Stanchest of my sect--the Adam’s-Ale-shunners--wert thou, old Samuel Spiller! in the muster-roll charactered an Able Seaman; but most notable for a Landsman’s aversion to unmitigated Water, hard, or soft--fresh or salt! A petty Officer wert thou in that armed band _versus_ contraband, the Coast Blockade, by some miscalled the Preventive Service, if service it be to prevent the influx of wholesome spirits. To do the smuggler bare justice, no seaman, Nelson-bred, payeth greater reverence, or obedience to that signal sentence,--“England expects every man to _do_ his _duty_!” than he. Thine, Spiller, was done to the uttermost. Spirits, legal or illegal, in tub or flask, or pewter measure, didst thou inexorably seize, and gauger-like try the depth thereof,--thy Royal Master, His Majesty, at the latter end of the seizures, faring no better than thy own begotten sea-urchin, of whom, one day remarking that--“he took after his father,” the young would-be Trinculo retorted, “Father never leaveth none to take.” There were strange rumours afloat, and ashore--Samuel! of thy unprofitable vigilance. Many an illicit _Child_, i.e. a small keg, hath been laid at thy door. Thou hadst a becoming respect for thy comrades, as brave men and true, who could stand fire, but the smugglers, I fear, were ranked a streak higher, as men who could stand treat. Still were thy misdeeds like much of thy own beverage--beyond proof. Even as those delinquent utterers of base notes, who swallow their own dangerous forgeries, so didst thou gulp down whatever might else have appeared against thee in evidence. There was no entrapping thee, like rat, or weasel in that Gin, from which deriving a sea-peerage, thou wert commonly known--with no offence, I trust, to the Noble Vassal of Kensington--as Lord Hollands. It was by way of water-penance for one of these Cassio-like derelictions of Mine Ancient, that one evening--the evening succeeding the Great Sea Tempest of 1814--I gave him charge of a boat’s crew, to bring in sundry fragmental relics of some shipwreckt Argosy, that were reported to be adrift in our offing. In two hours he returned, and like Venator and Piscator, we immediately fell into dialogue,--Piscator, i.e. Spiller, “for fear of dripping the carpet,” standing aloof, a vox et preterea nihil, in a dark entry. “Well, Spiller,”--my phraseology was not then inoculated with the quaintness it hath since imbibed from after lecture--“Well, Spiller, what have you picked up?” “A jib-boom, I think, Sir, a capital spar; and part of a Ship’s starn. The ‘Planter of Barbadies’--famous place for rum, Sir.” “Was there any sea--are you wet?” “Only up to my middle, Sir.” “Very well--stow away the wreck, and go to your grog. Tell Bunce to give you all double allowance.” “Thank your honour’s honour!”