“Well, sir,” said the sturdy mate, “you can select your own method for distinguishing yourself;—the path of ambition in this direction is quite open to you in Virginia, and I’ve no doubt that you will be highly appreciated and compensated for all your valiant achievements in that line; but for myself, while I do not profess to be a giant, I have resolved never to set my foot on the deck of a slave ship, either as officer, or common sailor again; I have got enough of it.”
“Indeed! indeed!” exclaimed Williams, derisively.
“Yes, indeed,” echoed the mate; “but don’t misunderstand me. It is not the high value that I set upon my life that makes me say what I have said; yet I’m resolved never to endanger my life again in a cause which my conscience does not approve. I dare say here what many men feel, but dare not speak, that this whole slave-trading business is a disgrace and scandal to Old Virginia.”
“Hold! hold on! shipmate,” said Williams, “I hardly thought you’d have shown your colors so soon,—I’ll be hanged if you’re not as good an abolitionist as Garrison himself.”
The mate now rose from his chair, manifesting some excitement. “What do you mean, sir,” said he, in a commanding tone. “That man does not live who shall offer me an insult with impunity.”
The effect of these words was marked; and the company clustered around. Williams, in an apologetic tone, said, “Shipmate! keep your temper. I mean’t no insult. We all know that Tom Grant is no coward, and what I said about your being an abolitionist was simply this: you might have put down them black mutineers and murderers, but your conscience held you back.”
“In that, too,” said Grant, “you were mistaken. I did all that any man with equal strength and presence of mind could have done. The fact is, Mr. Williams, you underrate the courage as well as the skill of these negroes, and further, you do not seem to have been correctly informed about the case in hand at all.”
“All I know about it is,” said Williams, “that on the ninth day after you left Richmond, a dozen or two of the niggers ye had on board, came on deck and took the ship from you;—had her steered into a British port, where, by the by, every woolly head of them went ashore and was free. Now I take this to be a discreditable piece of business, and one demanding explanation.”
“There are a great many discreditable things in the world,” said Grant. “For a ship to go down under a calm sky is, upon the first flush of it, disgraceful either to sailors or caulkers. But when we learn, that by some mysterious disturbance in nature, the waters parted beneath, and swallowed the ship up, we lose our indignation and disgust in lamentation of the disaster, and in awe of the Power which controls the elements.”
“Very true, very true,” said Williams, “I should be very glad to have an explanation which would relieve the affair of its present discreditable features. I have desired to see you ever since you got home, and to learn from you a full statement of the facts in the case. To me the whole thing seems unaccountable. I cannot see how a dozen or two of ignorant negroes, not one of whom had ever been to sea before, and all of them were closely ironed between decks, should be able to get their fetters off, rush out of the hatchway in open daylight, kill two white men, the one the captain and the other their master, and then carry the ship into a British port, where every ‘darkey’ of them was set free. There must have been great carelessness, or cowardice somewhere!”