The Pilot | Page 3

those who
know nothing about it. Better would it be to trust to the experience of
those who have long governed turbulent men, than to the impulsive
experiments of those who rarely regard more than one side of a
question, and that the most showy and glittering; having, quite half of
the time, some selfish personal end to answer.
There is an uneasy desire among a vast many well-disposed persons to
get the fruits of the Christian Faith, without troubling themselves about
the Faith itself. This is done under the sanction of Peace Societies,

Temperance and Moral Reform Societies, in which the end is too often
mistaken for the means. When the Almighty sent His Son on earth, it
was to point out the way in which all this was to be brought about, by
means of the Church; but men have so frittered away that body of
divine organization, through their divisions and subdivisions, all arising
from human conceit, that it is no longer regarded as the agency it was
so obviously intended to be, and various contrivances are to be
employed as substitutes for that which proceeded directly from the Son
of God!
Among the efforts of the day, however, there is one connected with the
moral improvement of the sailor that commands our profound respect.
Cut off from most of the charities of life for so large a portion of his
time, deprived altogether of association with the gentler and better
portions of the other sex, and living a man in a degree proscribed, amid
the many signs of advancement that distinguish the age, it was time that
he should be remembered and singled out, and become the subject of
combined and Christian philanthropy. There is much reason to believe
that the effort, now making in the right direction and under proper
auspices, will be successful; and that it will cause the lash to be laid
aside in the best and most rational manner,--by rendering its use
unnecessary.
COOPERSTOWN, August 20, 1829.

THE PILOT

CHAPTER I
"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