before the boat was sufficiently near to receive her, and fell, into the sea.  I dashed over the taffrail, the tide was running strong, but I caught her in my arms, and bore her up, until the boat came to our relief.  Her father, who awaited her arrival, was unbounded in his expressions of gratitude, and invited me often to his hotel, he also gave me a cordial invitation to his plantation in Carolina.  The Captain made many unseemly jokes upon the affair, but I bore them all,—­for now I felt I loved and I hoped, who does not hope at twenty-three?  I hoped I was beloved in return.  Annoyed by my patience, galled and mortified by his rejection, he lost his usual prudence, and one day boasted before a knot of loose companions in my presence, of favors he had received from her,—­from her who was purity itself, and had scarcely deigned to exchange the common courtesies of life with him.  I struck him to the deck for his detested lie, and gave myself up as prisoner.  I was tried by a Court Martial and declared incapable of serving his Majesty again.  I had expected death, and his powerful friends did their utmost to procure a sentence, but the Admiral was a just though a rigid man, and well knew the character of my accuser,—­the provocation was taken into consideration, and the services I had rendered during eleven years in storm and battle.  I was dismissed.  Mr. Elliott, the planter, offered me a home.  I had saved considerable prize money.  I was disgusted with England, and I loved.  He, himself, offered me his daughter, and she did not refuse me.  We lived together three happy years, when she died in giving birth to a daughter.  Oh! she was beautiful,—­most beautiful, but linked to my wayward fate, she perished.’

There was a softened shade over the seaman’s face, and the stern expression had gone,—­he brushed some moisture from his eyes with his strong hand, and turned aside for a moment; the young man was deeply moved.

’A life of inactivity gave no balm to my wounded spirit, and I burned for action.  Mr. Elliott saw it; “Side with us,” said he, “there has been a Tea Party in Boston harbor that will bring thunder ere long, and I will procure you a command;” he did so.  I joined the Navy of the United States, and bore the stars and stripes aloft through many a scene of peril and of death.  Mr. Elliott doted on his grandchild, and she remained with him.  Those were times that tried men’s hearts, and my father-in-law was chivalrous as he was generous—­he gave the bulk of his fortune to his country’s need, and confiding my daughter, then a child some two years old, to a distant relative, carried his grey head and feeble limbs to join the ranks of those who fought for liberty.  He fell gloriously in battle, and when, after years of active service, peace was declared, and I came home to seek my daughter, the lady who had her in charge had died of fever, and my child had been taken away, no one could tell me by whom or where:—­all traces of her were