“This is a pretty business, sir;” said the lieutenant, fixing a look on me which was designed to annihilate; striding up and down the piazza, “a very pretty business, I repeat! Pray, Commodore, Consul, Don, Señor, Mister, Monsieur, Theodore Canot, or whatever the devil else you please to call yourself, how long do you intend to keep British officers prisoners in your infernal slave den?”
Now it is very likely that some years before, or if I had not contrived the plot of this little naval contre temps, I might have burst forth in a beautiful rage, and given my petulant and foiled visitor a specimen of my Spanish vocabulary, which would not have rested pleasantly in the memory of either party. But as he warmed I cooled. His rage, in fact, was a fragment of my practical satire, and I took special delight in beholding the contortions caused by my physic.
“Sit down, sit down, lieutenant!” returned I very composedly, “we’re about to have coffee, and you are my guest. Nothing, lieutenant, ever permits me to neglect the duties of hospitality in such an out-of-the-way and solitary place as Africa. Sit down, doctor! Calm yourselves, gentlemen. Take example by me! Your Bonito is probably playing the devil with one of Don Pedro’s craft by this time; but that don’t put me out of temper, or make me unmannerly to gentlemen who honor my bamboo hut with their presence!” I laid peculiar stress, by way of accent, on the word “unmannerly,” and in a moment I saw the field was in my hands.
“Yes, gentlemen,” continued I, “I comprehend very well both your duty and responsibility; but, now that I see you are calmer, have the kindness to say in what I am to blame? Did you not come here to ‘blockade’ New Sestros, with a brig and provisions for half a year? And do I prevent your embarkation, if you can find any Krooman willing to take you on board? Nay, did either of you apprise me, as is customary when folks go visiting, that you designed leaving my quarters at so early an hour as to afford me the pleasure of seeing every thing in order for your accommodation? Come now, my good fellows, New Sestros is my flagship, as the Bonito is yours! No body stirs from this beach without the wink from its Commodore; and I shall be much surprised to hear such excellent disciplinarians dispute the propriety of my rule. Nevertheless, as you feel anxious to be gone on an independent cruise, you shall be furnished with a canoe instanter!”
“An offer,” interjected the surgeon, “which it would be d——d nonsense to accept! Have done with your infernal sneering, Don Téodor; strike your flag, Mr. Lieutenant; and let the darkies bring in the breakfast!”
I have narrated this little anecdote to show that Spanish slavers sometimes ventured to have a little fun with the British lion, and that when we got him on his haunches, his month full of beef and his fore paws in air, he was by no means the unamiable beast he is described to be, when, in company with the unicorn, he goes
“a-fighting for the crown!”