light. In the afternoon he roused himself a little, took a look out of the cabin-windows, got out his desk, and wrote steadily for an hour; and superscribing several letters, directed one of them in words, that in the distance, looked very much like my name. This was suspicious. I saw that he had made up his mind to something-what was it? What could it be but suicide? It was clearly my duty to prevent this, or at any rate to give him a longer time to think about it; so just at sunset I called Jack and the boy, and went down into the cabin. I at once addressed myself to the criminal, told him plainly my suspicions; told him that I knew he intended to throw himself overboard; and that as I was determined he should do no such thing, at least for the present, I had come to the resolution of putting him in irons;-he started, appeared for the moment somewhat astonished, but readily submitted without saying a word.

The next morning we were spoken by a brig, which proved to be a United States man-of-war, five days out from Porta Prayo, in the island of St. Jago, and bound for the Chesapeake. The first lieutenant came aboard of us, and after hearing my story, took me back with him to see his captain, who decided at once to transfer Mr. Clark to his vessel, and carry him home for trial. At the same time he loaned me three active fellows, to supply his place, without which I could not have got along at all, seeing that my third man was likely to be, for some time, confined to his berth. When all was arranged, we filled-away and stood on in company, both being bound for the capes of the Chesapeake. The man-of-war, however, out-sailed us, and it was not until a week after her arrival that I got in with the Moresco. In the meantime Mr. Clark had been handed over to those who had jurisdiction on shore; and as soon as we arrived all hands were ordered up as witnesses, and preparations for his trial at once commenced. Somehow or another they were not as long about such kind of things then, as now. The lawyers were not so expert in staving off cases and bamboozling judges; and the juries just as leave hang a man as look at him, if he had fairly thrust his head in the noose. There has been a change

since then, whether for the better or worse, I can't say, but I suppose for the better. The truth is, I've seen so many changes, that in the beginning I was a little dubious about, turn out so well in the end, that I'm determined never to say anything new is wrong again. Why, I've seen the time when I've thought that a ship was no ship unless her shrouds were cat-harpened in as tightly as the ribs of a Broadway belle. I've turned up my nose at chain-cables, and d- -ned the lubber's eyes who first dared to lead the maintopmast stay anywhere else than to the head of the foremast; but if I was at anchor on rocky ground, off a leeshore, wouldn't I like to have iron ground-tackle to hang by? or if a heavy lurch whipped out my foremast, wouldn't I be glad that my maintopmast stay wasn't fastened to the head of it? No, no, the world is not so perfect yet that one could wish it to stand still. There are cat-harpens on the shrouds of society that would be well to get rid of; and there are many improvements in the mode of setting up and rattlingdown the standing-rigging; why, it is only within a short time that it has been found that the great national ark carries her spar easier when you slacken the stays; and that in working to windward you must not round-in the leebraces too taught, or what you make up in pointing you'll lose in going ahead.

"Well, well," continued the captain to his auditors, "I see that you think that I am going rather large; but just wait a minute till I put my helm down, and brace up again once more, and I'll weather the whole story in half the shake of a shark's tail.

"It is not necessary to go into a long account of the trial. Suffice it to say, that my evidence, light as I could make it, was heavy against the prisoner. I was compelled to testify to the bad blood between him and the dead manthe words and sounds I heard that night

the splash in the water-the attitude of Clark over the bulwark- the blood and hair found on the deck and rail. But if my evidence was hard, Jack's was still harder: he swore that the mate had told him, two or three times, that he, the mate, would have Bill's life.' He swore that, not more than three minutes before the row, he

heard Mr. Clark ask Bill for his sheathknife; that shortly, he heard the mate sayD-n you, I'll murder you;', that there was a scuffling and the sound of two or three blows, and a cry of murder, to which he should have paid no attention, had it not have been for the low and peculiar tone in which it was uttered; that, upon this, he sprung upon deck, and saw the mate in the very act of lifting the body over the quarterbulwark.

"The evidence of the sick man, boy and cook, was all, as far as it went, to the same effect; and by the time it was all in, it was all up with Mr. Clark-he didn't need a long speech from the district attorney to finish him; without that, he stood no more chance for his life than a flying-fish does among a school of dolphins. The jury brought him guilty, after about fifteen minutes' deliberation, and next day the judge sentenced him to be hanged."

"And was he hanged?" demanded one of the group of listeners, as the captain paused in his story.

"Certainly," replied the captain; "they put a rope around his neck, and, knocking out the platform from beneath him, left him dancing the pirate's jig upon nothing. He kicked and struggled for a long time; but I suppose that made the sight more instructive—a greater moral lesson. Oh! he was hanged by the neck until he was dead, for I saw the body afterwards."

