During the long second day of our voyage we examined the faces of the proletarians, whose color and constitutions so well adapt them for the Cyclopian realm of the main deck. Among them we detect several physiognomies which strike us as resembling seedlings from the Gold Coast, rather than the second or third fruits of ancient transplantation. A fellow-traveller gratifies, at the same time, our curiosity and our penetration. There are several native Africans, or, as they are called in Cuba, bonzes, on board. They are the property of the argumentative captain, and were acquired by a coup de main, at which I have already hinted in this letter. It seems that a club of planters in this state and one or two others resolved, little more than a year ago, to import a cargo of Africans. They were influenced partly by cupidity and partly by a fancy to set the United States laws at defiance, and to evince their contempt for New England philanthropy. The job was accepted by an Eastern house, which engaged to deliver the cargo at a certain point on the coast within certain limits of time.
Whether the shipment arrived earlier than anticipated, or whether Captain Meagher was originally designated as the person to whom the bold and delicate manœuvre of landing them should be intrusted, it is certain that on a certain Sunday in last July he took a little coasting trip in his steamer Czar, and appeared at Mobile on the following morning in season to make his regular voyage up river. It is no less certain that he ran the dusky strangers in at night by an unfrequented pass, and landed them among the cane-brakes of his own plantation with sufficient celerity to be back at the moorings of the Czar without his absence having been noticed. The vessel from which the bonzes were delivered were scuttled and sunk, and her master and crew found their way North by rail.
But the parties in interest soon claimed to divide the spoils, when, to their infinite disgust, the enterprising captain very coolly professed to ignore the whole business, and defied them to seek to recover by suit at law property the importation of which was regarded and would be punished as felony, if not as piracy, by the judicial tribunals. A case was made, and issue joined, when the captain proved a circumstantial alibi, and, having cast the claimants, doled them out a few bonzes, perhaps to escape assassination, as shells, while he kept the oyster in the shape of the pick of the importation, which he still holds, reconciling his conscience to the transaction by interpreting it as salvage.
All this is told us by our interlocutor, who was one of the losers by the affair, and who stigmatized the conduct of its hero as having been treacherous. The latter, after repeated jocular inquiries, suffers his vanity to subdue his reticence, and finishes by “acknowledging the corn.”
In the afternoon of the second day we meet two steamers ascending the river with heavy cargoes, and are told that they are the Keyes and the Lewis, recently warned off and not seized by the blockading squadron off Pensacola. They are deep with provisions for the forces of the Confederate States army before Pickens, which must now be dispatched from Montgomery by rail.
In Mobile, for the first time since leaving Washington, “we realize” the entire stagnation of business. There are but five vessels in port, chiefly English, which will suffice to carry away the debris of the cotton crop. Exchange on the North is unsalable, owing to the impossibility of importing coin through the unsettled country. And bills on London are of slow sale at par, which would leave a profit of seven per cent. upon the importation of gold from your side.
MOBILE, Sunday, May 12.
The heat of the city rendered an excursion to which I was invited, for the purpose of visiting the forts at the entrance of the bay, exceedingly agreeable, and I was glad to get out from the smell of warm bricks to the breezy waters of the sea. The party comprised many of the leading merchants and politicians of this city, which is the third in importance as a port of exportation in the United States of America. There was not a man among them who did not express, with more or less determination, the resolve never to submit to the rule of the accursed North. Let there be no mistake whatever as to the unanimity which exists at present in the South to fight for what it calls its independence, and to carry on a war to the knife with the government of the United States. I have frequently had occasion to remark the curious operation of the doctrine of state rights on the minds of the people; but an examination of the institutions of the country as they actually exist leads to the inference that, where the tyranny of the majority is at once irresponsible and cruel, it is impossible for any man, where the doctrine prevails, to resist it with safety or success. It is the inevitable result of the action of this majority, as it operates in America, first to demoralize and finally to absorb the minority; and even those who have maintained what are called “Union doctrines,” and who are opposed to secession or revolution, have bowed their heads before the majesty of the mass, and have hastened to signify their acquiescence in the decisions which they have hitherto opposed. The minority, cowardly in consequence of the arbitrary and vindictive character of the overwhelming power against which it has struggled, and disheartened by defeat, of which the penalties are tremendous in such conflicts as these, hastens to lick the feet of the conqueror, and rushes with frantic cheers after the chariot in the triumph which celebrates its own humiliation. If there be a minority at all on this great question of secession in the Southern states, it hides in holes and corners inaccessible to the light of day, and sits there in darkness and in sorrow, silent and fearful, if not dumb and hopeless. There were officers who had served with distinction under the flag of the United States, now anxious to declare that it was not their flag, and that they had no affection for it, although they were ready to admit they would have continued to serve under it if their states had not gone out. A man’s state, in fact, under the operation of these majority doctrines to which I have adverted, holds hostages for his fidelity to the majority, not only in such land or fortune as he may possess within her bounds, but in his family, his relatives and kin, and if the state revolts, the officer who remains faithful to the flag of the United States is considered by the authorities of the revolting state a traitor, and, what is worse, he is treated in the persons of those he leaves behind him as the worst kind of political renegade. General Scott, but a few months ago the most honored of men in a republic which sets such store on military success, is now reviled and abused because, being a Virginian by birth, he did not immediately violate his oath, abandon his post, and turn to fight against the flag which he has illustrated by repeated successes, during a career of half a century, the moment his state passed an ordinance of secession.
An intelligent and accomplished officer, who accompanied me to-day around the forts under his command, told me that he had all along resisted secession, but that when his state went out he felt it was necessary to resign his commission in the United States army, and to take service with the confederates. Among the most determined opponents of the North, and the most vehement friends of what are called here “domestic institutions,” are the British residents, English, Irish and Scotch, who have settled here for trading purposes, and who are frequently slave-holders. These men have no state rights to uphold, but they are convinced of the excellence of things as they are, or find it their interest to be so.