to pass their days in that delicious climate, and amid the abundance of those rich and pleasing islands.  The other three engaged with Mark for a time, but expressed a desire to return to America, after awhile.  Wives were wanting; and this the governor saw, plainly enough, was a difficulty that must be got over, to keep the settlement contented.  Not that a wife may not make a man’s home very miserable, as well as very happy; but, most people prefer trying the experiment for themselves, instead of profiting by the experience of others.

As soon as the question of citizenship was decided, and all the engagements were duly made, the governor laid his question of conscience before the general council.  For a long time it had been supposed that the Rancocus could not be moved.  The eruption had left her in a basin, or hole, where there was just water enough to float her, while twelve feet was the most that could be found on the side on which the channel was deepest.  Now, thirteen feet aft was the draught of the ship when she was launched.  This Bob well knew, having been launched in her.  But, Brown had suggested the possibility of lifting the vessel eighteen inches or two feet, and of thus carrying her over the rock by which she was imprisoned.  Once liberated from that place, every one knew there would be no difficulty in getting the ship to sea, since in one of the channels, that which led to the northward, a vessel might actually carry out fully five fathoms, or quite thirty feet.  This channel had been accurately sounded by the governor himself, and of the fact he was well assured.  Indeed, he had sounded most of the true channels around the Reef.  By true channels is meant those passages that led from the open water quite up to the crater, or which admitted the passage of vessels, or boats:  while the false were culs de sac, through which there were no real passages.

The possibility, thus admitted, of taking the Rancocus to sea, a grave question of conscience arose.  The property belonged to certain owners in Philadelphia, and was it not a duty to take it there?  It is true, Friend Abraham White and his partners had received back their money from the insurers—­this fact Bridget remembered to have heard before she left home; but those insurers, then, had their claims.  Now, the vessel was still sound and seaworthy.  Her upper works might require caulking, and her rigging could not be of the soundest; but, on the whole, the Rancocus was still a very valuable ship, and a voyage might be made for her yet.  The governor thought that could she get her lower hold filled with sandal-wood, and that wood be converted into teas at Canton, as much would be made as would render every one contented with the result of the close of the voyage, disastrous as had been its commencement.  Then Bridget would be of age shortly, when she would become entitled to an amount of property that, properly invested, would contribute largely to the wealth and power of the colony, as well as to those of its governor.