I am satisfied with what the Crown allows me,
altho' that, in my situation in this expensive country, is small
enough, yet, my lord, I am satisfied, nor do I conceive it
consistent with the dignity of my office to endeavour in any way
whatever to gain more, were it even in a less censurable manner
than that which has been mention'd. Let me live upon bread and
water with a pure and unpolluted conscience, a fair and
respectable character, in preference to rolling in wealth obtained
by such infamous, such shameful, such ignominious means as this
letter-writer alludes to."
It is a long while ago since this letter was written by a rough old
sailor, and its quaint wording may raise a smile, but Hunter was very much
in earnest; and if his failure to govern convicts and "officers and
gentlemen" who traded in rum is to count against him, leaving but a
contemptuous pity for a weak old man as an impression on the mind, go back
to his sea-days, when he fought the crazy old _Sirius_ through a hurricane
to bring food to these shore-people, and remember him for this closing
anecdote of his life:--
In 1801, soon after his arrival in England, Hunter [Sidenote: 1801-1821]
commanded the _Venerable_ (74). He was cruising off Torbay, when a man
fell overboard. Hunter attempted to put the ship about to pick him up; she
missed stays, ran ashore, and became a wreck.
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