a man of your years, Mr. Trysail, would see the difference between robbing the revenue of a guinea, and robbing it of a thousand pounds.”