"
"And apply your moral by erecting yet another!"
"Fairly retorted. Yet how can you object without turning the sword
of Liberty against herself? Have you never heard tell, by the way,
of Captain Byng's midshipman?"
"Who was he?"
"I forget his name, but he started his first night aboard ship by
kneeling down and saying his prayers, as his mother had taught him."
"I commend the boy," said my uncle.
"I also commend him: but the crowd of his fellow-midshipmen found it
against the custom of the service and gave him the strap for it.
This, however, raised him up a champion in one of the taller lads,
who protested that their conduct was tyrannous: 'and,' said he, very
generously, 'to-morrow night I too propose to say my prayers.
If any one object, he may fight me." Thus, being a handy lad with
his fists, he established the right of religious liberty on board.
By-and-by one or two of the better disposed midshipmen followed his
example: by degrees the custom spread along the lower deck, where the
dispute had happened in full view of the whole ship's company, seamen
and marines; and by the time she reached her port of Halifax she
hadn't a man on board (outside the ward-room) but said his prayers
regularly.
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