o’clock every day the drums beat, and they played what they called ‘The
roast beef of old England.’ In the mornin’ the revelie beat and six
cannon was fired from the fort, and if any armed ships lay in the harbor
they answered ’em; and every single hour in the night we could hear the
sentinel’s heavy tread on the Rock, and his cry, ten o’clock and all’s
well, eleven o’clock and all’s well, &c., and so he kept it up all
night. Some on ’em told me they’d had distressed times round the old
Rock afore this. About the time of our Revolutionary War the French and
Spaniards leagued together and got hundreds of ships and thousands of
sogers together, and battered away at the old fort, and shot more _red
hot_ cannon balls agin it than you could shake a stick at; but they only
went ‘_bum, bum_,’ and shivered the Rock a little, and fell down into
the sea, and they attacked the fort on the land side and worked away
there, day arter day, but they didn’t hurt a hair of the old Rock’s
head, and finally they agreed to quit it.—Why Sir, all the nations on
the globe could not take that fort. The English will always have it till
the end of the world. Well I looked up through the straits, and it did
look beautiful; I could see the African shore; yis, the same Africa
where so many millions of my poor brothers and sisters had been stole
and carried off into slavery—oh! I felt bad. Well, we sold our load of
provisions to the governor of the Rock, and bought a few things and
started for England.
“When we’d been out four days we was chased by a privateer, and once
they got in a quarter of a mile on us, but we had the most canvass, and
we histed the sky scrapers, moon rakers, and star gazers, and water
sail, and a good wind. But they fired on us all the time they was near
enough. They chased us two days, and then we fell in with a French
frigate, and they hailed us, and wanted to know if we’d seen a privateer
along the coast, and so the captain told all about it and they gin three
cheers and bore away arter her.
“In a few hours we heard a dreadful cannonadin’, and a great cloud of
smoke riz out of the sea, and we concluded they’d overhauled her, and we
left her in good hands. We sailed on for Bristol, and arter we’d been
there five days, the news come that a French frigate had captured a
Spanish privateer, but didn’t take any of her crew, for no sooner than
they found themselves taken than they blew up their ship.
“We stayed in Bristol some time, and started at last for New York. On
our passage out, we come across a wreck, and we sailed within forty rods
on her, and sent out a small boat, and there warn’t a livin’ soul aboard
to tell the story, and there she lay bottom side up, and as handsome a
copper bottom as ever you see; but we couldn’t do any thing with her,
and so we left her and sailed on.
“About a week arter, we was a sailin’ along afore a pleasant breeze, and
the moon shinin’ on the waters, and they looked like melted silver, the
first thing we knew up come a seventy-four gun ship right alongside, her
guns run out, and men standin’ with burnin’ torches jist ready to fire,
and we felt streaked enough, for we expected to be blown up every
minute, and there we stood a tremblin’ and didn’t dare to say one word;
and she passed right by and never fired a pistol, and in one minute she
was out of sight—she come and she went and that’s all you can say. Now
that’s what the sailors call ‘_the phantom ship_.’ You see there’s no
ship about it, only some curious appearances on the sea, that always
scares sailors, and makes them think they are a goin’ to be captured.
Well, we had a fine v’yge home, and made the New York light the first of
November, arter a cruise of nearly twelve months. I didn’t like Captain
Williams, and I quit him, and he paid me off one hundred and fifteen
dollars, and I had now two hundred and fifty dollars, and I kept it
safe. And a part of the time I went round New York with a saw-buck on my
shoulder, and part of the time I was a gentleman at large in the big
city—and so I spent that winter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III.
Peter sails for Gibralter with Captain Bainbridge—his character—horrible
storm—Henry falls from aloft and is killed—a funeral at sea—English
lady prays—Gibralter and the landing of soldiers—a frigate and four
merchantmen—Napoleon—Wellington and Lord Nelson—a slave ship—her
cargo—five hundred slaves—a wake of blood fifteen hundred
miles—sharks eat ’em—Amsterdam—winter there—Captain B. winters in
Bristol—Dutchmen—visit to an old battle field—stories about
Napoleon—Peter falls overboard and is drowned, _almost_—make New York
the fourth of July—Peter lends five hundred dollars and loses it—sails
to the West Indies with Captain Thompson—returns to New York and
winters with Lady Rylander—sails with Captain Williams for
Gibralter—fleet thirty-seven sail—cruise up the Mediterranean—Mt.
Etna—sails to Liverpool—Lord Wellington and his troops—war between
Great Britain and the United States—sails for New York and goes to sea
no more—his own confessions of his character—dreadful wicked—sings a
sailor song and winds up his yarn.
_Peter._ “The next spring in the fore part of May, I saw Captain
Bainbridge on the Battery, and he hails me and says, ‘don’t you want a
berth for a summer v’ge? I says, ‘yis Sir,’ and then we bargains about
wages; and I was to have twenty-five dollars a month, and he told me to
go to the Custom-house in the mornin’; and so I did, and several others
he’d seen, and we all hired out, and he gin me a steward’s perquisites
and twenty-five dollars a month. So we goes aboard his fine new ship
jist built in New Bedford, and ’twas one of the best I ever see; and she
was to sail in a week on Monday, and all on us agreed to be aboard, by
ten o’clock; and by ten o’clock all on us was there to a man, and we
received our orders, and they was mazin’ strict, for he was the
strictest captain I ever sailed under, but a fine feller with all—sound,
good hearted and a hail feller well met.
“We all hands stood on deck, and a sight of passengers, and we’d bid our
wives and sweethearts all farewell, and at twelve o’clock, noon, we
weighed anchor for Gibralter. The pilot took us out to sea—she was a
little steamboat, for only two or three years afore this, Fulton got his
steamboat invented on the Hudson. Well she left us ’bout three o’clock
and bid us all ‘good bye;’ and a nice evenin’ breeze sprung up, and we
spread all sail and cut the waves like any thing. And so ’bout midnight
I goes on deck, and looked and looked ashore, but the shore of my
country was hid, for we’d moved on so brisk, it had disappeared. We had
a beautiful time till we’d sailed eight days; and one day afterwards the
breeze grew stronger, and the moon shone and played over the waters,
till it looked like silver; and such an evenin’ I hardly ever see be at
sea.
“Well next day, at one o’clock, a dark awful cloud riz up out of the
northeast, and it got so the lightnin’ played along the edge of the
cloud pretty briskly afore it covered the sun. The thunder rattled like
great chariots over a great stone pavement. Captain orders all hands to
their posts, and begun to reef and make all fast, and cover the hatches,
and prepare for a storm. Finally the cloud covered the whole face of the
heavens, and the captain says ‘attention all hands! Now fellow sailors
be brave, we’ve got a new ship and her riggin’ will slack some, and we
don’t know how she’ll work; but stick to your posts, and by the help of
God, we’ll weather the storm.’
“Well the storm increased, and we kept a reefin’; for you see I used to
be ’bout as much of a sailor as any on ’em, and in a storm there warn’t
much to be cooked till ’twas over. And I quit the caboose, and was in
the riggin’ and all round the sap works till it abated. While we was a
takin’ a double reef on the main sail of the mizzen mast, there was a
boy by the name of Henry Thomson, the captain’s boy, who went up aloft
with an old sailor, to larn to take a reef-plat, and by misfortune, one
of the foot-ropes gin way, and the little feller _fell_ and struck on
the quarter-deck railin’, and left part of his brains there, and his
body went overboard; and we was agoin’ so fast, we couldn’t ’bout and
get him, and we had to leave the poor feller to find companions in the
deep. _Oh! he was a noble boy_ and I felt so arter it, that I always
thought of this varse of an old sailor song.
‘Days, months, years, and ages, shall circle away,
And still the vast waters above thee shall roll,
Earth loses thy pattern, for ever and aye,
Oh! sailor boy! sailor boy! peace to thy soul.’
“Well we sailed on, and the storm increased till midnight; and oh! how
the ocean did look! It seemed as though it was all a blaze of fire, and
the ship couldn’t keep still one second. She pitched and tumbled about
like a drunken man, and yit every thing held as strong as iron; and so
’bout one o’clock at night, the storm passed off ’bout as quick as it
had come, and as soon as any light appeared in the heavens, the captain
says, ‘cheer up boys! the storm is agoin’ over and all hands to _bunk_,
only the watch.’
