"You persistently over-insure your ships, year after year.

Look at the _Leopard_; it is put at more than twice what she was worth as new.

And the _Black Eagle_, I dare say, is about the same.

Yet you never have an accident with them, while your two new uninsured clippers run each other down." "Well, what more can I do ?" replied the merchant "They are thoroughly rotten.

I have done nothing for them for years.