In England, however, nothing seemed
to be thought of it; and I afterwards found that marriages between
English women, and men of all the colours of the rainbow, were very
common occurrences.
When he had given me this ball as the climax of his compliments,
Sweeney betrayed the real motive of all his attentions. After
drinking a pot of beer extra, well laced with gin, he offered his
services in smuggling anything ashore that the Amanda might happen to
contain, and which I, as the prize-master, might feel a desire to
appropriate to my own particular purposes. I met the proposal with a
little warmth, letting my tempter understand that I considered his
offer so near an insult, that it must terminate our acquaintance. The
man seemed astounded. In the first place, he evidently thought all
goods and chattels were made to be plundered, and then he was of
opinion that plundering was a very common "Yankee trick." Had I been
an Englishman, he might possibly have understood my conduct; but, with
him, it was so much a habit to fancy an American a rogue, that, as I
afterwards discovered, he was trying to persuade the leader of a
press-gang that I was the half-educated and illegitimate son of some
English merchant, who wished to pass himself off for an American. I
pretend not to account for the contradiction, though I have often met
with the same moral phenomena among his countrymen; but here was as
regular a rogue as ever cheated, who pretended to think roguery
indigenous to certain nations, among whom his own was not included.
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