“In the mornin’ it was as clear and pleasant as clear could be, only the
sea was dreadful rough; for you know it takes the sea a good while to
git calm arter a storm; but we gits breakfast and she grows kind’a
calmish, and then the captain comes on deck and tells one of the hands
to go and git a canvass sack and sow it up, and put a stick in it, and a
cannon ball at each end; and then he orders a plank lashed to the side
of the ship, with one end slantin’ down to the water, and calls ‘all
hands ‘tention,’ and then asks, ‘is there any body aboard that feels as
though he could pray?’ And it was as still as death, and all looked at
one another, and nobody answered; for you see in all that company of
’bout fifty, nobody could pray to his God. And all was awful, for I tell
ye what ’tis Domine, it’s a pretty creepy feelin’ gits hold on a body,
if they knows that nobody round ’em can pray! ☜
“But in the suspense there steps out an elderly English lady, and she
said ‘Let us pray! Oh! thou who stillest the waves, &c.’ And so she went
on and if she didn’t make the best prayer I ever heard afore or since,
and she made a beautiful address to us, and she did talk enough to move
the heart of a stone, and with tears in her eyes; and she reproved us
for _swearin’_ so. And while she was a talkin’ and prayin’ so, there lay
the like of that beautiful boy cold in death, and I tell ye it made us
_cry some_ and _feel a good deal_. Well we made as though we put Henry
in that sack, and put him on the plank, and let him slide off into the
ocean, and when he sunk it seemed as though my heart went into the sea
arter him.
“Well the spot where his brains lay there on the deck, stayed there as
long as I stayed aboard that ship; and I used to stand there and watch
it at evenin’, and cry and cry; and I guess if all the tears I shed had
been catched, they’d a filled a quart cup; but I couldn’t help it, for
he was a noble boy, and I loved him like a brother. But we sailed on and
left Henry behind us, and the thoughts on him sometimes checked our glee
and sin, but only for a little while, and all on board soon forgot him,
only me. But oh! how I did love that boy. ☜
“Well we made Gibralter in thirty-six days from New York, and as we
lowered sail and cast anchor under the old fort, they fired six cannon
over our mast, and the English officer comes aboard, and three of his
aids, and the ship and cargo and all her writings was examined, and
findin’ all right side up, he gin us permission to come ashore and do
business; and the governor bought our load of provisions for the navy
sarvice, and we got an extra price ‘case ’twas _scarce_; and while we
lay there, there was four English gun-ships of the line come in
freighted with soldiers from Plymouth, in England, and they was under
the convoy of Admiral Emmons; and they left their soldiers and took some
on the rock, and when they come in sight, if there warn’t some music and
some smoke. All the instruments used in the English navy was played on
the ships, and they fired gun arter gun, from the ships to the fort, and
the fort to the ships, and every round they fired, they beat the English
revelie, and oh! how them cannon shook the ship under us, and the smoke
was so thick, you could fairly cut it; and so they kept it up, and I
tell ye they had jolly times enough.
“Next day they begun to land their recruits, rank and file by companies,
and as one company from the ship marched up the rock to the top of the
fort, another company from the rock would march down aboard the ship,
and in this way we see a heap on ’em landed and shipped. And there stood
the Royal band all day in plain sight; and they was all colored folks,
and _they felt good tu_, and every time they landed they’d fire a
broadside from the fort, and shelter ’em with smoke; and every time a
company of the fort’s soldiers come aboard the ship, they’d cover ’em
with smoke; and put it all together, it was by all odds the handsomest
sight I ever see in my travels.
“Well, two days arter this, ’bout nine o’clock in the morning, the
cannon begun to blaze away from the old fort agin’, and we concluded we
was agoin’ to have some more _doin’s_, and I up on deck and looked and
looked, and bim’by I see a large frigate comin’ up leadin’ four
merchantmen with flying colors, and she blazed back agin’, and when she
got into the harbor, the seventy-fours in port opened their mouths
agin’, and so we had it pretty lively.
“These merchantmen were loaded with provisions for the navy; oh! what a
heap of folks there was in that Rock!! Our captain says ‘boys, they’ve
bought our cargo, but I don’t s’pose ‘twould make a mouthful apiece for
’em.’ And what an expensive establishment that English army and navy is!
“We stayed there at the Rock a good while, and these merchant vessels
went out under the protection of these navy ships, to victual the
English fleet there; and we heard a good deal ’bout Napoleon and Lord
Wellington. They was all the talk, and Wellington was all the toast; and
their armies was a shakin’ the whole ‘arth, and ships and armies agoin’
and comin’ all the time; and there Lord Nelson, he was at the head of
the English navy, and he was a great toast; and every day the papers
would come and fetch stories of battles on land and at sea, till I was
as sick on ’em as I could be. It seemed to be nothin’ but a story of
blood all the time; and Europe and all the ocean was only jist a great
buryin’ and murderin’ ground; and, for my part, I never thought much of
these ’ere great wholesale murderers, as I calls Bonaparte, Wellington,
and Lord Nelson, and sich like sort of fellers. Why, Domine, I should
think, from all accounts I heard at the time, and arter it, that they
must have killed all of five millions of folks, in all that fightin’
agin Napoleon. Oh! it’s a cruel piece of business to butcher folks so;
and yit, nevertheless, notwithstanding, them same men _was_ toasted, and
_be_-toasted _now_ all over the world, and it makes me sick of human
natur’; and if I am a black man, I hate to see respectable people act
so.
“Finally, arter a long stay, we hauled up anchor for Port Antonio. One
day a man aloft cries out ‘ship ahoy.’ The captain looks through his big
glass and says, ‘bear down on her helmsman;’ and when we got nigh
’nough, the captain hails her; ‘what ship?’
“‘Torpedo.’
“‘What captain?’
“‘Trumbull.’
“‘Where from?’
“‘African coast.’
“‘Where bound?’
“‘America.’
“‘Can I come on board you?’
“‘Yes.’
“So he bears down and lays too, and I, ‘mong the rest, went aboard. The
captain treats us very genteel; and when they’d finished drinkin’
Captain Trumbull orders the hatch open, and I looked down, and to my sad
surprise I see ’twas crowded with slaves. The first thing I see was a
colored female, as naked as she was born into the world, and she looked
up at me with a pitiful look; and an iron band went round her leg, and
then she was locked to an iron bolt that went from one end of the ship
to the other; and _there was five hundred slaves down in that hole_;
men, women, and children, all chained down there, and among ’em all not
one had a rag of clothes on,—and not a bit of daylight entered, only
that hatch-way, and then only when they opened it to throw out the dead
ones, or else feed ’em; and when I put my head over the hole, a steam
come out strong ’nough to knock down a horse, for there they was in
their own filth, and oh! how they did smell. There was several women
that had jist had children, and a good many sick, and there they was,
and oh! what a sight,—some on ’em was cryin’ and talkin’ among
themselves, but I couldn’t understand a word they said; and there was a
parcel of leetle fellers, that was from two to ten years old, a runnin’
round ‘mong ’em, and some on ’em was _dead_, and you could hear the
_dyin’ groans of others_. Oh! I never did think a body of folks could
suffer so and _live_. Why, how do you think they sat? They all sat down
with their legs straddled out right up close agin’ one another, and they
couldn’t stir only one arm and hand, _for all else was chained_.
“I felt worse, I ‘spose, and it was entirely more heart-rendin’ to me,
because they was my own species; they warn’t only human bein’s but
_Africans_. ☜ Oh! if I didn’t hate slavery arter this worse than ever;
why! it seemed to me a thousand times worse than it ever did afore, when
I was a slave myself.
“Well, the captain said he started with eight hundred, and three hundred
had died on the v’yge! ☜ and he’d only been out ten days, and that’s
mor’n one an hour; and that he had to keep one hand in there nigh upon
half the time, to knock off the chains from the dead ones, and pitch ’em
upon deck; and, says he, I have left a wake of blood fifteen hundred
miles; for, no sooner than I fling one out than a shark flies at him and
colors all the water with blood in less than one minute; why, says he,
‘a shoal of sharks follows our slave ships clear from Africa to
America!!’ _Oh! my soul, if there is one kind of wickedness greater, and
worser, and viler, and more devilish and cusseder than any other, it is
sich business._ ☜
“The slave captain asked our captain if he thought he could git into
America? He told him he didn’t think he could. ‘How long do you
calculate to be in that business?’ says Captain Bainbridge.
