April 25th.--Taking the deposition of sailors yesterday, in a case of
alleged ill-usage by the officers of a vessel, one of the witnesses was
an old seaman of sixty. In reply to some testimony of his, the captain
said, "You were the oldest man in the ship, and we honored you as such."
The mate also said that he never could have thought of striking an old
man like that. Indeed, the poor old fellow had a kind of dignity and
venerableness about him, though he confessed to having been drunk, and
seems to have been a mischief-maker, what they call a sea-preacher,--
promoting discontent and grumbling. He must have been a very handsome
man in his youth, having regular features of a noble and beautiful cast.
His beard was gray; but his dark hair had hardly a streak of white, and
was abundant all over his head. He was deaf, and seemed to sit in a kind
of seclusion, unless when loudly questioned or appealed to. Once he
broke forth from a deep silence thus, "I defy any man!" and then was
silent again. It had a strange effect, this general defiance, which he
meant, I suppose, in answer to some accusation that he thought was made
against him. His general behavior throughout the examination was very
decorous and proper; and he said he had never but once hitherto been
before a consul, and that was in 1819, when a mate had ill-used him, and,
"being a young man then, I gave him a beating,"--whereupon his face
gleamed with a quiet smile, like faint sunshine on an old ruin.
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