Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/248

 So circumstanced, these girls prefer an intercourse with the object of their choice to a legal marriage with a person of inferior birth; and, having once made their selection, an act of infidelity is of rare occurrence among them. Their affection and constancy will stand the test of time and of long separation; generous to prodigality, but jealous, and irritable in their jealousy, even to the use of the dagger and poison.

One of these young ladies found sufficient allurement in my personal charms to surrender at discretion, and we lived in that sort of familiar intercourse which, in the West Indies, is looked upon as a matter of necessity between the parties, and of indifference by every one else. I lived on in this Epicurean style for some months; until, most unfortunately, my chere amie found a rival in the daughter of an officer, high in rank, on the island. Smitten with my person, this fair one had not the prudence to conceal her partiality: my vanity was too much flattered not to take advantage of