" I make no doubt the navigation from
the Forelands to the bridges, as it was conducted thirty years since,
had a great influence on the seamanship of the English. Steamers are
doing away with much of this practice, though the colliers still have
to rely on themselves. Coals will scarcely pay for tugging.
I had been directed by Captain Williams to deliver the brig to her
original consignee, an American merchant established in the modern
Babylon, reserving the usual claim for salvage. This I did, and that
gentleman sent hands on board to take charge of the vessel, relieving
me entirely from all farther responsibility. As the captain in his
letter had, inadvertently I trust, mentioned that he had put
"Mr. Wallingford, his _third_ mate," in charge, I got no
invitation to dinner from the consignee; though the affair of the
capture under Dungeness found its way into the papers, _via_
Deal, I have always thought, with the usual caption of "Yankee Trick."
Yankee trick! This phrase, so often carelessly used, has probably done
a great deal of harm in this country. The young and ambitious--there
are all sorts of ambition, and, among others, that of being a rogue;
as a proof of which, one daily hears people call envy, jealousy,
covetousness, avarice, and half of the meaner vices, ambition--the
young and _ambitious_, then, of this country, too often think to
do a _good_ thing, that shall have some of the peculiar merit of
a certain other good thing that they have heard laughed at and
applauded, under this designation.
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