CHAPTER XIX.
"The world's all title-page; there's no contents; The world's all face; the man who shows his heart, Is hooted for his nudities, and scorned." _Night Thoughts_ Bolt had not been tried.

His case had several serious difficulties, and the orders allowed of a discretion.

The punishment could scarcely be less than death, and, in addition to the loss of a stout, sinewy man, it involved questions of natural right, that were not always pleasant to be considered.

Although the impressment of American seamen into the British ships of war was probably one of the most serious moral as well as political wrongs that one independent nation ever received at the hands of another, viewed as a practice of a generation's continuance it was not wholly without some relieving points.

There was a portion of the British marine that disdained to practise it at all; leaving it to the coarser spirits of the profession to discharge a duty that they themselves found repugnant to their feelings and their habits.