mariner, with hand upon abdomen, called upon the Flag-staff to
witness that there were more _hot coppers_ in the Neversink than
those in the ship's galley.

Such are the lamentable effects of suddenly and completely
releasing "_the people_" of a man-of-war from arbitrary
discipline. It shows that, to such, "liberty," at first, must be
administered in small and moderate quantities, increasing with
the patient's capacity to make good use of it.

Of course while we lay in Rio, our officers frequently went
ashore for pleasure, and, as a general thing, conducted
themselves with propriety. But it is a sad thing to say, that, as
for Lieutenant Mad Jack, he enjoyed himself so delightfully for
three consecutive days in the town, that, upon returning to the
ship, he sent his card to the Surgeon, with his compliments,
begging him to drop into his state-room the first time he
happened to pass that way in the ward-room.

But one of our Surgeon's mates, a young medico of fine family but
slender fortune, must have created by far the strongest
impression among the hidalgoes of Rio. He had read Don Quixote,
and, instead of curing him of his Quixotism, as it ought to have
done, it only made him still more Quixotic. Indeed, there are
some natures concerning whose moral maladies the grand maxim of
Mr. Similia Similibus Curantur Hahneman does not hold true,
since, with them, _like cures_ not _like_, but only aggravates
_like_. Though, on the other hand, so incurable are the moral
maladies of such persons, that the antagonist maxim, _contraria
contrariis curantar_, often proves equally false.