These proceedings occupied a considerable time—a matter of preconcerted importance, as the suspicion was entertained that slaves were concealed below, and that soon the danger of impending suffocation would reveal the fact. Our chief took up a position near the main hatchway, and listened anxiously for the slightest indication. Various manœuvres were tried to get him away without success. The Brazilians were beginning to appear impatient; and on board the Rattler, whence, by telescopes, the proceedings were watched with deepest interest, the hopes of even the most sanguine were becoming faint, when Captain Cumming was observed to start, and point to the deck. He had heard the stifled sound of intolerable agony rise from below his feet, like a peal of distant thunder. The slaves were suffocating from want of air, and their dread of their jailers was extinguished in the immediate struggle for life.
In a moment, the American perceived that the game he had been so skilfully playing was lost, and his assumed coolness deserted him. In a voice choked with emotion, he rapidly uttered: 'She is a Brazilian. I am not the captain; this is,' pointing to a tawny Portuguese at his elbow.
'Haul down the flag, and hoist her proper colours.'
Down came that ensign, polluted by the traffic it protected, amid the cheers of our men, which made the welkin ring.
'Don't let the poor devils die,' cried the stout American mate, actuated by the generosity of the race he sprang from, which his degrading employment could not wholly stifle. Assisted by our men, who had jumped out of the boat, the hatches were soon removed, exposing to view a mass of human misery which, being once seen, must remain impressed on the memory for ever—the naked bodies of men, women, and children, writhing in a heap, contorted, gasping for air, sinking from exhaustion, and covered with sweat and foam. The darkness which surrounded them only deepened the shades, without concealing a single feature; whilst the dense and sickening steam which curled heavily up from the reeking mass, made it a picture too horrible to contemplate, and one the minute details of which must be left to haunt the memory of those who were unfortunate enough to witness it.
First one and then another endeavoured to ascend, but with a strength unequal to the task, they fell back into the mephitic abyss. Our men rushed forward to their aid, and catching hold of their imploring hands, placed them upon deck. There, prostrate and indiscriminately huddled together, they gradually recovered from the effects of that terrible confinement, where 547 human beings were, without a breath of fresh air, kept for above two hours crushed together in a space only about three feet in height, and with a superficial extent not equal to that of their bodies, unless in a sitting position! The ordeal proved too much for the vital energy of above twenty, who perished one by one during the next fortnight or three weeks, without having felt the blessing of freedom.
An officer with a few men were immediately placed in charge of the prize, and navigated it to St Helena. The slaves, when there, are declared free, but upon conditions such as render it generally necessary for them to emigrate to the West Indies, to become, let us hope, happy and useful members of a British colony.
The Brazilians and American crew were taken on board the Rattler, and conveyed back to Ambriz, from thence, in all probability, to return to their horrible trade, in the hope of being more successful on another occasion. The captain was seen a few months afterwards, in another American vessel, returning from the Brazils, prepared, in all likelihood, to play a similar game with better success from the lesson he had received. The opportunity afforded us of observing the character of these men, produced a more favourable feeling towards them than was at first sight entertained. Several pleaded honourable motives for the degraded position in which they felt themselves placed, and nearly all would have done credit to a more respectable calling.
Our gallant chief's calculations were found to have been rigidly correct. That night after we left them, they believed that a boat would be detached to watch their movements; they therefore anchored, and waited for daylight. When that arrived without an enemy in sight, they felt secure.
The slaves, worn out by previous marching and counter-marching to shipping places, where their embarkation was prevented by the vigilance of our cruisers, rendered it almost a matter of necessity that they should now be taken on board. Their bodies had been galled and emaciated by the chains they carried, by the slender store of dry farina—the only food provided for them—and by the precarious and scanty supply of water obtainable on the arid plains or in the tangled forests they had traversed. The first canoe-load was taken alongside the ship about four o'clock in the afternoon, and in an hour the whole were on board. This is reckoned the most favourable time for getting under-way, as darkness enables them to leave the land without danger of being observed.
The preceding is a faithful picture of one of the melancholy incidents belonging to the hateful traffic in slaves. Let us hope that the time has at length nearly arrived which has been so long waited for, when we may say with truth, it is abolished; leaving only the memory of it to darken the page of history, and remain a moral lesson to mankind.
THE 'ADVOCATE' AND ITS AUTHOR
Literary talents and habits are fortunately not always dissociated from world-like conduct and skill in affairs. We have now become familiar with a class of men who, while cultivating even the more flowery fields of the Muses, are not on that account the less distinguished in their professional walks, or by the active part they take in the great practical movements of the age. The public, which does not readily admit of two ideas respecting any one man, is apt to lose sight of the literary in the worldly merit; but the former does not the less exist, and perhaps in time it will be equally acknowledged. We regard Mr Cox, author of the book under notice, as a remarkable example of the union of the man of affairs with the author. We learn, from a local record,1 that he rose, about twenty years ago as an attorney in a western town, and took an active part in the fervid political doings of 1830-31. Ambitious of higher professional honours, he removed to London, and entered at the bar. In the course of eight or nine years, he has proceeded from one adventure to another, till he is now one of the most multiform of men. Not merely does he follow a strictly professional course as a barrister, but he conducts several periodical works of a laborious nature—the Law Times (newspaper), the Magistrate, the County Courts' Chronicle, and a series of Criminal Law Cases. For the preparation of these works, he has a printing establishment, the management of which would be a sufficient occupation for most men. It gives work to 250 persons, and 10,000 business accounts are kept in it. As if all these engagements were not enough, Mr Cox has established the well-known literary periodical work (fortnightly) the Critic. The conducting of a work designed to report upon the current literature of the day is perhaps one of the most delicate of tasks, for the critics necessarily are themselves authors, are the friends and enemies of authors, and are of course liable to all the usual fallacies which beset human judgment. Hence it is that we see one such work lose credit through its universal benevolence, and another rush to the opposite extreme, of asserting independence by an unvarying tone of rancour and dissatisfaction—obviously a not less unjust course both to literary men and the public, and in the long-run, equally sure to destroy the credit of the men who adopt it. Amidst the difficulties proper to such a task, we believe the Critic has hitherto steered a comparatively irreproachable course, keeping mainly in view a faithful and painstaking account of every book submitted to its notice, and neither trading upon the smiles nor the groans of authors. Of a warm and cordial nature, and with an intense love of literature, he seems to have known how to encourage genius, even while pointing to its errors; and, if we may judge by the internal evidence of the work itself, he has succeeded in rallying round him many of the high and generous spirits of the time. The Critic is distinguished by a more than usual proportion of thought, and by very little of the small superficial cant of criticism.