“‘I can’t tell, Sir.’
“‘Well, Sir,’ says our captain, as he left the ship, ‘I advise you to
clear up your ship when you git into port, and quit that cussed traffic,
and go aboard a merchantman, and be a gentleman.’[13] And he didn’t like
it nother’![14] Well, we left, and boarded our own ship; but that scene
of blood I couldn’t forgit! I could see them poor crutters, for a good
many days, in my thoughts and dreams; and sometimes I could see ’em jist
as fresh and sorrowful as ever. Hundreds and hundreds of poor slaves,
now at the South, are their descendants; and, like enough, you see some
on ’em Mr. L.——, when you was at the South; and I know how to pity the
descendants of them that’s fetched over in slave ships, for one of my
grandfathers was fetched out in one, as I told you in the beginnin’ on
my story.
Footnote 13:
All over the world slavery, in all its forms, is repugnant and
offensive to noble and generous feeling: and every where, in all ages
and nations, oppression and this unholy traffic meet with a just
rebuke. Man’s better feeling will revolt from cruelty and injustice
until they are extinguished.
Footnote 14:
Of course he didn’t “like it.” It never did please the devil to be
reproved of his evil deeds. It don’t please Southern soul-dealers and
soul-drivers to be rebuked.
“Well, we made Port Antonio in three weeks, and stayed there thirteen
days, and got a cargo, and then the captain says ‘boys, we shall have a
rough passage home, if we go this fall, it’s so late, for we stayed a
good while over the brine, and now who will hold up hands for staying
till next spring?’
“So all on us up with both hands, and we hauled up anchor for
Amsterdam—that’s in the Dutch country—and we made port in four weeks;
and when we’d been there ’bout a fortnight, the captain got a letter
from his uncle, James Bainbridge, who was in Bristol, and wanted him to
come there and winter with him, for he was a sea captain, tu. So he
leaves his ship in our hands, and makes the first mate captain, and we
had to obey all his orders; and the captain starts and says, ‘farewell
boys, keep ship safe till you see me, and I’ll write to ye often, and
let you know how I cut my jib.’ And we see no more on him till airly
next spring.
“Well, we had all the fun on shore and aboard we could ask for. White
and black, we was all hail fellers, well met. We used to have a heap of
visiters aboard, to hear ’bout America. We’d have an interpreter to tell
our stories, and almost make some of them smoking, thick-skulled
Dutchmen b’lieve that America flowed with milk and honey, and that pigs
run ‘round the streets here with knives and forks in their backs, cryin’
out ‘eat me.’ I used to be a pretty slick darkey for fixin’ out a story,
tu, and a big one ’bout America; and then some white man would set by my
side and put the edge on, and ‘twould go without any greasin’; and the
captain used to say, always, that if any deviltry was agoin’ on, Pete
was always sure to have a finger in the pie. Well, we used to talk a
considerable ’bout the wars they was a havin’ in the old countries, at
that time, and they said they could take us up to a place, a few miles
from there, where there had been a great battle, sometime afore; and for
curiosity, we all went up to see it. Well, we goes, and finds thirty or
forty acres, and there wasn’t a green thing on it, and ’twas covered
with bones and skulls, and all kinds of balls and spikes, and bayonets,
and whole heaps of bones, and I guess you never see so melancholy a
place in all your life. Oh! it made me sick of war to see thousands and
thousands of human bein’s a bleachin’ on the sand. And it seemed that
the ground where that battle was fit, wouldn’t let any green thing grow
there, and I don’t b’lieve any green thing grows there till this day.
And there we was, a hearin’ every day ’bout Bonaparte, and his killin’
his thousands, and his takin’ this city and that city, and his
conquerin’ this gineral and that gineral; but Lord Wellington give him a
tough heat on the land, and Lord Nelson on the sea; but the world see
_terrible sorry times_ for a few years, while that Napoleon was a
runnin’ his career.
“Well, captain got back to Amsterdam the first of April, and on the
fourteenth we weighed anchor for New York. Well, come the sixth day I
guess, at evenin’ arter I’d done all my work, and was a settin’ on the
railin’ rother carelessly, the boom jibed and struck me on the top of my
head, and the first I knew I was pitched head first into the brine. I
fell into the wake and swum as fast as I could, and when I riz on the
wave I could see the ship and her lights, and then when I went down in
the troughs I lost sight of her, and I begun to feel kind’a streakish I
tell ye. But pretty soon a rope struck me on the head, and I grabbed and
hung on, and the hands aboard drew, and finally I got up pretty near,
and the first I knew, and ’bout the last I knew, a wave come and plunged
me head first right agin _the starn_, and that made all jar agin’ and I
see mor’n fifty thousand stars; but I hung on, and they drawed me up
aboard, and when I come fairly tu, the captain comes along and says:—
“‘Nig? where you ben?’
“‘Ben a fishin’, Sir.’
“‘Yis, and if you’d come across a good shark, you’d catched a nice fish
wouldn’t you?’
“And when he spoke ’bout that, it scart me, for I begun to realize my
danger, and I begun to be afeard when ’twas tu late, and I trembled jist
like a leaf.
“But I’ll hurry on. We made the New York light after a long v’yge, and
was kept on quarantine a good while, and on the mornin’ of the fourth of
July, when the bells was a ringin’, and the boats was a flyin’ through
the bay, and the guns from the Battery and Hoboken was a soundin’ along
the bosom of the Hudson, all independence; and we landed and jumped
ashore, and I think I never in all my life felt sich a kind of a gush of
joy rush through all my soul, as I did when I heard them bells ring, and
them guns roar; and this free nigger jumped ashore and celebrated
independence as loud as any body.
“The captain paid us all off, and as I left him, I said I’d never go to
sea agin, but that didn’t make it so; for I hadn’t been ashore a month,
afore I was off agin with Captain George Thomson. Then I had five
hundred dollars—three hundred Spanish mill dollars, and two hundred on
the Manhattan Bank, and I had as good a wardrobe of clothes, both
citizen’s and sailor’s as any other feller. Captain Thomson finds out
I’d got this money, and says he, ‘you better not be a lugging your money
round from port, let it out and git the interest on it;’ and so he
showed me a rich man, Mr. Leacraft, that wanted it, and he gin me two
notes of two hundred and fifty dollars, for one and two years, and I
counted out my money; and we sailed for the West Indies. Well, we got
there and took in a heavy cargo of groceries, and ’bout for home. But
’twas late in the season, and we had cold blusterin’ weather, and
finally it grew so cold the rain froze on the riggin’; and the captain
says, ‘we can’t make New York,’ and the mate says, ‘we can; and so we
sailed on till we made the New York light, and we was all covered with
ice; and the captain says, ‘boys we shall git stove to pieces, for we
can’t manage our riggin’, and we must put back.’ So we did, into a
warmer climate, and in two or three days the riggin’ grew limber, and
the ice all dropped off, and it grew warmer and warmer, till at last we
was in a region like our Ingen summer.
“Well, we’d been out a week, and Captain Woods, north from Bristol
hailed us, and asked how the entrance was to New York. Our captain told
him he couldn’t get in, but he swore he would, and on he sailed, and
he’d been gone ten days, and he come back a cussin’ and swearin’, and
had three of his men froze to death. We stay’d out four weeks longer,
and was nearly out of provisions, and obliged to make port; and it
moderated a leetle, and finally, arter some trouble, we reached home,
and a gladder set of fellers you never did see.
“Well, we got paid off, and I jumped ashore, and says I, ‘I’ll stay here
now; and here’s what’s off to Lady Rylander’s, and the rest of the
season I’ll play the gentleman, for I’m sick of the brine, and I’ve got
money enough to make a dash in the world.’ I’d no sooner got ashore,
than a friend of mine comes up, and says, ‘Pete, you’ve lost all your
money.’ ‘That can’t be possible,’ says I. ‘Yis, Pete, Leacraft is twenty
thousand dollars worse than nothin’. Well, I was thunderstruck, and goes
up to see him. Leacraft says, ‘to be sure I am Peter, all broke down;
but if God spares my life, you shall have every dollar that’s your due.’
“But up to this hour I havn’t got a cent on it. Captain Thomson tried
and tried to git it for me, but all to no purpose; and I grieved and
passed sorrowful days and nights I tell ye; for I’d worked in heat and
cold, and in all climates and countries for it, and thought now I should
be able to begin life right, and ’twas all struck from me at a blow, and
’twas almost like takin’ life I tell ye.
