A rather slight novel on two sailors during the War of 1812.
p. 20: THE two seamen had returned to their lodgings, (a respectable private boarding house in Cherry street,)where they were quietly seated after supper, in a neat and well furnished room. The young seaman was engaged in reading aloud for his companion, for although the elder was a prime seaman, yet, unfortunately, his education was exceedingly limited; a circumstance by no means strange or singular, considering the length of time he had pursued a sea life, and the narrow facilities of acquiring an education in the days of his boyhood.
p. 252: “ There is no want of instruction, if seamen will receive it; for in all our seaports there are men who are appointed for that especial purpose, viz. to distribute Bibles, tracts, and other good books , and impart such advice, to which if seamen will only adhere and follow, as will make them better men, and what is infinitely more important, it will make them wise unto salvation.” This grave and serious conversation made a deep impression on the boatswain, so that during his confinement, which was not of long duration, he frequently interrogated the young seaman, in regard to these, and other subjects of a similar nature.
p. 364: After the storm had abated, and the minds of the prisoners had become somewhat tranquillized, there might have been seen two men, sitting composedly in one of the mess berths, deeply interested in a book, which the younger of the two was reading aloud, to his most attentive listener; they were so much absorbed, that for some moments they took no notice of the loud and extravagant expressions of joy, which rang throughout the prisons, and all over the prison-yard; nor were they entirely aroused until a loud peal resounded through the air like rolling thunder, in three cheers, from more than three thousand human beings, immediately after which one of the prisoners entered with a newspaper, and read with stentorian lungs, the overwhelming and joyful intelligence, that “Peace was proclaimed between America and England.”