This went on for some time, until they were betrayed by the other slaves of our neighbours, when a more rigid look-out was established, and regular night parties were told off, not only to watch the house for the purpose of preventing any supplies arriving, but also to disturb us at all hours of the night.
In the dead of the night a tremendous thumping would be heard at the door of the house, disturbing us out of our sleep; when, on going to one of the windows to see the cause of this disturbance, there would be no one near the house. Hardly had I returned to my bed, when again I was obliged to rise from the same cause.
I had recourse to the Governor-general in this state of affairs, and he promised that he would establish a night patrol. Finding that this was only a promise, after putting up with it for three weeks longer, during which I had been frequently disturbed four, five, and six times of a night, I addressed his Excellency officially, when he informed me that this was the first intimation which he had received of my having been molested, and forthwith he supplied me with a night patrol. The annoyance ceased at once, and we had some rest at night.
However, the Capitain-Mor, commanding on the mainland, ordered the patrolling to cease, and the slave-dealers, apprized by him of the circumstance, ordered their slaves to renew their midnight attacks on my house.
I was obliged to make another official intimation to the Governor-general, when the patrol was restored, with an intimation from the Governor-general that it had been discontinued without his knowledge, and contrary to his express orders, and that he had, in consequence, visited the Capitain-Mor with a severe reprimand, and directions to continue the patrol as long as I remained resident on the mainland.
The Portuguese patrol now informed me that they were directed to intimate to me their presence, and that they would do so as long as I desired it. They arrived about eleven o’clock at night, and intimated their presence by battering the house-door with the butts of their muskets. They patrolled the house and grounds until four o’clock in the morning, and during the whole of that time they kept up an incessant yelling from one to the other. There were four men and a sergeant, and every time they came to the front of the house they made an attack on the front door with the butts of their muskets, accompanying the assault with the most frightful oaths in Portuguese. When I remonstrated with the sergeant, he coolly informed me that he was obeying his orders by thus intimating his presence, and that he was instructed to do so on every occasion that he visited the house; that my remonstrances were in vain, and that he would continue this as long as I required a patrol. For three more nights this continued, we in the house being obliged to go without any sleep. On the fifth night a violent storm rid us of our persecutors; and, as I did not make another official complaint to the Governor-general, the patrol was discontinued.
As soon as the slave-dealers were aware of this, their slaves were sent again to disturb us, during the night, not only by stoning the house at all hours after dark, but even, at times, by firing musketry close under the windows.
This state of affairs went on until, at last, we had no fire-wood to light a fire, and all the old casks and packing-cases in the house were being fast consumed. Since the desertion of the “Castor” frigate, things were worse and worse, and I even found that the Governor-general could not be prevailed upon to carry out the promises of assistance which he had made me.
Finding that I had been so shamefully deserted by one of Her Majesty’s ships, immediately after the seizure of the “Charles et Georges” he began to be quite careless about the suppression of the slave-trade, and informed me that, with the best intention, he found himself quite powerless to protect me; in fact, he began to dread the consequences of the decisive step which he had taken by seizing the “Charles et Georges;” and, I believe, had made his mind up to see myself and family perish from the state of starvation which we were in by the rigid blockade established by the slave-dealers.