"As concerning myself, being brought to the market in the weakest condition of any of our men, I was led forth among the cruel multitude to be sold. As yet being undiscovered what I was, I was like to have been sold at a very low rate, not above fifteen pounds sterling, whereas our ordinary seamen were sold for thirty pounds and thirty-five pounds sterling, and two boys were sold for forty pounds apiece; and being in this sad posture led up and down at least one hour and an half, during which time a Dutchman, that was our carpenter, discovered me to some Jews, they increased from fifteen to seventy-five pounds, which was the price my patron gave for me, being three hundred ducats; and had I not been so weakened, and in these rags (indeed, I made myself more so than I was, for sometimes, as they led me, I pretended I could not go, and did often sit down),—I say, had not these things been, in all likelihood I had been sold for as much again in the market, and thus I had been dearer, and the difficulty greater to be redeemed. During the time of my being led up and down the market, I was possessed with the greatest fears, not knowing who my patron might be. I feared it might be one from the country, who would carry me where I could not return, or it might be one in and about Sallee, of which we had sad accounts, and many other distracting thoughts I had. And though I was like to have been sold unto the most cruel man in Sallee, there being but one piece-of-eight between him and my patron, yet the Lord was pleased to cause him to buy me, of whom I may speak, to the glory of God, as the kindest man in the place."[149]
This is the story of a respectable person, little distinguished in the world. But the slave-dealer applied his inexorable system without distinction of persons.
ST. VINCENT DE PAUL A SLAVE.
The experience of St. Vincent de Paul did not differ from that of Abraham Brown. That illustrious character, admired, beloved, and worshipped by large circles of mankind, has also left a record of his sale as a slave.
"Their proceedings at our sale," he says, "were as follows. After we had been stripped, they gave to each one of us a pair of drawers, a linen coat, with a cap, and paraded us through the city of Tunis, whither they had come expressly to sell us. Having made us take five or six turns through the city, with the chain at our necks, they conducted us back to the boat, that the merchants might come and see who could eat well and who not, and to show that our wounds were not mortal. This done, they took us to the public square, where the merchants came to visit us, precisely as is done at the purchase of a horse or an ox, making us open our mouths to see our teeth, feeling our sides, probing our wounds, and making us walk about, trot, and run, then lift burdens, and then wrestle, in order to see the strength of each, and a thousand other sorts of brutalities."[150]
In this simple narrative what occasion for humiliation and encouragement! Well may we be humbled, that a nature so divine was subject to this cruel lot! Well may we be encouraged, as we contemplate the heights of usefulness and renown which this slave at last reached!
CERVANTES A SLAVE.
Here we may refer again to Cervantes, whose pen was dipped in his own dark experience. His "Life in Algiers" exhibits the horrors of the slave-market as it might be exhibited now. The public crier exposes for sale a father and mother with two children. They are to be sold separately, or, according to the language of our day, "in lots to suit purchasers." The father is resigned, confiding in God; the mother sobs; while the children, ignorant of the inhumanity of men, show an instinctive trust in the constant and wakeful protection of their parents,—now, alas! impotent to shield them from dire calamity. A merchant, inclining to purchase one of the children, and wishing to ascertain his bodily condition, makes him open his mouth. The child, ignorant of the destiny which awaits him, imagines that the purchaser is about to extract a tooth, and, assuring him that it does not ache, begs him to desist. The merchant, in other respects estimable enough, pays one hundred and thirty dollars for the youngest child, and the sale is completed. Thus a human being—one of those "little ones" who inspired the Saviour to say, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven"—is profanely treated as an article of merchandise, and torn from a mother's arms and a father's support. The hardening influence of custom has steeled the merchant into criminal insensibility to this violation of humanity and justice, this laceration of sacred ties, this degradation of God's image. The unconscious heartlessness of the slave-dealer and the anguish of his victims are depicted in the dialogue which ensues after the sale.