“And it served him right,” exclaimed the gentleman who had been the advocate of capital punishment in the recent dispute "served him right; it was a clear case of murder."

"Yes, it was a clear case-a very clear case; and yet, to my certain knowledge, there was no murder about

it."

"How so?" exclaimed a dozen voices. "Do you think that he did not mean to kill the sailor?"

"I don't think at all; I know. I know not only that he did not mean to kill the man, but that no man was killed."

An expression of increased interest now escaped the group, which gathered up closer around the narrator.

"Listen," he continued, "and I'll just reel off my yarn, and whip the fagend of it in half a minute.

"It was about five years afterwards that I took a cargo of tobacco to Gibral

tar, to supply the contrabandistas, who, under the broad and powerful shield of the English flag, make the Rock a depot for goods to be smuggled into Spain. Well, I was ashore one day, attending to the sale of some goods at auction in Commercial Square, when, among the sailors who were loitering about, I saw one whose face struck me as being very familiar, but whose name I could not recollect. He passed on, and I should have thought no more about it, such things being common enough, had there not been something in the fellow's look that struck me as being very peculiar, and induced me to pause and think where I had seen him. Suddenly, a recollection of the Moresco business came over me like a blaze of sheet lightning in a dark night. That's either Bill, Bill's twin brother, his ghost, or the devil,' said I, as I jumped from a tobacco hogshead, and almost knocked down the American Consul, and fairly running over two Moors, three Jews, and a jackass, took after the sailor, who was still in sight. As I came up with him, he turned, and I could see at once that he recognised He touched his tarpaulin, took my offered hand, and called me by name; there could be no doubt that he was the identical Bill.

me.

"I suppose, captain,' said he, that you thought that I had gone to Davy Jones' long ago; but you see I'm alive and flapping. How have you been this long time? how is my old friend, Mr. Clark ?'

"Mr. Clark said I, Mr. Clark was hanged!'

"Hanged! the d-1! why that's worse luck than I ever wished him. I only expected that his watch would pitch him overboard some dark night. But what was he hanged for?'

"For murdering you.'

"For murdering me!' exclaimed Bill, in astonishment; and I had to repeat the assertion, with an account of the whole affair, to convince him of its truth. And now,' said I, 'how is it that I see you alive?'

"We walked out upon the bastion, and took a seat upon the banquette, when Bill began his story, which it would be tiresome to tell in his words. The amount of it was, that he had frequently threatened Mr. Clark that he would jump overboard, and that he had nearly

made up his mind several times to do so; that he came on deck that night, feeling sore from a recent flogging, and somewhat excited by drink, which he and Jack had bribed the old cook to steal from the cabin; that for some time Mr. Clark had the helm, and that after asking for his knife and returning it again, Mr. Clark ordered him to take the wheel to which he, Bill, replied that it was not his turn yet, and that he, the mate, might lash it or leave it, and be d-ned. Upon this, the row commenced. Mr. Clark jumped at him, struck him a blow in the face, and knocked him down; and that, in falling, his knife came out of the sheath, and, getting under him, inflicted a wound in his side; that, as soon as he could get upon his feet, maddened by rage, pain, and drink, and reckless of life, but anxious to spite Mr. Clark, he had jumped upon the bulwark, resolved to throw himself into the sea; that Mr. Clark seized him, and endeavored to drag him on board; and that it was Mr. Clark's voice that cried for help. With a sudden effort, Bill tore from the mate's grasp, and sank into the water. In falling, he struck his head in the main chains, and for a long time was insensible. Upon coming to himself,

the love of life returned, and induced him to exert his powers as a swimmer to sustain himself upon the surface. He kept up until just at daylight, when, his strength being quite spent, he saw a large ship bearing down upon him. She came so close as to hear his feeble hail, and lowering a boat, picked him up and took him on board, where rest and kind nursing soon restored him to strength. The wound in his side was slight, and healed up completely before the ship reached Liverpool. Since that time Bill had been knocking about the world from various ports, until at last his luck had brought him to Gibraltar; and there he stood before me, a living proof of the fallibility of human testimony, and the danger of relying upon circumstantial evidence.

"I don't want to see any more hanging matches,' said the captain, after a pause, drawing a piece of cavendish from his pocket, and politely tendering it to his auditors: I don't want to see any more great moral lessons preached from the gallows or the yard-arm;' and twisting off a piece of the dainty weed, the captain marched off, with the conscious air that always marks your habitual raconteur, when he thinks that he has told a story in point.

Nov. 1845. Feb. 1846.

Total.......

Immediate means.

Specie....
Cash items...

