I doubted not that when my case was represented to him he would grant me some relief, especially as Captain Bacon had recommended me to his care.

I had heard nothing from him in the Infirmary.

He was notified, officially, of my discharge; and as vessels were every day leaving Liverpool for Boston and New York, I expected to be immediately provided with a passage to one of those ports.

But when days passed away, and I seemed to be forgotten, I mounted my crutches one morning and hobbled off through the crowded streets to a distant part of the town, in quest of an interview with the consul, intending to solicit that assistance to which every American citizen in distress was entitled.
With some difficulty, for Liverpool is not a rectangular town, I found the counting room of the consul, into which I boldly entered, confidently anticipating not only relief but sympathy for my misfortune.
My appearance was not prepossessing, as my garments, although of the true nautical cut, were neither new nor genteel; and although I was in perfect health, my complexion was sallow from long confinement.
But these drawbacks on my respectability, I thought, under the circumstances, might be excused.

I found myself in a comfortable apartment in which two or three young men were writing at desks, one of whom, a dapper little fellow, dressed with as much precision and neatness as if he had just escaped from a bandbox, came towards me with a stern, forbidding look, and asked me what I wanted.
"I want to see the American consul." "The consul is not in." "When do you expect him ?" I inquired, in a tone of disappointment.
"'Tis uncertain.