them, while the burden was a heavy charge. The only matter that stands out notably in his official action is his interest in the inhumane treatment of sailors on American ships, and just before he left office he sent a long dispatch to his government in respect to it. His reflections on the subject, which are apposite and sensible enough, are of less interest biographically than a few sentences upon himself in this philanthropic character, which he wrote to his sister-in-law:—
"I do not know what Sophia may have said about my conduct in the Consulate. I only know that I have done no good,—none whatever. Vengeance and beneficence are things that God claims for Himself. His instruments have no consciousness of His purpose; if they imagine they have, it is a pretty sure token that they are not His instruments. The good of others, like our own happiness, is not to be attained by direct effort, but incidentally. All history and observation confirm this. I am really too humble to think of doing good! Now, I presume you think the abolition of flogging was a vast boon to seamen. I see, on the contrary, with perfect distinctness, that many murders and an immense mass of unpunishable cruelty—a thousand blows, at least, for every one that the cat-of-nine-tails would have inflicted—have resulted from that very thing. There is a moral in this fact which I leave you to deduce. God's ways are in nothing more mysterious than in this matter of trying to do good."