“And now I ‘spose I took a wrong step.—One day I was in a grog shop with
some of my companions, and I took a wicked oath, and flung down my money
on the counter to pay for our wine, and says I, ‘hereafter, no man shall
run away with the price of my labor, and if I have ten dollars, I’ll
spend, here she goes,’ and down went my rhino, and in ten days I had
spent all the pay of my last v’yge; and then I goes to Madam Rylander
and hires out for sixteen dollars a month as her body sarvant. Not a
finer lady ever set foot in Broadway; and she was as pleasant as the
noonday sun, and if her sarvants did wrong, she’d call ’em up and
discharge ’em, all pleasant, but firm; and she’d encourage me to be
economical and good, and I liked her, but I hadn’t got my fill of the
brine yit, and so I thought I’d out on the waves agin. You see I’d been
a slave so long that I was jist like a bird let out of her cage, and I
couldn’t be satisfied without I was a flyin’ all the time, and besides
there was great talk about a war with John Bull, and I liked it all the
better for that; and so I told Lady Rylander I must be off, and she
offered me higher wages, but all that wouldn’t do; I was bound for the
brine and must go.
“I hired out to Captain Williams agin, as steward, for thirty-one
dollars a month; and we weighed anchor for St. Domingo; and we took a
load of goods from there and started for the Rock of Gibralter once
more. On our passage, we was overhauled by an equinoctial storm, and we
had a distressed bad time, and it did seem that we must go to the bottom
for days. We fell in with a fleet of thirty-seven sail from the West
Indies, under the convoy of two English frigates, for London. You see
these ships was merchantmen, and the English Admiral had sent out two
frigates to protect ’em; for England and France was at war, and they’d
seize each other’s commerce, and their governments had to protect ’em.
When we got in hailin’ distance of the frigates, captain cries out, ‘how
long do you think the storm will last?’ ‘Can’t say—all looks bad now;
two of our vessels have gone to pieces, and every soul lost.’ And while
we was talkin’ the seas broke over us like rollin’ mountains; we
couldn’t lay into the wind at all, and we had to let her fly, and we
went like a streak of greased lightnin’, and we soon lost sight on ’em;
and I tell you ’twas a melancholy sight to see _sich a fleet_ strugglin’
_with sich a tempest_; but we had all we could attend to at home,
without borryin’ trouble from abroad. But we finally conquered the
storm, and dropped anchor under the old fort agin. We lay in the basin
two days, and then got liberty from the governor to go up the straits,
and we calculated to run up to Egypt, and we cleared the straits and
went into the Mediterranean; and then we was on what our college-larnt
fellers calls classic ground.
“One day the captain calls me on deck and says, ‘Nig, do you see that
city up the coast?’
“‘Yis? Sir.’
“‘Well, that’s the spot you sing so much about; now let’s have it;
strike up, Nig.’
“So up I struck:—
“‘To Carthagena we was bound,
With a sweet and lively gale,’ &c.
“And I was glad enough to see my old port I’d celebrated so long in my
songs. Well, we sailed along and had the finest time ever one set of
fellers had—the air was as soft as you please, and the islands was as
thick as huckle-berries, and of all kinds and sizes. We sailed on by one
island, and then by another, and bim’by Mount Etna hove in sight, while
we was a hangin’ off the coast of Sicily, and ’twas rocky, and we
couldn’t hug the shore very close; but we had a fine sight of the
volcano; and there was a steady stream of fire and smoke come out of the
top of the mountain, and in the night it was a big sight. It flung a
kind of a flickerin’ light over the sea, and we stayed in sight of it
some time; and disposed of our load pretty much, and got back to the
fort in just eighteen days. We cleared the old Rock the next arternoon;
and I said ‘good night,’ to the old fort, and I hain’t seen her from
that day to this.
“We sailed round Cape St. Vincent, off the coast of Portugal, and then
crossed the Bay of Biscay, O! and passed Land’s Eend—up St. George’s
Channel, and through the Irish Sea, and, on the eighteenth day, dropped
anchor in the harbor of Liverpool.
“The captain calculated to stay in Liverpool till spring, for ’twas now
November, and trade a good deal, and bring home a heavy cargo of English
goods; but for sartin reasons, I’ll tell soon, we didn’t do it. While we
lay in Liverpool, there was some great _doin’s_, I tell ye. The English
troops, to the amount of some thousands, marched out under Lord
Wellington, for foreign sarvice on the continent, and soon arter this
Wellington went to fightin’ in Spain. Well, they marched out under
superior officers, and in the middle of the troops was Wellington’s
carriage, drawn by six milk-white horses, splendidly caparisoned, and he
was in it, and three or four other big lords; and, on each side of the
carriage was six officers, on jet black horses, with drawn swords, and
they made some noise tu; and I shall remember, to my dyin’ day, how
Wellington looked.
“But we hadn’t been there long afore the captain comes down one night
from the city, aboard ship, and calls out to all the crew, and, says he,
‘boys there’s agoin’ to be war betwixt Great Britain and America, and
all that wants to clear port to-night, and spread our sails for New
York, say home!’ and we did say home, _in arnest_, and we made all
preparation, and ’bout midnight we weighed anchor, and towed ourselves
out as still as we could, and I never worked so hard while I was _free_
as I did that night, and by daylight we spread all our sails for home,
and in four hours we was out of sight of Liverpool. Arter breakfast we
all give three cheers, and all hands says, ‘now we are bound for home,
sweet home!’
“Well, we had been out ’bout four days, and we fell in with Commodore
Somebody’s ship, that pioneered a fleet of merchantmen for London; they
hailed us, and we answered the signal and passed on, and they let us go
by peaceable, without a word of war or peace, on either side; and glad
’nough we was to pass ’em so, and we spread all our sails for America,
and felt thankful for every breeze that helped us forward.
“Well, we had a quick passage, and made the New York light, and I never
was so glad to see that light-house in my life, for we expected to git
overhauled by an English man-of-war or a privateer every day. Well, we
got in the last of March, and this was 1812; and well we did, for the
first of April an embargo was laid on all the vessels in the ports of
the United States, and the nineteenth of June war was declared agin
Great Britain, and then the Atlantic was all a blaze of fire.
“Captain Williams quit his ship, and took a privateer, and he tried to
git me ‘long with him, and I thought I would, for a while, but, finally,
I concluded I wouldn’t, _for I was too much afeared of them ’ere blue
plums that flew so thick across the brine for two or three years_. ☜
“Well, captain went out and was gone thirty days, and come back, and his
success was so good that his common hands shared five hundred dollars
apiece, and if I’d a gone, I should have had my five hundred dollars
back agin; but I’d no idee of going to be shot at for money, like these
’ere fools and gumps that goes down to the Florida swamps, to be shot at
all day by Ingens, for eighteen pence a day. Captain met me one day in
the street, and says he, ‘nig, if you’d only gone with me, you’d a been
as big a cuffee now as any on ’em.’ I says ‘captain, I don’t care ’bout
havin’ my head shot off of my shoulders; I’m big cuffee ’nough now!’
“Well, I didn’t go to sea durin’ the war, and afore we got through with
that, I got off of the notion of goin’ at all, and I concluded I’d spend
the rest of my days on ‘terra firma,’ as I’d been tossed round on the
brine long ’nough, and satisfied myself with seein’ and travel, and so I
stayed, and I han’t been out of sight of land ever sence.
“But, one dreadful thing happened to me by goin’ to sea,—_I got
dreadfully depraved_; and I b’lieve there warn’t a man on the globe that
would swear worse than I would, and a wickeder feller didn’t breathe
than Pete Wheeler. No language was too vile or wicked for me to take
into my mouth; and it did seem to me, when I thought about it, that I
blasphemed my Maker almost every minute through the day; and I used to
frequent the theatre, and all bad places, and drink till I was dead
drunk for days; and nobody can bring a charge agin me for hardly one sin
but murder and counterfeitin’ that I ain’t guilty on. When I thought
’bout it, I used to think it the greatest wonder on ‘arth that God
Almighty didn’t cut me off and strike me to hell, for I desarved the
deepest damnation in pardition; and if any man on ‘arth says I didn’t,
why, all I have to say to sich a man is, that he ain’t a judge. _Why, as
for prayer_, I never thought of sich a thing for years; and as for
Sabbath day, I didn’t hardly know when it come, only I used to be on a
frolic or spree on that day, worse than any other day in the week. As
for the bible, why, for years and years I never see one, or heard one
read; and I didn’t, at that time, know how to read myself a word; and
for six years I never had a word said to me ’bout my soul, or the danger
of losin’ my soul, and I become as much of a heathen as any man in the
Hottentot country: and the truth is, no man can make me out so bad as I
raly was, _for besides all I acted out_, there was a hell in my bosom
all the time, and these outrageous things was only a little bilin’
over,—only a few leetle streams that run out of a black fountain-head.
