Yes--beyond a doubt I was on board a slave-ship--one regularly fitted up
for the inhuman traffic--manned for it. I might also say armed--for
although there were no cannon, I observed a large number of muskets,
cutlasses, and pistols, that had been brought upon the deck from some
secret hiding-place, and distributed to the men to be cleaned and put in
order. From all this it was plain that the _Pandora_ was bent upon some
desperate enterprise, and although she might not sustain a combat with
the smallest vessel of war, she was determined that no mere boat's crew
should capture and rob her of her human freight. But it was to her
sails more than to her armour that the _Pandora_ trusted for success;
and, indeed, built and rigged as she was, few ships of war could have
overhauled her in open water, and with a fair wind.
I say that I no longer doubted of her true character. Indeed the people
on board no longer made a secret of it. On the contrary, they appeared
to glory in the occupation, regarding it in the light of achievement and
enterprise. Over their cups they sang songs in which the "bold slaver"
and his "jolly crew" were made to play the heroic, and many a coarse
jest was uttered relating to the "black-skinned cargo."
We had now passed to the southward of Gibraltar Straits, and were
sailing in a track where there would be less likelihood of falling in
with English men-of-war. The cruisers, whose sole business it is to
look after the slave-trade, would be found much farther south, and along
the coasts where slaves are usually shipped; and as there was no fear of
meeting with them for some days to come, the _Pandora's_ crew had little
else to do than enjoy themselves. A constant carousal, therefore, was
kept up, and drinking, singing, dancing, and "skylarking" were practised
from morning to night.
You may be surprised to know that a ship so evidently fitted out for
slave-traffic could have thus openly and directly sailed out of a
British port. But it is to be remembered that the period of which I am
writing was many years ago; although so far as that goes, it would be no
anachronism to lay the scene of my narrative in the year 1857. Many a
slave-ship has sailed from British ports in this very year, and with all
our boasted efforts to check the slave-trade it will be found that as
large a proportion of British subjects are at present engaged in this
nefarious traffic as of any other nation.
The attempt to put down the African slave-trade has been neither more or
less than a gigantic sham. Not one of the governments who have engaged
in this scheme of philanthropy have had more than a lukewarm interest in
the matter, and the puny efforts they have made have been more for the
purpose of pacifying a few clamorous philanthropists, than with a real
design to stop the horrid traffic. For one slave-ship that is captured
at least twenty pass free, landing their emaciated thousands upon the
shores of the western world. Nay--worse than ever--the tyrant who, with
railroad speed, is demoralising the millions of France, lends his
ill-gotten power to re-establish this barter of human souls, and the
slave-trade will ere long flourish as luxuriantly as ever.
It would have been an easy matter for Great Britain long since to have
crushed out every vestige of the slave-trade, even without adding one
item to her expenditure. What can be more absurd than the payment of
300,000 pounds to Portuguese slave-merchants to induce them to abandon
the traffic in slaves? Why it is a positive premium upon crime--an
indemnity for giving up the trade of pillage and murder! I say nothing
would have been easier than for England to have put an end to the very
existence of this horror years ago. It would only have required her to
have acted with more earnestness, and a little more energy--to have
declared that a slave-dealer was a pirate, and to have dealt with him
accordingly--that is, hanged him and his crew, when taken, from the
yard-arm of their ship--and there was not a nation in the world that
would have dared to raise voice against such a course. Indeed it is a
perfect absurdity to hang a pirate and let a slaver escape: for if it be
admitted that a black man's life is of as much value as a white man's,
then is the slaver doubly a murderer, for it is a well-known fact, that
out of every slave cargo that crosses the Atlantic, full one-third
become victims of the middle passage. It is, therefore, a positive
absurdity to treat the captain and crew of a slave-ship in any milder
way than the captain and crew of a pirate ship; and if a like measure of
justice had been constantly served out to both, it is but natural to
suppose that slavers would now have been as scarce as pirates are, if
not a good deal scarcer. How the wiseacres who legislate for the world
can make a distinction between the two sorts of ruffians is beyond my
logic to understand, and why a slaver should not be hanged as soon as
caught is equally a puzzle to me.
In years past this might have been done, and the slave-trade crushed
completely. It will be more difficult now, since the despot of France
has put the stamp of his licence on the inhuman trade, and the
slave-dealer is no longer an outlaw. It would be a very different
affair to hang to the yard-arm some French ruffian, bearing his
commission to buy souls and bodies, and under the signature of imperial
majesty.
Alas, alas! the world goes back; civilisation recedes--humanity has lost
its chance, and the slave-trade goes on as briskly as ever!
I was too young at the time of my first voyage to moralise in this
philosophic manner; but for all that I had imbibed a thorough disgust
for the slave-trade, as, indeed, most of my countrymen had done. The
period of which I am speaking was that when, by the laudable efforts of
Wilberforce and other great philanthropists, our country had just set
before the world that noblest example on record--the payment of twenty
millions of sterling pounds in the cause of humanity. All glory to
those who took part in the generous subscription. Young as I was, I
like others, had heard much of the horrors and cruelties of the
slave-trade, for at that time these were brought prominently before the
public of England.
Fancy, then, the misery I experienced, at finding myself on board a ship
actually engaged in this nefarious traffic--associating with the very
men against whom I had conceived such antipathy and disgust--in fact
myself forming one of the crew!