The port regulations were severe, but he was accustomed to exercise individual authority, and beyond an old order issued ten years before, regarding the American ship COLUMBIA, there was no precedent to guide him.

The storm was severe, and a sentiment of humanity urged him to grant the stranger's request.

It is but just to the Commander to say that his inability to enforce a refusal did not weigh with his decision.

He would have denied with equal disregard of consequences that right to a seventy-four-gun ship which he now yielded so gracefully to this Yankee trading schooner.

He stipulated only that there should be no communication between the ship and shore.