“Oh! Mr. L.——, I don’t know what I should do at the judgment day, if I
couldn’t have a Saviour. I know I shall have a blacker account than
a’most any body there, and how can it all be blotted out, except by
Christ’s blood?
“Why, Sir, you can’t tell how wicked sailors generally be. There ain’t
more’n one out of a hundred that cares any thing ’bout religion, and
they are head and ears in debauchery and intemperance, and gamblin’, and
all kinds of sin, and oh! ‘twould make your heart ache to hear their
oaths. I’ve seen ’em tremble, and try to pray durin’ a dreadful storm,
and all looked like goin’ to the bottom—for I don’t care how heathenish
and devilish any body is, if they see death starin’ on ’em in the face,
and they ‘spect to die in a few minutes, he’ll cry to God for help—but
no sooner than the storm abated they’d cuss worse than ever. Now this
was jist my fashion, and if any body says that a man who abuses a good
God like that don’t desarve to be cut off and put into hell, why then he
han’t got any common sense.
“But all this comes pretty much from the officers. I never knowed but
one sea captain but what would swear sometimes, and most all on ’em as
fast as a dog can trot; and jist so sure as our officers swears, the
hands will blaspheme ten times worse; and if the captain wouldn’t swear,
and forbid it on board, his orders would be obeyed like any other
orders, _but, as long as officers swears, so long will sailors_. ☜
“But sailors have some noble things about ’em as any body of men. They
will always stand by their comrades in the heart of danger or
misfortune, or attack; and if a company on ’em are on shore, you touch
one you touch the whole; and if a sailor was on the Desert of Arabia,
and hadn’t but a quart of water, he’d go snacks with a companion. They
are sure to have a soft spot in their hearts somewhere, that you can
touch if you can git at it, and when they feel, they feel with all their
souls. But, arter all, _it’s the ruination of men’s characters to go to
sea_, for they become heathens, and ginerally, ain’t fit for sober life
arter it, and _ten to one they ruin their souls_.
“But my v’yges are finished, and I’ll sing you one sailor’s song, and
then my yarn is done.”
_Author._ “Well, strike up, Peter.”
Peter sings—
“THE SAILOR’S RETURN.
“Loose every sail to the breeze,
The course of my vessel improve;
I’ve done with the toil of the seas,
Ye sailors I’m bound to my love.
Since Solena’s as true as she’s fair,
My grief I fling all to the wind;
‘Tis a pleasing return for my care,
My mistress is constant and kind.
My sails are all filled to my dear;
What tropic birds swifter can move;
Who, cruel, shall hold his career,
That returns to the nest of his love?
Hoist ev’ry sail to the breeze,
Come, shipmates, and join in the song;
Let’s drink, while our ship cuts the seas,
To the gale that may drive her along.
I’ve reached, spite of tempests, the port,
Now I’ll fly to the arms of my love;
And, rather than reef I will court,
And win my beautiful dove.”
END OF THE SECOND BOOK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK THE THIRD.
----------
PETER WHEELER AT THE CROSS.
INSCRIBED
_To the Free People of Color in the Free States._
Dear Friends:
I inscribe this Book to you, for several reasons. I love
you, and feel anxious to have you become intelligent and
virtuous. I know that there are only a few books adapted to your
taste and acquirements; and I have had my eye upon your good in
writing this history. I have thought you would understand it a
great deal better if it was told in Peter’s own language, and so
I wrote it just as he told it. I hope you will read it
_through_, and follow Peter to the Lamb of God who taketh away
the sin of the world. And if you are oppressed by the strong arm
of power, and kept down by an unholy and cruel prejudice, forget
it and forgive it all, and go to that blessed Redeemer who came
to save your souls, that he might clothe you, at last, with
clean white linen, which is the righteousness of the sain’ts.
Your friend,
THE AUTHOR.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I.
Lives at Madam Rylander’s—Quaker Macy—Susan a colored girl lives with
Mr. Macy—she is kidnapped and carried away, and sold into
slavery—Peter visits at the “Nixon’s, mazin’ respectable” colored
people in Philadelphia—falls in love with Solena—gits the consent of
old folks—fix wedding day—“ax parson”—Solena dies in his arms—his
grief—compared with Rhoderic Dhu—lives in New Haven—sails for New
York—drives hack—Susan Macy is redeemed from slavery—she tells Peter
her story of blood and horror, and abuse, and the way she made her
escape from her chains.
_Author._ “Well, Peter, what did you go about when you quit the seas?”
_Peter._ “The year I quit the seas, I went to live with Madam Rylander,
and stayed with her a year, and she gin me twenty-five dollars a month,
and I made her as slick a darkey as ever made a boot shine, and she was
as fine a lady as ever scraped a slipper over Broadway. While I lived
there, I used to visit at Mr. John Macy’s, a rich quaker who lived in
Broadway, across from old St. Paul’s. There was a colored girl lived
with his family, by the name of Susan, and they called her Susan Macy;
she was handsome and well edicated tu, and brought up like one of his
own children; and they thought as much on her as one of their daughters,
and she was as lovely a dispositioned gal as ever I seed; and I enjoyed
her society _mazinly_.
“Well, one mornin’ she got up and went to her mistress’ bedroom, and
asked her what she’d have for breakfast—’Veal cutlet’ says she; and the
old man says, ‘Thee’ll find money in the sideboard to pay for it;’ and
she did, and took her basket and goes to the market a singin’ along as
usual—she was a great hand to sing; and gits her meat, and on her
return, she meets a couple of gentlemen, and one had a bundle, and says
he, ‘Girl if you’ll take this bundle down to the wharf, I’ll give you a
silver dollar;” and she thought it could do no harm, and so she goes
with it down to the ship they described, and as she reached out the
bundle, a man catched her and hauled her aboard and put her down in the
hole.
“Her master and mistress got up and waited and waited, and she didn’t
come; and they went and sarched the street, and finds the basket, but
nothin’ could be heard of Susan in the whole city; and they finally gin
up that she was murdered.
“Well, I’ll tell you the rest of the story, for I heard on her arter
this.
“I stayed my year out with Madam Rylander, and then I quit; and she was
despod anxious to keep me, but I had other fish to fry, and took a
notion I’d drive round the country and play the gentleman.
“I come across, in New York, a young feller of color, his parents very
respectable folks who lived in Philadelphia; and they took an anxious
notion for me to go home with ’em; and I started with ’em for
Philadelphia; and I had as good clothes as any feller, and a
considerable money, and I thought I might as well spend it so as any
way. Well come to Philadelphia, I found the Nixon’s very rich and
_mazin’ respectable_; and I got acquain’ted with the family, and they
had a darter by the name of _Solena_, and she was _dreadful handsome_,
and she struck my fancy right off the first sight I had on her. She was
handsome in fetur and pretty spoken and handsome behaved every way. Well
I made up my mind the first sight I had on her, I’d have her _if I could
git her_. I’d been in Philadelphia ’bout a week, and I axed her for her
company, and ’twas granted. I made it my business to wait on her, and
ride round with her, and visit her _alone_, as much as I could. The old
folks seemed to like it _mazinly_, and that pleased me, and I went the
_length of my rope, and felt my oats tu_. I treated her like a gentleman
as far as I knew how—I took her to New York three times, in company with
her brothers and their sweethearts; and we went in great splendor tu,
and I found that every day, I was nearin’ the prize, and finally I
popped the question, and arter some hesitation, she said, ‘Yis, Peter.’
But I had another Cape to double, and that was to git the consent of the
old folks; and so one Sunday evenin’, as we was a courtin’ all alone in
the parlor, I concluded, a fain’t heart never won a fair lady; and so I
brushes up my hair, and starts into the old folks’ room, and I right out
with the question; and he says.
