The gentlemen laughed with the amused Eve, and Mr. Effingham remarked, that "there did seem to be men so perfectly selfish, so much devoted to their own interests, and so little sensible of the rights and feelings of others, as to manifest a desire to render the press superior to all other power; not," he concluded, "in the way of argument, or as an agent of reason, but as a master, coarse, corrupt, tyrannical and vile; the instrument of selfishness, instead of the right, and when not employed as the promoter of personal interests, to be employed as the tool of personal passions."
"Your father will become a convert to my opinions. Miss Effingham," said John, "and he will not be home a twelve-month before he will make the discovery that the government is a press-ocracy, and its ministers, self-chosen and usurpers, composed of those who have the least at stake, even as to character."
Mr. Effingham shook his head in dissent, but the conversation changed in consequence of a stir in the ship. The air from the land had freshened, and even the heavy canvas on which the Montauk was now compelled principally to rely, had been asleep, as mariners term it, or had blown out from the mast, where it stood inflated and steady, a proof at sea, where the water is always in motion, that the breeze is getting to be fresh. Aided by this power, the ship had overcome the united action of the heavy ground-swell and of the current, and was stealing out from under the land, when the air murmured for an instant, as if about to blow still fresher, and then all the sails flapped. The wind had passed away like a bird, and a dark line to sea-ward, denoted the approach of the breeze from the ocean. The stir in the vessel was occasioned by the preparations to meet this change.
The new wind brought little with it beyond the general danger of blowing on shore. The breeze was light, and not more than sufficient to force the vessel through the water, in her present condition, a mile and a half in the hour, and this too in a line nearly parallel with the coast. Captain Truck saw therefore at a glance, that he should be compelled to anchor. Previously, however, to doing this, he had a long talk with his mates, and a boat was lowered.