“If ile is money, yes; if ile isn’t money, no.  I’ve got three hundred barrels on hand, one hundred of which is head-matter.”

“I rejoice to hear this, Captain Betts, and the brig you shall have.  I thought to have sold both to the merchants, for I did not suppose any one else, here, could purchase them; but I would greatly prefer to see one of them in the hands of an old friend.  You shall have the Dragon, Betts, since you like her.”

“Done and done between gentlemen, is enough, sir; not that I set myself up for a gentleman, governor, but I’ve lived too long and too much in your respected society not to have l’arn’d some of the ways.  The brig’s mine, if ile will pay for her.  And now, sir, having completed the trade, I should like to know if your judgment and mine be the same.  I say the Dragon will beat the Jonas half a knot, the best day the Jonas ever seed.”

“I do not know but you are right, Bob.  In looking at the two craft, last evening, I gave the preference to the Dragon, though I kept my opinion to myself, lest I might mortify those who built the Jonas.”

“Well, sir, I’m better pleased to hear this, than to be able to pay for the brig!  It is something to a plain body like myself, to find his judgment upheld by them that know all about a matter.”

In this friendly and perfectly confidential way did Mark Woolston still act with his old and long-tried friend, Robert Betts.  The Dragon was cheap at the money mentioned, and the governor took all of the old seaman’s ‘ile’ at the very top of the market.  This purchase at once elevated Betts in the colony, to a rank but a little below that of the ‘gentlemen,’ if his modesty disposed him to decline being classed absolutely with them.  What was more, it put him in the way of almost coining money.  The brig he purchased turned out to be as fast as he expected, and what was more, the character of a lucky vessel, which she got the very first cruise, never left her, and gave her commander and owner, at all times, a choice of hands.

The governor sold the Jonas to the merchants, and took the Martha off Betts’ hands, causing this latter craft to run regularly, and at stated hours, from point to point among the islands, in the character of a packet.  Twice a week she passed from the Reef to the Cove at the Peak, and once a fortnight she went to Rancocus Island.  In addition to her other duties, this sloop now carried the mail.

A post-office law was passed by the council, and was approved of by the governor.  In that day, and in a community so simple and practical, new-fangled theories concerning human rights were not allowed to interfere with regulations that were obviously necessary to the comfort and convenience of the public.