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the moment. He was old in his wrinkles and gray hairs, young in the
activity of his mind. He was active and ponderous; a sort of
hippopotamus-monkey. A royalist, certainly; a republican--who knows? a
Catholic, perhaps; a Protestant, without doubt. For Stuart, probably;
for Brunswick, evidently. To be For is a power only on the condition of
being at the same time Against. Barkilphedro practised this wisdom.
The appointment of drawer of the bottles of the ocean was not as absurd
as Barkilphedro had appeared to make out. The complaints, which would in
these times be termed declamations, of Garcia Fernandez in his
"Chart-Book of the Sea," against the robbery of jetsam, called right of
wreck, and against the pillage of wreck by the inhabitants of the coast,
had created a sensation in England, and had obtained for the shipwrecked
this reform--that their goods, chattels, and property, instead of being
stolen by the country-people, were confiscated by the Lord High Admiral.
All the débris of the sea cast upon the English shore--merchandise,
broken hulls of ships, bales, chests, etc.--belonged to the Lord High
Admiral; but--and here was revealed the importance of the place asked
for by Barkilphedro--the floating receptacles containing messages and
declarations awakened particularly the attention of the Admiralty.
Shipwrecks are one of England's gravest cares. Navigation being her
life, shipwreck is her anxiety. England is kept in perpetual care by the
sea. The little glass bottle thrown to the waves by the doomed ship,
contains final intelligence, precious from every point of view.
Intelligence concerning the ship, intelligence concerning the crew,
intelligence concerning the place, the time, the manner of loss,
intelligence concerning the winds which have broken up the vessel,
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