Total... Loans...

The apprehensions of a serious drain of specie, which were entertained in the early part of the fall, were not realised, as the winter progressed-a circumstance which arose partly from the stringent action of the banks themselves; and also from the fact, that last year the diminution of specie, which amounted to $2,100,000, was occasioned, in some degree, by the large drafts of the government, to provide for the debt which fell due, January 1st, 1845. This action of the government operated to a far less extent this year; and the curtailment of the banks, from Nov. to February, was not nearly so great as in the corresponding period of the preceding year; and the expansion of the banks is greater now than in February, 1845. The excess of immediate liabilities over immediate means, is now $41,500,000, against $71897,000 of loans, or 60 per cent. In February, 1845, the excess of immediate liabilities was $36,500,000, against $66,883,098, or 55 per cent. From the steadiness of the general market, however, the comparative absence of speculation, and the continued watchfulness of the banks, the loans are of a character much superior to those which, in former years, endangered the solvency of the institutions, not so much in consequence of their excessive amount, as from the fact, that they represented fictitious property; and the system of renew als became customary, from inability to

realize money. The loans of the banks are now active, and a long and severe pressure for specie, from any cause, would produce rather a liquidation than a sudden stoppage. Mercantile enterprise is in abeyance, not alone on account of political causes, but because a new era in the history of commerce is about to take date. The great problem of free trade is about to be solved. The hopes of one party, and the baseless fears of those who have long clung to the theory of protection, are about to be tested. England, the greatest commercial nation of modern times, and the one with which the United States has the greatest connection, is about to throw open her doors to the free movement of provi sions and goods; and the United States will respond to the reductions that she makes in taxes on imports. New and hitherto untried elements are, therefore, about to enter into the operations of commerce; and, sound as may be the principles of legislation now to be acted upon by both governments, the natural flow of business is checked at their first adoption. The future holds out much of promise; but the new channels of business about to be opened, are not as yet familiar to the mercantile public. It is probable that the next news which reaches here, from England, will be, that the large reductions proposed by the minister, in the duty on corn, and the removal of those on American

provisions, will have taken place; and this amelioration will have occurred at a time when the stock of food, resulting from the last harvest, known to have been deficient, will be daily diminishing in quantity and advancing in value. Every succeeding week's consumption will require a larger proportion of food of foreign growth. The situation of the grain markets of Europe, at this juncture, is such as to give the United States almost the monopoly of supplying the demands of England; and the large trade in provisions, which sprung up betwen the United States and England, as a consequence of the amelioration of the English tariff of 1842, will receive a new impulse; more particularly if the proposed reductions in the United States tariff take place in October next, admitting in return the proceeds of the produce sold abroad. Perhaps, however, the greatest effect of the proposed change will be evinced in the article of cotton. It has long been an acknowledged law of the cotton trade, that whenever food in England is dear, the consumption of that article, as well as of most other comforts, is singularly diminished, and the price falls in consequence; and vice versa, when food is cheap the consumption increases, and the price of the raw material rises throughout the south. This being a known and regulating principle in the course of the cotton trade, every well-informed dealer governs himself with reference to the state of the harvest. In view of this cardinal fact, the corn-laws of England, operating, as they do, to maintain a high price for food, must be regarded as enactments against the consumption of cotton, and their repeal be looked upon as the permanent removal of a cause which has pro

duced, occasionally, the most disastrous revulsions and the greatest losses on this side of the Atlantic. The repeal of the corn-laws is advocated avowedly with the view of ensuring a permanent cheapness of food; and, as a consequence, of an uninterrupted improvement in the cotton trade. The means by which this cheap food is to be ensured, is to allow the superabundant produce of the American states to flow in, to the extent necessary to make up the requisite supply for British consumption, and thereby to draw from the western states of America sufficient food to keep down the prices in England, as a means of enhancing her purchases of the great staple of the south; or, in other words, the more grain she buys of the west the greater sum must she pay the south for its cotton. This effect upon cotton must also be enhanced by the operation of the trade upon the west. Thus, with the removal of the present prohibitive tax upon cotton goods, a large variety of cotton fabrics, now not consumed at all in this country, because they are not made here, and their import is prohibited, will enter into the uses of the people at large, and at the moment when this cheap supply comes to hand, their ability to buy it will have been created by the large sales of their own produce to England. The enhanced consumption in this country, that may be brought about by these means, will probably equal 200,000 bales. The comparative consumption of cotton in Great Britain and the United States, for a series of years, affords singular evidence of the degree in which the consumption of cotton goods in the U. States has been stifled by the high prices and prohibitive taxes. The consumption of cotton in Great Britain has been as follows: