Chapter 1

"Sullen waves, incessant rolling,
Rudely dash'd against her sides."
_Song_

A single glance at the map will make the reader acquainted with the
position of the eastern coast of the Island of Great Britain, as
connected with the shores of the opposite continent. Together they form
the boundaries of the small sea that has for ages been known to the
world as the scene of maritime exploits, and as the great avenue through
which commerce and war have conducted the fleets of the northern nations
of Europe. Over this sea the islanders long asserted a jurisdiction,
exceeding that which reason concedes to any power on the highway of
nations, and which frequently led to conflicts that caused an
expenditure of blood and treasure, utterly disproportioned to the
advantages that can ever arise from the maintenance of a useless and
abstract right. It is across the waters of this disputed ocean that we
shall attempt to conduct our readers, selecting a period for our
incidents that has a peculiar interest for every American, not only
because it was the birthday of his nation, but because it was also the
era when reason and common sense began to take the place of custom and
feudal practices in the management of the affairs of nations.

Soon after the events of the revolution had involved the kingdoms of
France and Spain, and the republics of Holland, in our quarrel, a group
of laborers was collected in a field that lay exposed to the winds of
the ocean, on the north-eastern coast of England. These men were
lightening their toil, and cheering the gloom of a day in December, by
uttering their crude opinions on the political aspects of the times. The
fact that England was engaged in a war with some of her dependencies on
the other side of the Atlantic had long been known to them, after the
manner that faint rumors of distant and uninteresting events gain on the
ear; but now that nations, with whom she had been used to battle, were
armed against her in the quarrel, the din of war had disturbed the quiet
even of these secluded and illiterate rustics. The principal speakers,
on the occasion, were a Scotch drover, who was waiting the leisure of
the occupant of the fields, and an Irish laborer, who had found his way
across the Channel, and thus far over the island, in quest of
employment.

"The Nagurs wouldn't have been a job at all for ould England, letting
alone Ireland," said the latter, "if these French and Spanishers hadn't
been troubling themselves in the matter. I'm sure its but little reason
I have for thanking them, if a man is to kape as sober as a praist at
mass, for fear he should find himself a souldier, and he knowing nothing
about the same."

"Hoot! mon! ye