When the runners returned from the interior with the slaves required to complete the Areostatico’s cargo, I considered it my duty to the Italian grocer of Regla to dispatch his vessel personally. Accordingly, I returned on board to aid in stowing one hundred and eight boys and girls, the eldest of whom did not exceed fifteen years! As I crawled between decks, I confess I could not imagine how this little army was to be packed or draw breath in a hold but twenty-two inches high! Yet the experiment was promptly made, inasmuch as it was necessary to secure them below in descending the river, in order to prevent their leaping overboard and swimming ashore. I found it impossible to adjust the whole in a sitting posture; but we made them lie down in each other’s laps, like sardines in a can, and in this way obtained space for the entire cargo. Strange to tell, when the Areostatico reached Havana, but three of these “passengers” had paid the debt of nature.
As I left the schooner a few miles outside the bar, I crossed her side without an adieu save for the English cabin-boy, whose fate I was pained to intrust to these stupid Spaniards. Indeed, the youth almost belonged to me, for I may say he owed his life to my interference.
Previous to the voyage, while waiting in the harbor of Havana for a crew, our vessel was anchored near the wharves, next to an English merchantman. One afternoon I heard a scream from the neighboring craft, and perceived a boy rush from the cabin with his face dyed in blood. He was instantly pursued by a burly seaman, inflicting blows with his fist. I implored the brute to desist, but my interference seemed to augment his choler to such a degree, that he seized a handspike to knock the stripling down. Upon this I called the child to leap overboard, at the same time commanding a hand to lower my boat and scull in the direction of his fall. The boy obeyed my voice; and in a few minutes I had him on board blessing me for his safety. But the drunken Briton vented his rage in the most indecent language; and had his boat been aboard, I doubt not a summary visit would have terminated in a fight on my deck.
However, as good luck would have it, his skiff was at the landing, so that there was ample time, before he could reach the Areostatico, to tie up the bruised face and broken rib of the child, and to conceal him in the house of a Spanish crone in Havana, who cured the maladies of credulous seamen by witchcraft!
After nightfall the master of the British vessel came aboard to claim his boy; but as he was petulant and seemed disposed to carry matters with a high hand, my temper rose in resistance, and I refused to release the child until he sealed with an oath his promise to treat him better in future. But the cruel scoundrel insisted on unconditional surrender; and to end the controversy, I was compelled to order him off the schooner.
British pluck of course would not allow a captain to be deprived so easily of his property, so the British consul was invoked to appeal to the captain of the port. This personage summoned me before him, and listened calmly to a story which added no honor to English mariners. In my last interview with the boy he implored my continued protection and concealment; so that when the Spanish official declared—notwithstanding the officer’s conduct—that the vessel was entitled to her crew, and that I must surrender the child, I excused myself from complying by pleading utter ignorance of his whereabout. In view of this contingency, I directed the woman to hide him in a place of which I should be ignorant. So I told no lie, and saved the boy from his tyrant.
The inquiry was dropped at this stage of proceedings. When the British vessel sailed a few days after, I caused the youth to be brought from his concealment; and, with our captain’s consent, brought him aboard to serve in our cabin.
I have narrated this little episode in consequence of my love for the boy, and because he was the only English subject I ever knew to ship in a slaver.
I requested the Areostatico’s owners to pay him liberally for his fidelity when he got back to Havana; and I was happy to learn next year, that they not only complied with my request, but sent him home to his friends in Liverpool.