Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 3.djvu/6

 gascar, for certain homeward bound extra Indiamen, one or two of which she hoped would reward all the trouble and expense of the outfit.

We reached the island without any material incident. I had observed, with concern, that the second mate, whose name was Peleg Oswald, was a sour, ferocious, quarrelsome man; and that although I was kindly treated by the captain, whose name was Peters, and by the chief mate, whose name was Methusalem Solomon, I never could conciliate the good will of Peleg Oswald.

Green, the captain, us came with me, was, from the time I saved his life, an altered man. He had been, as I was informed, a drunken profligate; but from the moment when I received him into my boat, his manners and habits seemed as completely changed as if he were a different being. He never drank more than was sufficient to quench his thirst—he never swore he never used any offensive language. He read the Scriptures constantly, was regular in