“‘What do you mean, Mr. Wheeler?’
“‘I mean jist as I say, Sir! May I marry Solena.’
“‘Do you think you can spend your life happy with her?’
“‘Yis, Sir.’
“‘Did you ever see any body in all your travels, you liked better?’
“‘No, Sir! She’s the apple of my eye, and the joy of my heart.’
“‘I have no objection Mr. Wheeler. Now Ma, how do you feel?’
“‘Oh! I think Solena had better say, Yis.’
“And then I tell ye, my heart fluttered about in my bosom with joy.
“‘Oh, love ’tis a killin’ thing;
Did you ever feel the pang?’
“So the old gentleman takes out a bottle of old wine from the sideboard,
and I takes a glass with him, and goes back to Solena. When I comes in,
she looks up with a smile and says, ‘What luck?’ I says, ‘Good luck.’ I
shall win the prize if nothin’ happens! and now Solena you must go in
tu, and you had better go in while the broth is hot. So she goes in,
pretty soon she comes trippin’ along back, and sets down in my lap, and
I says, ‘what luck?’ and she says ‘_good_.’ So we sot the bridal day,
and fixed on the weddin’ dresses, and so we got all fixin’s ready and
even the Domine was spoke for. And one Sabba-day arter meetin,’ I goes
home and dines with the family, and arter dinner we walked out over
Schuylkill bridge, and at evenin’ we went to a gentleman’s where she had
been a good deal acquain’ted; and there was quite a company on us, and
we carried on pretty brisk. She was naturally a high-lived thing, and
full of glee; and she got as wild as a hawk, and she _wrestled_ and
scuffled as gals do, and got all tired out, and she come and sets down
in my lap and looks at me, and says, ‘Peter help me;’ and I put my hand
round her and asked her what was the matter, and she fetched a sigh, and
groan, and fell back and died in my arms!!! A physician come in, and
says he, ‘she’s dead and without help, for she has burst a blood-vessel
in her breast.’ And there she lay cold and lifeless, and I thought I
should go crazy.
“She was carried home and laid out, and the second day she was buried,
and I didn’t sleep a wink till she was laid in the grave; and oh! when
we come to lower her coffin down in the grave, and the cold clods of the
valley begun to fall on her breast, I felt that my heart was in the
coffin, and I wished I could die and lay down by her side.
“For weeks and months arter her death, I felt that I should go ravin’
distracted. I couldn’t realize that she was dead; oh! Sir, the world
looked jist like a great dreadful prison to me. I stayed at her
father’s, and for weeks I used to go once or twice a day to her tomb,
and weep, and stay, and linger round, and the spot seemed sacred where
she rested.
“Well, I stayed in Philadelphia some months arter this, and I tell ye I
felt as though _my all_ was gone. I stood alone in the world, as
desolate as could be, and I determined I never would agin try to git me
a wife. It seemed to me I was jist like some old wreck, I’d seen on the
shore.
A. “Peter, you make me think of Walter Scott’s description of Rhoderic
Dhu, in his ‘Lady of the Lake.’
“‘As some tall ship, whose lofty prore,
Shall never stem the billows more,
Deserted by her gallant band,
Amid the breakers lies astrand;
So on his couch lay Rhoderic Dhu,
And oft his feverish limbs he threw,
In toss abrupt; as when her sides
Lie rocking in the advancing tides
That shake her frame with ceaseless beat
But cannot heave her from her seat.
Oh! how unlike her course on sea,
Or his free step, on hill and lea.’
P. “Yis, Sir! I was jist like that same Rhoderic; what’de call him? Oh!
I was _worse_, the world was a prison to me, and I wanted to lay my
bones down at rest by the dust of Solena. I finally went back to New
York, and stayed there for a while, and then up to New Haven, and stayed
there two months, in Mr. Johnson’s family; and we used to board college
students; and we had oceans of oysters and clams; and New Haven is by
all odds the handsomest place I ever see in this country or in Europe;
and finally I sailed back to New York, arter try in’ to bury my feelin’s
in one way and another. But in all my wanderin’s, _I couldn’t forgit
Solena_. She seemed to cling to me like life, and I’d spend hours and
hours in thinkin’ about her, and I never used to think about her without
tears.
“Well, I thought I would try to bury my feelin’s and forgit Solena, and
so I hires out a year to Mr. Bronson, to drive hack, and arter I’d been
with him a few months, I called up to Mr. Macy’s, my Quaker friend, and
I felt kind’a bad to go there tu and not find Susan, for I had the
biggest curiosity in the world to find out where she’d departed tu; but
I thought I’d go and talk with the old folks, and see if they’d heard
any thing about Susan.
“Well, I slicks up and goes, and pulls the bell, and who should open the
door but _Susan herself_. ☜
“I says, ‘my soul, Susan, how on ‘arth are you here? I thought you was
dead.’ And she says as she burst into tears, ‘I have been _all but_
dead. Come in and set down, and I’ll tell you all about it.’
“I says, ‘my heavens! Susan where have you been and how have ye fared?’
“She says, ‘I’ve been in _slavery_, ☜ and fared hard enough;’ and then
she had to go to the door, for the bell rung; and agin pretty soon she
comes back and begins her story, and as ’tain’t very long, and pretty
good, I’ll tell it, and if you’re a mind to put it in the book you may,
for I guess many a feller will be glad to read it.
“‘Well,’ begins Susan, ‘I went down to the vessel, to carry a bundle,
and _three ruffins seized hold on me_, and I hollered and screamed with
all my might, and one on ’em clapped his hand on my face, and another
held me down, and took out a knife and swore if I didn’t stop my noise
_he’d stick it through my heart_; and they dragged me down into the
hold, where there was seven others that had been stole in the same way;
and these two fellers chained me up, and I cried and sobbed till I was
so fain’t I couldn’t set up. Along in the course of the forenoon they
fetched me some coarse food, but I had no appetite, and I wished myself
dead a good many times, for I couldn’t git news to master. I continued
in that state for two or three days, and found no relief but by
submitting to my fate, and I was doleful enough off, for I couldn’t see
sun, moon, or stars, for I should think two weeks; and then a couple of
these ruffins come and took me out into the forecastle, and my
companions, and they told me all about how they’d been stole; and we was
as miserable a company as ever got together. Come on deck, I see five
_gentlemen_, ☜ and one on ’em axed me if I could cook and wait on
gentlemen and ladies, and I says ‘yis, Sir,’ with my eyes full of tears,
and my heart broke with sorrow; and he axed me how old I was? I says,
‘seventeen,’ and he turns round to the master of the vessel and says,
‘I’ll take this girl.’ And he paid four hundred and fifty dollars for
me, and he took me to his house; and I found out his name was Woodford,
and he told me I was in Charleston; but I couldn’t forgit the happy
streets of New York. Now I gin lip all expectation of ever seem’ my own
land agin’, and I submitted to my fate as well as I could, but _’twas a
dreadful heart-breakin’ scene. Master was dreadful savage, and his wife
was a despod cross ugly woman._ When he goes into the house he says to
his wife, ‘now I’ve got you a good gal, put that wench on the
plantation.’ And he pointed to a gal that had been a chambermaid; and
then turnin’ to me says, ‘and you look out or you’ll git there, and if
you do _you’ll know it_.’
“I’d been there four or five weeks, and I heard master makin’ a despod
cussin’ and swearin’ in the evenin’, and I heard him over-say, ‘I’ll
settle with the black cuss to-morrow; I’ll have his hide tanned.’
“So the next day, arter breakfast, mistress orders me down into the back
yard, and I found two hundred slaves there; and there was an old man
there with a gray head, stripped and drawed over a whipping-block his
hands tied down, and the big tears a rollin’ down his face; and he
looked exactly like some old gray headed, sun-burnt revolutioner; and a
white man stood over him with a cat-o’-nine-tails in his hand, and he
was to give him one hundred lashes. ☜ And he says, ‘now look on all on
ye, and if you git into a scrape you’ll have this cat-o’-nine-tails
wrapped round you;’ and then he begun to whip, and he hadn’t struck
mor’n two or three blows, afore I see the blood run, and he was stark
naked, and his back and body was all over covered with scars, and he
says in kind’a broken language, ‘Oh! massa don’t kill me.’ ‘Tan his
hide,’ says master, and he kept on whippin’, and the old man groaned
like as if he was a dyin’, and he got the hundred lashes, ☜ and then was
untied and told to go about his work; and I looked at the block, and it
was kivered with blood, and that same block didn’t git clear from blood
as long as I stayed there. ☜
“‘Well, this spectacle affected me so, I could scarcely git about the
house, for I expected next would be my turn; and I was so afraid I
shouldn’t do right I didn’t half do my work.
