"He began by saying that he hoped no one would suppose he had taken
that station by way of derision or mockery of the holy day, for that
such was not his object; on the contrary he was pleased to find that
the good regulations established by the former prisoners, obliged us
to refrain even from recreation on the Sabbath; that his object,
however, was not to preach to us, nor to discourse upon any sacred
subject; he wished to read us our By-laws, a copy of which he held in
his hand, the framers of which were then, in all probability, sleeping
in death, beneath the sand of the shore before our eyes. That these
laws had been framed in wisdom, and were well fitted to preserve order
and decorum in a community like ours: that his present object was to
impress upon our minds the absolute necessity of a strict adherence to
those wholesome regulations; that he should briefly comment upon each
article, which might be thus considered as the particular text of that
part of his discourse.
"He proceeded to point out the extreme necessity of a full observance
of these Rules of Conduct, and portrayed the evil consequences which
would inevitably result to us if we neglected or suffered them to fall
into disuse. He enforced the necessity of our unremitting attention to
personal cleanliness, and to the duties of morality; he dwelt upon the
degradation and sin of drunkeness; described the meanness and atrocity
of theft; and the high degree of caution against temptation necessary
for men who were perhaps standing on the very brink of the grave; and
added that, in his opinion, even sailors might as well refrain from
profane language, while they were actually suffering in Purgatory.
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