Guarda-Costas were the arguments used, on the other side of this
knotty question, by the authorities of Spain; and a very insufficient
argument, on the whole, did they prove to be. It is an old saying,
that vice is twice as active as virtue; the last sleeping, while the
former is hard at work. If this be true of things in general, it is
thrice true as regards smugglers and custom-house officers. Owing to
this circumstance, and sundry other causes, it is certain that English
and American vessels found the means of plundering the inhabitants of
South America, at the period of which I am writing, without having
recourse to the no longer reputable violence of Dampier, Wood, Rogers,
or Drake. As I feel bound to deal honestly with the reader, whatever I
may have done by the Spanish laws, I shall own that we made one or two
calls, as we proceeded north, shoving ashore certain articles
purchased in London, and taking on board dollars, in return for our
civility. I do not know whether I am bound, or not, to apologize for
my own agency in these irregular transactions--regular, would be quite
as apposite a word--for, had I been disposed to murmur, it would have
done my morals no good, nor the smuggling any harm. Captain Williams
was a silent man, and it was not easy to ascertain precisely what he
_thought_ on the subject of smuggling; but, in the way of
_practice_, I never saw any reason to doubt that he was a firm
believer in the doctrine of Free Trade.
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