The captain had spent a restless night, and found himself blotched with innumerable chinch-bites; and on examining the berths and lockers, he found them swarming in piles. Calling one of the black men, he commenced overhauling them, and drew out a perfect storehouse of rubbish, which must have been deposited there, without molestation, from the day the vessel was launched up to the present time, as varied in its kinds as the stock of a Jew-shop, and rotten with age. About nine o'clock they got under weigh again, and proceeding about twenty miles with a fair wind and tide, they came to another point in the river, on which a concourse of men had assembled, armed to the teeth with guns, rifles, and knives. As he passed up, they were holding parley with a man and boy in a canoe a few rods from the shore. At every few minutes they would point their rifles at him, and with threatening gestures, swear vengeance against him if he attempted to land. The captain, being excited by the precarious situation of the man and his boy, and anxious to ascertain the particulars, let go his anchor and “came to” a few lengths above.
Scarcely had his anchor brought up than he was hailed from the shore by a rough-looking man, who appeared to be chief in the manouvre, and who proved to be no less a personage than a Mr. S—k, a wealthy planter.
“Don't take that man on board of your vessel, at the peril of your life, captain. He's an abolitionist,” said he, accompanying his imperative command with a very Southern rotation of oaths.
The man paddled his canoe on the outside of the vessel, and begged the captain “for God's sake to take him on board and protect him; that an excitement had been gotten up against him very unjustly, and he would explain the circumstances if he would allow him to come on board.”
“Come on board,” said the captain. “Let you be abolitionist or what you will, humanity will not let me see you driven out to sea in that manner; you would be swamped before you crossed the bar.”
He came on board, trembling and wet, the little boy handing up a couple of carpet-bags, and following him. No sooner had he done so, than three or four balls whizzed past the captain's head, causing him to retreat to the cabin. A few minutes intervened, and he returned to the deck.
“Lower your boat and come on shore immediately,” they cried out.
The captain, not at all daunted, lowered his boat and went on shore. “Now, gentlemen, what do you want with me?” said he, when S—k stepped forward, and the following dialogue ensued:—
“Who owns that vessel, and what right have you to harbor a d—d abolitionist?”
“I don't know who owns the vessel; I know that I sail her, and the laws of God and man demand that I shall not pass a man in distress, especially upon the water. He protests that he is not, and never was an abolitionist; offers to prove it if you will hear him, and only asks that you allow him to take away his property,” rejoined the captain.