CHAP. VI.

The Defcription of Phelim Macvalor, firft Lieutenant of the * and Mr. Probit, the second; their different Difpofitions, together with the Defcription of Parfon Pugh the Welch Chaplain, and Sandy Macpherfon the Scotch Surgeon; the like of which four are not to be found in any other Hiftory.

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ESIDES this Captain defcended of noble Blood, there was his firft Lieutenant of Forty-five, an Irishman, who Five-and-twenty Years before had been made a Lieutenant by his old Commander at Sea, for difcovering and exerting as much Courage, as ever had fallen to the Share of any one Man.

INDEED he wanted a few Qualifications which are more neceffary than Knowledge in his Profeflion and Courage, to promote a Man in the Fleets and Armies of Great-Britain.

Ir was not Honefty, for he was Probity itself; it was not Courage nor Humanity, for he never turned his Back on Friend or Foe, having never fought in any Engagement where he did not conquer; and he had mortgaged his Commiflion and Half pay a whole Year, to relieve a Friend from a Jail, though he had a Wife and four Children who had no other Provifion to live on: In fhort it was not a Deficiency in any of thefe Virtues which are to be found in moral Writers, but of thofe more modern ones which are Inmates of a Minifter's Heart, and have expelled the reft from Human Society.

IT feems this odd Fellow had an utter Averfion to an Informer, and contemned alike the Giver and Receiver of Bribes; he had perfuaded his Father to vote for the Country Intereft, in chufing a Representative for a Town in his Country; and fwore he would rather go to the Bottom, than Old Ireland fhould fink an Inch under Water, or be deferted by his Family : And for this antiquated Notion of his he would have been difmiffed the Service, but that the Honourable Captain Charles Bounce, knowing that Lieutenant

Mac

Mic Valor's Courage was not of the local Kind, had by his own Intereft preferved him his Commiffion; in fhort, this Man had nothing against him, but preferring his Country to minifterial Views, and nothing in his Favour but understanding his Profeffion as well as the best Officer in this or any other Nation, Goodnature, great Courage, and Understanding; which Qualifications in Oppofition to the firft, have but little Weight; indeed there was one more, that additional one of fometimes ufing a favourite Figure of his own Nation: fuch were the Excellencies of Lieutenant Phelim Mac Valor.

BESIDES this Gentleman, the fecond Lieutenant was the Son of a Gentleman of a noble Family, whole Father (a fecond Brother) had fpent his Fortune in Gaiety, and whofe Uncle who had but one Son poffeffed the Title and the paternal Effate, which was very confiderable; he was affable and modeft, neither feared Danger nor courted it, he never vaunted of his Courage or fought a Quarrel, gave or refused a Challenge; was of a genteel Figure and amiable Prefence; his Understanding, though not that of a Genius, was of the firft Degree of the fecond Rate; befides this he was a good School-fcholar; he was the Favourite of Lieutenant Mac Valor, and not much beloved by the Captain: It feems that noble Commander had a fmall Sufpicion that Lieutenant Probit had penetrated the true State of his Mind, and that he did not believe him abfolutely that Hero which he wished to be thought by every one of the Ship's Crew.

To thefe Gentlemen there is to be added a very refpectable Perfon, who was no less than Chaplain on board the ****** He was defcended of a Line of Gentlemen, whofe Title to that Honour no one has ever dared to difpute: His true Name was David ap Hugh, running backwards in aps for a thoufand Generations, now commonly called David Pugh. This Divine was a Man of very exemplary Life and Converfation: He had taken his Rudiments in Literature on a certain Mountain in Brecknockshire, which, tho' the Parnaffus of that Country, was not fo much frequented as the Grecian, and therefore Mr. David

Pugh

Pugh had the whole Hill to himself, excepting the Goats, who loved to browze thereon.

In his early Youth he was a great Lover of Learning, and either at fourteen or fifteen Years old, we will not be too pofitive in fuch material Circumstances, by dint of great Application, had attained the great Art of reading a Chapter in the Bible without spelling the Words before Hand; which being the first Inftance of Reading in this ancient Family, and looked upon as a very fingular Phænomenon by his Parents in this Country, his Father and Grandfather, and Mother and Grandmother, and all his Relations, were resolved he fhould be brought up in the Service of the Church.

Now, in this Part of the World, a Univerfity Education is by no means neceffary for those who are destined to holy Orders: It feems there is a medium Kind of Creature, known only to this Country, between a Divine and Layman, fomething like a Mule amongst Animals, which is diftinguished by the Name of Parfon, with this Difference, that the latter propagate their Species, and the former not.

