Excerpt from The Incidental Bishop: A Novel
"Hard a-starboard!"
The John Wesley turned her slow length; and the two tall cocoa-nut palms on the distant hill-top, which served as seamarks to ships engaged in what was euphemistically called "the Labour Traffic," having been brought into line, she proceeded to steam at a cautious rate into the harbour of Temuka. Its reefs have wrecked many better vessels.
And what a beautifully-chosen name for its purpose, the John Wesley! It smacked of peace and the London Missionary Society. If any meddlesome gunboat of Her Britannic Majesty's fleet, engaged in superintending or suppressing the Labour Traffic aforesaid, had chanced to encounter that long slim steamer, on the prowl after "apprentices," surely the mere sight of the words "John Wesley," legibly carved in gilt letters on her stem, must have disarmed at the first blush the most officious and suspicious of naval officers. The John Wesley, look you! so well-meaning! so innocent! doubtless a vessel engaged in distributing Sunday-School books, and tracts, and cotton pocket-handkerchiefs to the mild but unfortunately heathen inhabitants of those isles of summer.
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