Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/94

 I related, in the last chapter, an adventure with an Irish Guineaman, whose cargo my right honourable captain converted to the profitable uses of himself and his country. Another of these vessels had been fallen in with by one of our cruizers, and the commander of his majesty's sloop, the Humming-bird, made a selection of some thirty or forty stout Hibernians to fill up his own complement, and hand over the surplus to the admiral.

Short-sighted mortals we all are, and captains of men-of-war are not exempted from this human imperfection! How much, also, drops between the cup and the lip! There chanced to be on board of the same trader two very pretty Irish girls of the better sort of bourgeoisie; they were going to join their friends at Philadelphia: the name of the one was Judy, and of the other Maria. No sooner were the poor Irishmen informed of their change of destination, than they set up a howl loud enough to make the scaly monsters of the deep seek