CHAPTER LXVI.
When the thought struck me of abandoning the slave-trade, and I had resolved to follow out the good impulse, I established a store in the neighborhood of my old barracoons with the design of trafficking in the produce of industry alone. This concern was intrusted to the management of a clever young colonist.
It was about this time that the British brig of war Termagant held New Sestros in permanent blockade, forbidding even a friendly boat to communicate with my factory. Early one morning I was called to witness a sturdy chase between my scolding foe and a small sail which was evidently running for the shore in order to save her crew by beaching. The British bull-dog, however, was not to be deterred by the perils of the surf; and, holding on with the tenacity of fate, pursued the stranger, till he discovered that a large reinforcement of armed natives was arrayed on the strand ready to protect the fugitives. Accordingly, the Englishmen refrained from assailing the mariners, and confined their revenge to the destruction of the craft.
As this affray occurred within gun-shot of my lawful factory, I hastened to the beach under the belief that some of my employés had unluckily fallen into a difficulty with the natives. But on my arrival I was greeted by a well-known emissary from our headquarters at Gallinas, who bore a missive imparting the Volador’s arrival in Cuba with six hundred and eleven of her people. The letter furthermore apprised me that Don Pedro, who persisted in sending merchandise to my slave factory, still declined my resignation as his agent, but acknowledged a credit in his chest of thirteen thousand dollars for my commissions on the Volador’s slaves. Here, then, were Confidence and Temptation, both resolutely proffered to lure me back to my ancient habits!
I was busily engaged on the sands, enforcing from the negroes a restitution of clothes to the plundered postman, when the crack of a cannon, higher up the beach, made me fear that an aggression was being committed against my homestead. Before I could depart, however, two more shots in the same quarter, left me no room to doubt that the Termagant was talking most shrewishly with my factory at New Sestros.
I reached the establishment with all convenient speed, only to find it full of natives, who had been brought to the spot from the interior by the sound of a cannonade. The following letter from the captain of the man-of-war, it seems, had been landed in a fishing canoe very soon after my departure in the morning, and the shots, I suppose, were discharged to awake my attention to its contents.
“Her Britannic Majesty’s Ship Termagant,
“Off New Sestros, Nov. 5, 1840.