" "A storm, you fool you,"
replies he; "do you call that a storm? why, it was nothing at all;
give us but a good ship and sea-room, and we think nothing of such
a squall of wind as that; but you're but a fresh-water sailor, Bob.
Come, let us make a bowl of punch, and we'll forget all that; d'ye
see what charming weather 'tis now?" To make short this sad part
of my story, we went the way of all sailors; the punch was made and
I was made half drunk with it: and in that one night's wickedness I
drowned all my repentance, all my reflections upon my past conduct,
all my resolutions for the future. In a word, as the sea was
returned to its smoothness of surface and settled calmness by the
abatement of that storm, so the hurry of my thoughts being over, my
fears and apprehensions of being swallowed up by the sea being
forgotten, and the current of my former desires returned, I
entirely forgot the vows and promises that I made in my distress.
I found, indeed, some intervals of reflection; and the serious
thoughts did, as it were, endeavour to return again sometimes; but
I shook them off, and roused myself from them as it were from a
distemper, and applying myself to drinking and company, soon
mastered the return of those fits - for so I called them; and I had
in five or six days got as complete a victory over conscience as
any young fellow that resolved not to be troubled with it could
desire.
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