“We’ll put a head on him!” &c.  All these expressions being interlarded with oaths and foul language, gave any but a pleasant prospect of what was to be looked for at the hands of these city roughs, who clambered nimbly on to the deck of the Felicit to inquire for my whereabouts.

[New Orleans roughs amusing themselves]

The darkness seemed to shield me from their sight, and my good friend, the skipper of the wood-schooner, did not volunteer much information as they stood upon his forecastle only a few feet above my head.  He told them they were on a fool’s errand, if they came there to ask questions about a man who was minding his own business.  The sailors all backed him, and the cook grew so bold as to consign the whole crowd, without mercy, to a place too hot for ears polite.

Swaggering and swearing, the roughs went ashore to refresh their thirsty throats at a low grog-shop.  Having fired up, they soon returned to the bank of the canal, and, as ill luck would have it, in the darkness of the night caught a gleam of my little white boat resting so peacefully upon the foul water of the canal, made dark and heavy by the city’s drainage.  Then followed verbal shots, with various demonstrations, for half an hour.

The worst fellow in the crowd was a member of a fire-company, and being a city policeman was supposed to be a protector of the peace.  He was very insulting; but I turned his questions and suspicions into ridicule, and, fortunately for me, he so often fell back upon the groggery for strength to fire away, that he was finally overpowered, and was given into the care of his bosom-friend, another blackguard, who dragged him tenderly from the scene.  All this time the cook of the schooner had his hot water in readiness, threatening to scald the roughs if they succeeded in getting down to my boat.

At last, much to my relief, the whole party went off to “make a night of it,” leaving me in the care of my protectors on the schooner, who had been busy deciding what they should do in case of any assault being made on me by the roughs, and showing their brawny arms in a menacing manner when the worst threats reached their ears.

I did not know this at the time, but as I looked cautiously around after the unwelcome guests had left, I saw a watchman standing on the forecastle of the Felicit, looking anxiously to the safety of the little white craft that by a slender cord held on to his vessel.  All through the hours of that long night the kind-hearted master paced his deck; and then, as the sun arose, and the damp vapors settled to the earth, he hailed me with a pleasant “good morning;” and added, “if those devils had jumped on you last night I was to give one yell, and the whole fleet would have been on top o’ ’em, and we would have backed every man’s head down his own throat.”  This wou1d have been, I thought, a singular but most effective way of settling the difficulty, and a novel mode of thinning out the city police and fire department.