APPRENTICESHIP. II ing is to hector all who sail with them, but one who treated all his subordinates with fairness, and who, therefore, was generally beloved by them all. If the captain of a ship wants to secure the confidence and esteem of his men, he must not be too lenient on the one hand, nor yet harsh and morose on the other. He must know how to command, and to keep every one in his right place; but he must know how to do it kindly, and to sympathise with his men in their greatest perils. This did Captain Hutton; and his nephew always regarded him as one of his best friends, and spoke of him, long after his decease, with great respect. He was, I believe, a truly Christian man, and died in peace about the year 1823. The sailor-boy, having become a man, continued on board his uncle's ship for a time, receiving such wages as enabled him to assist his parents, who as life advanced were more necessitous, and therefore more dependent on his help. And oh the delight with which he was often received back to his father's home, as one voyage after another terminated, and he was again permitted to set foot upon his native shore! His love for his parents, and their most tender regard for him, made those meetings joyous beyond measure, and many were the songs of praise and thanksgiving which were sung in their abode. It was but a cottage, but it was often made a Bethel, for God was there, and blessed its inhabitants with His smile. It was but a cottage; but many a cottage, when lit up with the presence and the smile of Christ, becomes as beautiful as a palace, and is often the scene of the purest and the noblest joys. In thousands of the cottage homes of England there are families as happy as the day is long, and it needs but the influence of true religion to make every cottage in the land the habitation of contentment and of peace. CHAPTER II. A PRISONER OF WAR. LET US DO RIGHT, AND WHETHER HAPPINESS COME OR UNHAPPINESS IT IS NO VERY MIGHTY MATTER. IF IT COME LIFE WILL BE SWEET; IF IT DO NOT COME LIFE WILL BE BITTER-BITTER, NOT SWEET, AND YET TO BE BORNE."-J. A. Froude. "War knows no rest, War owns no sabbath; war with impious toil GRAHAME. CHAPTER II. A PRISONER OF WAR. HE subject of this memoir was twenty-two years of THE age when the war between England and France, which had been arrested by the Peace of Amiens, was renewed with greater violence than ever. By an arrêt on June 23rd, 1803, the First Consul commenced that virulent strife which he so long maintained against the English commerce. It declared that no colonial produce, or no merchandise coming directly from England, should be received into the ports of France, and that all such produce or merchandise should be confiscated." Besides this, gigantic preparations were made on the shores of the Channel for the invasion of Great Britain, and it was intended to assemble a flotilla capable of transporting an immense army, which was to land upon our shores and to place us at Napoleon's feet. * England took the alarm, and on the 28th of June the House of Commons resolved to raise by conscrip* Alison's History of Europe, chap. xxxvii. |