> I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from
> Boston, being becalm'd off Block Island, our people set about catching
> cod, and hauled up a great many.  Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution
> of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider'd, with my
> master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder,
> since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might
> justify the slaughter.  All this seemed very reasonable.  But I had
> formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the
> frying-pan, it smelt admirably well.  I balanc'd some time between
> principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were
> opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I,
> "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you."  So I
> din'd upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people,
> returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet.  So
> convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables
> one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

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License: Project Gutenberg License