book into the hands of one of them, who candidly owned he could neither

read nor write; the other acknowledged the same degree of ignorance,

but pretended to speak the Greek lingo with any man on board; and,

addressing himself to me, pronounced some sentences of a barbarous

corrupted language, which I did not understand. I asserted that the

modern Greek was as different from that spoken and written by the

ancients, as the English used now from the old Saxon spoke in the time

of Hengist: and, as I had only learned the true original tongue, in

which Homer, Pindar, the Evangelists, and other great men of antiquity

wrote, it could not be supposed that I should know anything of an

imperfect Gothic dialect that rose on the ruins of the former, and

scarce retained any traces of the old expression: but, if Doctor

Mackshane, who pretended to be master of the Greek language, could

maintain a conversation with these seamen, I would retract what I had

said, and be content to suffer any punishment be should think proper to

inflict. I had no sooner uttered these words than the surgeon, knowing

one of the fellows to be his countryman, accosted him in Irish, and was

answered in the same brogue; then a dialogue ensued between them, which

they affirmed to be in Greek, after having secured the secrecy of the

other tar, who had his cue in the language of the Morea, from his

companion, before they would venture to assert such an intrepid

falsehood. “I thought,” said Oakum, “we should discover the imposture

at last. Let the rascal be carried back to his confinement. I find he

must dangle.” Having nothing further to urge in my own behalf, before a

court so prejudiced with spite, and fortified with ignorance against

truth, I suffered myself to be reconducted peaceably to my

fellow-prisoner, who, hearing the particulars of my trial, lifted up

his hands and eyes to Heaven, and uttered a dreadful groan: and, not

daring to disburden his thoughts to me by speech, lest he might be

overheard by the sentinel, burst forth into a Welsh song, which he

accompanied with a thousand contortions of face and violent gestures of

body.