“‘It wore upon me so I grew poor through fear and grief. I would look
out and see the two hundred slaves come into the back yard to be fed
with rice, and they had the value of about a quart of rice a day, I
guess.
“‘Every day, more or less would be whipped till the blood run to the
ground; and every day fresh blood could be seen on the block,—and what
for I never found out, for I darn’t ax any body, and I had no liberty of
saying any thing to the field hands.
‘“I used often to look out of the window to see people pass and repass,
and see if I couldn’t see somebody that I knew; and I finally got sick,
and was kept down some time, and I jist dragged about and darn’t say one
word, for I should have been put on the _plantation for bein’ sick_! and
I meant to do the best I could till I dropped down dead; but the almost
whole cause on it was grief, and the rest was cruel hardship. Well,
things got so, I thought I must die soon, and in the height of my
sorrow, I looked out and see Samuel Macy—Master Macy’s second son,
walkin’ along the street, and I could hardly believe my eyes; and I was
stand in’ in the door, and I catches the broom, and goes down the steps
a sweepin’, and calls him by name as he comes along, and I tells him a
short story, and he says ‘I’ll git thee free, only be patient a few
weeks.’ I neither sees nor hears a word on him for over four weeks, but
I was borne up by hope, and that made my troubles lighter. Well, in
about four weeks, one day, jist arter dinner, there comes a gentleman
and raps at the front door, and I goes and opens the door, and there
stood old Master Macy, and I flies and hugs him, and he says ‘how does
thee do, Susan?’ I couldn’t speak, and as soon as I could I tells my
story; and Master Macy then speaks to mistress, who heard the talk and
had come out of the parlor, and says, ‘this girl is a member of my
family, and I shall take her,’ and then master come in and abused Master
Macy dreadfully; but he says, ‘come along with me, Susan;’ and, without
a bonnet or anything on to go out with I took him by the hand, and went
down to the ship; and, afore I had finished my story, an officer comes
and takes old Master Macy, and he leaves me in the care of his son
Samuel, aboard, and he was up street about three hours, tendin’ a
law-suit, and then he come back, and about nine o’clock that evenin’ we
hauled off from that cussed shore, and in two weeks we reached New York,
and here I am, in Master Macy’s old kitchen.
“‘Well, he watches for this slave ship that stole me, and one day he
come in and said he had taken it, and had five men imprisoned; and the
next court had them all imprisoned for life, and there they be yit. And
now there’s no man, gentle or simple, that gits me to do an arrant out
of sight of the house. _Bought_ wit is the best, but I bought mine
dreadful dear. When I got back the whole family cried, and Mistress Macy
says,
“‘Let us rejoice! for the dead is alive, and the lost is
found.”’
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II.
Kidnappin’ in New York—Peter spends three years in Hartford—couldn’t
help thinkin’ of Solena—Hartford Convention—stays a year in
Middletown—hires to a man in West Springfield—makes thirty-five
dollars fishin’ nights—great revival in Springfield—twenty
immersed—sexton of church in Old Springfield—religious
sentiments—returns to New York—_Solena again_—Susan Macy married—pulls
up for the Bay State again—lives eighteen months in Westfield—six
months in Sharon—Joshua Nichols leaves his wife—Peter goes after him
and finds him in Spencertown, New York—takes money back to Mrs.
Nichols—returns to Spencertown—lives at Esq. Pratt’s—Works next summer
for old Captain Beale—his character—falls in love—married—loses his
only child—wife helpless eight months—great revival of 1827—feels more
like gittin’ religion—“One sabba’day when the minister preached at
me”—a resolution to get religion—how to become a christian—evening
prayer-meeting—Peter’s convictions deep and distressing—going home he
kneels on a rock and prayed—his prayer—the joy of a redeemed soul—his
family rejoice with him.
_Peter._ “Well, I sot a hearin’ Susan’s story till midnight, and that
brought back old scenes agin, and there I sot and listened to her story
till I had enemost cried my eyes out of my head, and I have only gin you
the outline. And that kidnappin’ used to be carried on that way in New
York year after year, and it’s carried on yit. ☜ [15] Why, they used to
steal away any and every colored person they could steal, and this is
all carried on by northern folks tu, and it’s fifty times worse than
Louisiana slavery.
Footnote 15:
It became so common in New York that there was no safety for a colored
person there, and philanthropy and religion demanded some protection
for them against such a shocking system.—At last there was a vigilance
committee organized for the purpose of ascertaining the names and
residences of every colored person in the city; and this committee
used regularly to visit all on the roll, and almost every day some one
was missing. The result has been that several hundreds of innocent men
and women and children have been retaken from their bondage, from the
holds of respectable merchantmen in New York, to the parlours of
southern gentry in New-Orleans. The facts which have been brought out
by this committee are awful beyond description.—It is one of the
noblest, and most patriotic and efficient organization on the globe.
But their design expands itself beyond the protection and recovery of
kidnapped friends;—it also lifts a star of guidance and promise upon
the path of the fugitive slave; it helps him on his way to freedom,
and not one week passes by without witnessing the glorious results of
this humane and benevolent institution, in the protection of the free
or the redemption of the enslaved. The Humane Society, whose object is
to recover to life those who have been drowned, enlists the patronage
and encomiums of the great and good, and yet this Vigilance Committee
are insulted and abused by many of the public presses in New York, and
most of the city authorities.—Why? Slavery has infused its deadly
poison into the heart of the North.
“Well, I stayed in New York till my time was out, and then went to
Hartford and worked three years, and enjoyed myself pretty well, _only I
couldn’t help thinkin’ ’bout Solena_. She was mixed up with all my
dreams and thoughts, and I used to spend hours and hours in thinkin’
about what I’d lost. But arter all I suffered, I’m kind’a inclined to
think ’twas all kind in God to take her away, for arter this, I never
was so wicked agin nigh. I hadn’t time or disposition to hunt up my old
comrades, and if any time I begun to plunge into sin, then the thought
of Solena’s memory would come up afore me and check me in a minute, but
I was yit a good ways from rale religion.
“While I was there, in December, 1814, the famous Hartford Convention
sot with closed doors, and nobody could find out what they was about,
and every body was a talkin’ about it, and they han’t got over talkin’
about it, and I don’t b’lieve they ever will. The same winter the war
closed and peace was declared. I could tell a good many stories about
the war, but I guess ‘twould make the book rather too long, and every
body enemost knows all about the last war.
“Well, I went down to Middletown and stayed a year there, and then I
went to hire out to a man in West Springfield, and he was a farmer, and
he hadn’t a chick nor child in the world, and he had a share in a
fishin’ place on the Connecticut, and he was as clever as the day is
long. He let me fish nights and have all I got, and sometimes I’ve made
a whole lot of money at one haul, and in that season I made thirty-five
dollars jist by fishin’ nights, besides good wages—and I didn’t make a
dollar fishin’ for Gideon Morehouse nights for years!
“While I was there a Baptist minister come on from Boston and preached
some time, and they had a great revival, and I see twenty immersed down
in the Connecticut, and ’twas one of the most solemn scenes that ever I
witnessed.
“They went down two by two to the river, and he made a prayer and then
sung this hymn, and I shan’t ever forget it, for a good many on ’em was
young.
“‘Now in the heat of youthful blood,
Remember your Creator God;
Behold the months come hastening on
When you shall say ‘my joys are gone.’”
“And then he went in and baptized ’em; and I know I felt as though I
wished I was a christian, for it seemed to me there was somethin’ very
delightful in it, and then they sung and prayed agin, and then went
home.
“Arter this I lived in Old Springfield and was sexton of the church
there; and while I rung that bell I heard good preachin’ every Sunday,
and I larnt more ’bout religion than I’d ever knowed in all my life. I
begun to feel a good deal more serious and the need of gettin’ religion.
