Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 3.djvu/15

 had come in his boat to visit us: I conversed with him, and was struck with one remark which he made.

"You Englishmen go to work in a queerish kind of way," said he; "you send a parcel of soldiers to live on an island where none but sailors can be of use. You listen to all that those red coats tell you; they never thrive when placed out of musket-shot from a gin-shop: and because they don't like it, you evacuate the island. A soldier likes his own comfort, although very apt to destroy that of other folks; and it a'n't very likely he would go and make a good report of an island that had neither women nor rum, and where he was no better than a prisoner. Now, if brother Jonathan had taken this island, I guess he would a' made it pay for its keep; he would have had two or three crews of whalers, with their wives and families, and all their little comforts about them, with a party of good farmers to till the land, and an officer to command the whole. The island can provide