"No, that's true," said the mate, "and, to go twenty or thirty years still further back, they minded it still less, and seemed to look upon pumping as a matter of course, a part of the regular routine of ship's duty. I recollect a case in point. When I was a young fellow, I happened to be present in court when a case was being tried involving the insurance on the ship Tarquin, sunk at sea on her homeward passage. It appeared that the Tarquin, when off Cape Horn, leaked a smart thousand strokes an hour; that after getting down into the trades on the Atlantic side, they had tinkered some of their leaks, and also, being in lighter weather, she made less water, so that they pumped only three or four hundred strokes an hour when off Cape St. Augustine. Well, they held on their course, and, between there and home, she gave out entirely, and sunk from under 'em. The underwriters refused to pay, and the ground taken by them was, that the captain ought to have gone into a port in Brazil, and overhauled his ship. Well, several old sea-captains were called on the stand to give their opinions. I remember one in particular, who is still living. The question was put to him, whether, in his judgment, it was prudent for the captain of the Tarquin, with his ship leaking some three or four hundred strokes, and Pernambuco under his lee, to continue on towards home? 'Prudent!' said the old gentleman. 'Yes, why not? Why,' said he, proudly, 'I sailed out of New Bedford in a ship leaking five hundred strokes an hour to start on a voyage!'"