“Arter my time was out there, I went down to New York, and there I met
Solena’s brother, and that brought every thing fresh to mind agin, and
for weeks agin I spent sorrowful hours. I thought I had about got over
it and the wound was healed; but then ‘twould git tore open agin and
bleed afresh, and sorrowful as ever. It did seem to me that nothin’
would banish the image of that gal from my heart.
“I used to call and see Susan Macy occasionally, and she was now Mrs.
Williams, and lived in good style tu, for a colored person. She was
married at Mr. Macy’s and they made a great weddin’, and all the genteel
darkies in New York was there; and I wan’t satisfied with waitin’ on
_one_, I must have _two_, and if we didn’t have a stir among our color
about them times I miss my guess; and Mr. Macy set her out with five
hundred dollars, and she had a fine husband and they lived together as
comfortable as you please.
“Now I concluded I’d quit the city for good, I spent more money there
and had worse habits, and besides all this I wanted to git away as fur
as I could from the scene of my disappintment.
“Well, I pulled up stakes agin and put out for the Bay State agin, and I
put into Westfield, and stayed there eighteen months, and made money and
saved it, and behaved myself, and ‘tended meetin’ every sabba’day, and
gained friends and was as respectable as any body. From Westfield I went
to Sharon and there I stayed six months, and ‘tended a saw mill, and
there was a colored man there by the name of Joshua Nichols, who had
married a fine gal, and he lived with her till she had one child and
then left her, and went out to Columbia county, New York; and I started
off for Albany, and she axed me if I wouldn’t find her husband on my
route, and so I left Sharon and got here to Spencertown, and found him,
and axed him why he would be so cruel as to leave his wife? He says ‘if
you’ll go and carry some money and a letter down to her I’ll pay you.’
So he gin me the things and I put out for Sharon, and when Miss Nichols
broke open the letter she burst into tears, and says I, “why Miss
Nichols what’s the matter?” “Why Joshua says this is the last letter I
may ever expect from him.”—Well, I stayed one night, and come back and
concluded I’d go on for Albany, but when I got to Erastus Pratt’s he
wanted to hire me six months, and I hired, and his family was nice
folks, and he had a whole fleet of gals—and they was all as fine as
silk, but I used to tell Aunt Phebe, that Harriet was the rather the
nicest—on ’em all. Arter my six months was out, I worked a month in
shoein’ up his family, and I guess like enough some on ’em may be in the
garret yet.
“Next summer I hired out to old Capt. Beale, and he was a noble man, and
did as much for supportin’ Benevolent Societies as any other man in
town, and in the mean time, I had got acquain’ted with her who is now my
wife, and this summer I was married to her by Esq. Jacob Lawrence, and
in the winter we went to keepin’ house.
“When we had been married over a year, we had a leetle boy born, and the
leetle feller died and I felt bad enough, for he was my only child, and
it was despod hard work too, to give him up. I had at last found a woman
I loved, and all my wanderings and extravagancies was over, and I was
gettin’ in years, and I thought I could now be happy and enjoy all the
comforts of a home and fireside, but this was all blasted when I laid
that leetle feller in the grave, and my wife was sick and helpless eight
months.
“In 1827 a great Revival spread over this whole region, and was powerful
here, and I used to go to all the meetin’s, and I begun to think more
about religion than I ever did in all my life; and these feelin’s hung
on to me ’bout a year, and agin I gin myself up to the world, and
plunged into sin, and grieved the Spirit of God, and grew dreadful vile,
as all the folks ‘round here will say, if you ax ’em.—And I myself, who
knows more ’bout myself than any other body, s’pose that _at heart_, I
was one of the wickedest men in the world.
“Well, along in 1828 the religious feelin’ ‘round in this region, begun
to rise agin ‘round in this neighbourhood, and there was a good many
prayer meetin’s held, principally at Deacon Mayhew’s, and Esq. Pratt’s,
and I used to ‘tend ’em pretty steady, and I got back my old feelin’
agin, and now felt more a good deal like gittin’ religion, than I ever
had; and rain or shine, I’d be at the meetin’s, and I detarmined I’d go
through it, if I went at all. This church here, which has since got so
tore and distracted, was all united, and seemed to be a diggin’ all the
same way, and Christ was among ’em. _There was one Sabbath day, I shan’t
ever forgit_, and when I went to meetin’, and the minister took his text
‘Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?’ the very minute the words come
out of his mouth, an arrow went to my heart, and I felt the whole
sarmint was aimed at me, and I felt despod guilty. I went home, and that
night I was distressed beyond all account, and I went to bed troubled to
death. But I formed the resolution, if there was any thing in religion
I’d have it, if I could git it, and I was detarmined as I could be that
I would hunt for the way of Salvation; and when I found it, I travelled
in it, and consider that there I _begun right_. But I was as ignorant of
rale religion as a horse-block, and I didn’t know how to go to work.
Sometimes, something would say, ‘Oh! Peter, give up the business, you
can’t git it through,’ but I held on to my resolution _despod tight_;
and I think, that is the way for a body to go about getting religion; on
the start, be detarmined to hunt for the path of duty, and as soon as
you find it, go right to travellin’ on it, and keep on; I knew I had
some duty to do to God, and I knew I must hunt for it if I found it, and
_do_ it if I ever got the favor of God.
“Well, one night there was a prayer meetin’ in the church, and a shower
of prayer come down on the house like a tempest, and oh! how they did
beseech God that night—as the Bible says, ‘with strong cryin’ and
tears.’
“Deacon Mayhew got up and says, ‘There’s full liberty for any body to
git up and speak or pray.’ And I felt as though I must git up and say
somethin’ or pray, I was so distressed; but then I was a black man, and
was afeard I couldn’t pray nice enough, and so I set still, but I felt
like death. A number of young converts, prayed and made good prayers,
and there was a despod feelin’ there I tell ye.
“Arter meetin’ a good many folks spoke to me, but I couldn’t answer ’em
for tears; and so I started for home, when I was goin’ cross the lots a
cryin’ I come to a large flat rock, and looked round to see if any body
was near by, and then I kneeled down and ’twas the _first time I ever
raly prayed_.
“I begun, but I was so full I couldn’t only say these words and I
recollect ’em well.
“‘Oh! Lord, here I be a poor wretch; do with me just as you please; for
I have sinned with an out stretched arm, and I feel unworthy of the
least mercy, but I beg for _blood_, the blood of him that died Calvary!
Oh! help me, keep up my detarmination to do my duty, and submit to let
you dispose on me jist as you please, for time and eternity; oh! Lord
hear this first prayer of a hell-desarving sinner.’”
“Well, I got up, and felt what I never felt afore; I felt willing to do
God’s will, and that I was reconciled to God; afore this, I had felt as
though God was opposed to me, and I’d got to shift round afore he’d meet
me, and feel reconciled to me. I looked up to heaven, and I couldn’t
help sayin’, ‘My Father:’ never before nor sence, have I felt so much
joy and peace as I felt then, I was glad to be in God’s hands, and let
him reign, for I knew he would do right, and I felt sich a love for him,
as I can’t describe.
“I got up from the rock, and the world did look beautiful round me; the
moon shone clear, and the stars, and then I thought about David, when he
tells about his feelin’s when he looked at the same moon and stars; you
see I was changed and that made the world look so new; and this
beautiful world was God’s world, and God was _my Father_, and that made
me happy, and that is ’bout all I can say ’bout it.
“I went home, and found my wife and mother-in-law abed and ‘sleep, and I
lit up the candle and wakes ’em up, and says,
“I’ve found the pearl of great price.”
“I gits down the New Testament, for I had no Bible, and never owned one
till this time, and says, “I’ll read a chapter and then make a prayer,
(for you see my wife had larnt me to read arter a fashion,) and they say
‘That’s right Peter, I’m glad you feel as though you could pray,’ I
opened the Testament to the 14th chapter of John, ‘Let not your heart be
troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me,’ &c. Then I made a
prayer and set up my family altar, and I have prayed in my family every
day, and mean to keep it up, for I believe all christians ought to pray
mornin’ and evenin’ in their families.
“Well, I went to bed and talked to my wife ’bout religion, till I fairly
talked her asleep, and then I lay awake and thought, and prayed, and
wept for joy, and it will be a good while afore I forgit that night.
“For who can express
The sweet comfort and peace
Of a soul in its arliest Love.”
END.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
End of Project Gutenberg's Chains and Freedom, by Charles Edwards Lester