After breakfast, my wife—pale, anxious, and feeble—crawled out of her room, which she had not left for the last six weeks; and poor Rosa, who had struggled through it all for so long a time, now that she saw her mistress about once more, took to her bed, and succumbed to a severe attack of fever. Every attention was paid to the poor girl who had behaved so nobly throughout, and for some time we feared that she would fall a victim, not to the climate, but to the persecutions which we had endured.
About noon, my wife, on this memorable day, the tenth of April, was seated in a room of the house set aside for my office, preparing the skin of the bird which Hilliard had shot in the morning, to be added to our Mozambique collection; when, having finished my meteorological observations, I took up the telescope to scan the horizon, as I had done for so many months, unsuccessful in discovering the promised sail of hope, when I observed, standing in through the southern channel, a vessel which, from her rig, I at once knew to be one of the beautiful Symonite brigs of our navy. Doubting my own senses, I took the glass into another room to inspect the stranger more leisurely; when I satisfied myself that I was not mistaken, and that the intelligence might be safely communicated to my fellow-sufferers. My wife immediately tried to cheer Rosa with the intelligence, and we all expected that we should hold communication with our countrymen before evening.
The stranger anchored about two P.M., but, instead of communicating with the British consul, the commander of the British ship-of-war amused himself at the billiard-table of the slave-dealer, João da Costa Soares, and then returned on board of her Majesty’s ship. The next day, Sunday, this promising officer again repaired to the same society; and on the following day, after a letter by José from me reaching him, he woke up to the folly of his conduct, and reached my house, after being at anchor in the harbour fifty-two hours, at six o’clock in the evening of Monday.
It appears that the captain of the “Castor,” who was senior officer at the Cape, in the absence of the admiral, to cover his own flagrant desertion of me, had sent up to Mozambique an officer whose total incapacity and unfitness for the Mozambique business was too well known to him. For the credit of the service and of the country, I have not named even the vessel, commanded by one who is at present on half-pay, to escape the severe punishment which the total neglect of the public service had justly merited. While at Mozambique, he was the constant companion of slave-dealers, contrary to repeated and official remonstrance, and he must not complain if those who used him as a tool now express their unmeasured contempt for him—an unenviable reputation, that of being despised even by slave-dealers.
The morning after the commander visited me I returned his official visit, and requested him to furnish me with a guard, in order that I might renew in safety my correspondence with the Governor-general on the subject of the slave-trade going on in the province, which was conducted by the officials of all ranks and denominations.
This guard consisted of a corporal and five privates of the Royal Marines. On the guard reaching my house, I despatched my communications to the Governor-general, and the next day the slave-dealers represented to him that the British consul had landed an armed force, preparatory to taking possession of the country. The commander of the brig-of-war and myself were called upon to explain our conduct, when the former referred the Governor-general to me for an answer.
My reply was simply, that “His Excellency had stated, that it was not in his power to protect me from the fury of the slave-dealers; that for months, leaving me thus unguarded, he had silenced my remonstrances against the slave-trade, openly carried on in every port of the Province; that now a British cruiser had anchored in the port, I had demanded a guard from her Commander, to enable me to communicate with His Excellency on the public service.”
The Governor-general talked about an invasion of Portuguese territory; and told me that, if not satisfied with the treatment I had received, I was welcome to haul down my Consular flag and retire from the Province.
To which I replied, that having suffered so long in the cause of the oppressed slaves, it was my intention to obtain some results from the same—the first of which was, to make His Excellency officially acquainted with, what I knew well he was aware of, the fearful extent to which the slave-trade had increased in the last few months. He now called on the Commander to re-embark the Marines; and on this officer again referring him to me, the Governor-general told me, “that I was like my country—now, that I was strong with a British ship-of-war in the harbour, I intended to trample upon him in his weakness.”
At this outbreak I kept my temper; and when Colonel Almeida recovered his, he apologized for his rudeness, and begged me, as a favour, to order the guard to be re-embarked.