So far from having stifled or extinguished it, the behaviour of her father was more likely to have given it increase and strength: for the adage of the “stolen waters” is still true; and the forbidden fruit is as tempting now as upon the morning of creation. As it was in the beginning, so will it ever be.
Volume One—Chapter Five.
The Slaver.
A hot West Indian sun was rapidly declining towards the Caribbean Sea—as if hastening to cool his fiery orb in the blue water—when a ship, that had rounded Pedro Point, in the Island of Jamaica, was seen standing eastward for Montego Bay.
She was a three-masted vessel—a barque—as could be told by the lateen rig of her mizen-mast—and apparently of some three or four hundred tons burden.
As she was running under one of the gentlest of breezes, all her canvas was spread; and the weather-worn appearance of her sails denoted that she was making land at the termination of a long ocean voyage. This was further manifest by the faded paint upon her sides, and the dark, dirt-coloured blotches that marked the position of her hawse-holes and scuppers.
Besides the private ensign that streamed, pennon-like from her peak, another trailed over her taffrail; which, unfolded by the motion of the vessel, displayed a blue starry field with white and crimson stripes. In this case the flag was appropriate—that is, in its stripes and their colour. Though justly vaunted as the flag of the free, here was it covering a cargo of slaves: the ship was a slaver.
After getting fairly inside the bay, but still at a long distance from the town, she was observed suddenly to tack; and, instead of continuing on towards the harbour, head for a point on the southern side, where the shore was uninhabited and solitary.