The Massachusetts spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1821-1823, 1821-08-01
From the Pennsylvania Correspondent
STORY OF a SAILOR.

There is no class Of the community
whose peculiar trait of character is so
little known, apprehend, as that of the
sailor--a wandering colony of people.
They live under government and laws
of their own-their home is upon the
water-their employ to roam round the
world. There is no cline, however
distant, which they have not visited-no
sea, however perilous, they have not
navigated. The shivering blasts of the
poles, and the burning rays of the torrid
zone, to them are alike familiar like the
element upon whose bosom they are
borne. Their canvas floats on every
shore, waiting with them the produc-
tions of every country, and of every peo-
pie upon the habitable globe-a so
journer upon no particular spot, but
citizen of the wide world itself. The
knowledge he accumulates is not drawn
from books, but derived from an inter-
course immediately with his fellow man.
10 every situation, and wherever he is
found, of the mind Of an old seaman it
may be emphatically said, that it is
store-house well filled with facts-a his
tory of the most surprising adventures,
imminent dangers, and hair-breadth es-
capes.
There is something SO daring, and at
the same time so ludicrous, in an adven-
ture which one of these sons of Nep-
tune related to me some time since,
that, were it not from personal knowl-
edge OF the author, | should hesitate at
once to accredit it. He informed me,
some years ago he made a voyage to
the HAVANA, in the West-Indies, which
belongs to the crown of Spain. The
subjects of this country, as is well known,
have ever refused to be divorced from
the Holy Catholick mother Church, and
until this day they are welded in the
frmest attachment to all the ceremonies
and superstitions of the Romish hierar-
chy. While the vessel lay in port, dis
charging her outward and receiving a
return cargo, he took it into his head,
although perfect stranger in the island,
to wander away one Sunday morning, to
indulge an idle curiosity, and to behold
objects which he never beheld before.
1t happened, as he was passing by the
Cathedral of ST. Nicholas, which stands
near the centre of the city, during the
hours of divine service, he was all at
once stopped by the deep and solemn
tones of the majestick organ, which,
ningling with some hundred voices
within, broke forth from every door and
window of the building in musick of the
most sublime and enchanting harmony,
and fell in delightful strains, upon the
raylshed ear of our admiring and aston
ished tar. For some time he paused
and listened with the deepest attention,
and then stepped aside into the church,
and quietly took a seat among the con-
gregation. 1t was almost the first time
he ever beheld building of the kind
he was, therefore, naturally struck
with the novelty of the worship, and
the magnificent ard costly deccra--
tons of the place. After the assembly
broke up, he returned to his vessel,
meditating upon the gorgeous furniture
which had lined the mteriour, of this
temple of the Most High, and the sol-
emn mockery which he considered he
had just been an eyewitness to. New
prospects now opened TO his view he
began to revolye in his mind how he
might at once amass a fortune, and re-
turn to the beloved land of his home
loaded down with wealth, to enjoy at
last, in the evening of his life, that So
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. easy affluence-the
great end and object of all his tolls and
all his wanderings. About the altar of
the chapel which he had Just visited,
stood statue of solid gold of the Virgin
Mary. To carry of and bring in tri..
umph to his native country lady so re-
.nowned, so adored, and, what was better
than all, so valuable, ard in his estima-
ton so desirable, filled him with the
most lively and pleasing anticipations,
and now engaged the whole of his
thoughts. and soon became his. serious
determination. He looked upon it, he
said, as no sacrilege--on the contrary.
as an act of pious larceny-or rather, as
a duty he owed to his Maker, TO rid his
sacred courts of such an heathenish and
offensive idol. From the moment he
beheldthe statue Of the blessed Virgin, he
was good for nothing TO work. Labour
to him before was never irksome
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