MR. David Pugh was of this Kind; and had been introduced into the Miniftry of Holy Things, by the Bishop of St. Davids, who once a Year, at his Palace at Aborguilly, fets up a Manufactory of this Kind of middle Beings.

THE Requifites neceffary for the Admiffion of fuch Men into Holy Orders, are only a good Knowledge in the old British Language, and to read English; but to do Juftice to Parfon David Pugh, he was a much deeper Scholar than is ufually found amongst the Order of Parfons, and had befides thofe two, a very pretty. Knowledge of Lilly's Accidence, and could write a legible Hand.

His first Preferment in his Profeffion was a Curacy of five Churches, for doing the Duty of which, he received from his Rector the Sum of ten Pounds a Year; but as the Parfon had upon this Encouragement prefumed too much, married a young Wife, and gotten fix Children, this Sum, which tho' it might have been a very genteel Support for a Gentleman and his Lady, was rather too fcanty for the Addition of fix

Children;

Children; he had therefore added fome other Studies and Occupations to that of Divinity and Preaching; and thus by Dint of playing the Welch Harp at the Wedding of thofe Couples in the Evening, which he had married in the Morning, felling a Cup of good Ale to his Parishioners, and keeping a School, he had procured a very confiderable Income, being not lefs, in the whole taken together, than that of twenty-five Pounds a Year.

IN the Village where this Parfon had made his Abode, there dwelt two Gentlemen of very different Difpofitions and Designs, the Justice of Peace and the Excifeman.

Thomas Jones, Efq; was the Name of the first, and John Popkins the Name of the second.

THE Squire, tho' a Justice of the Peace, and had taken the Oaths of Allegiance to the King upon the Throne, had ftill a fmall Inclination remaining for the Stuarts; and the Exciseman was a moft ftaunch Whig, for the fame Reason that there are fo many in England, on account of a certain Salary of fifty Pounds a Year hand-paid him by his Majesty.

Now these two Gentlemen, like two great Families in a County, being of different Opinions, were great Rivals, and divided the whole Village. The Parfon being extremely Orthodox, inclined in Principle to the Juftice, but as a Seller of Ale, he was obliged to ftifle that Propensity before the Exciseman; for this Reason, he never refused to pledge his Majefty's Health in a Bumper with the Excifeman, nor that of the Pretender with the Juftice, and thus feemed alike inclined to each Party.

FROM this Situation, it happen'd that Ale and Intereft pulling one way, Confcience and Principle the other, the Parfon was held fo equally in Sufpence, that he was always unvarying of the Opinion of that Gentleman, of thefe two, with whom he happened to be prefent; this had begotten a kind of Servility in his Behaviour, not a little improved by his fix Days Occupation of drawing Ale alfo.

AT length it happened, that a near Relation, his Mother's Brother's eldeft Daughter's Sitter's Son's

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Niece,

Niece, being a waiting Woman at my Lady Mand a great Favourite of my Lord's alfo, which laft Intereft the mostly relied on, had obtained the great Poft of Chaplain of a Man of War for Parfon David Pugh. This then had placed the Parfon in the happy Situation which we have defcribed, as Chaplain on board the *****

THERE remains at prefent of the Crew no more. than one, whom we conceive to be worth our Notice, and this was Sandy Macpherfon, who had been a Pounder in an Apothecary's Shop, at the great School of Phyfic in Edinburgh, where in two Years he had attained a very competent Knowledge in Pharmacy and Surgery.

THIS Gentleman, having ftrong Recommendation to the Duke of *** tho' he was fomewhat deficient in the Questions which were asked him at Surgeon's Hall, was yet pafs'd as accomplished by the Examiners who prefided, influenced not a little thereto by fome Hints received from a certain Quarter; he was therefore appointed Surgeon of the ****

BESIDES this Recommendation, he had a Perseverance not easily attained by those who study South of the Tweed; and indeed, by difguifing what he did not know, in citing the Names of Authors he had never read, and making the most of what he did know, with a certain Shrewdnefs of Behaviour, pretty natural to the North, he was not a little esteemed, by those who had never ftudied the Profeffion, as a most confummate Surgeon. His particular Ambition was that of writing a Treatise on the Nature of GunShot Wounds, a Subject untouch'd by that Nation, as it ought, he faid; for this he had prepared every Thing but Obfervation and Practice, the Pen, Ink, Paper, and the like of that, being all in his Cheft.

SUCH then were the Officers of the * *

which we shall only have an Occafion to name in this future Hiftory, perhaps bringing in the Surgeon's Mate, Gunner and Boatfwain on certain Occafions, like Affaffins in Tragedy, or Footmen in Comedy, without confidering them as Perfons of the Drama, or inferting their Names in the first Page.