Oh, ye needn’t worry, I’ll have back at ’em. Just mark my words. And when I does, it’ll be Frost what gets it first, ye can be sure o’ that. No man raises his hand to Nehemiah Grimes without getting it returned tenfold. Justice and liberty, that’s what I’ll be having. Like what that feller John Wilkes been preaching in London. A man’s got no goddamn rights nor priv’leges no more, he says, and don’t us poor seamen know it! Our own cap’n leaves us here with a sickly middie and along comes another and takes us up like so many wharf rats. No justice and no liberty, just like Wilkes says. More’s the pity ’cause we had us as sweet a watch here as any man could ask. The run o’ the town and no one barking at us or flicking them ropes. Only the three of us and as much rum as we could hold. Plus that lively widow woman when the fancy took. Just the thing for a man who’s been a-sea these long months. But it were too good to last, weren’t it?
