But even if confirmation had been wanting in the sable visage of Billy Pitt, who sat near the furnace munching away with prodigious enjoyment of his food and bringing his can of hot spiced wine from his vast blubber lips with a mighty sigh of deep delight, I must have found it in each hissing leap and roaring plunge of the old piratical bucket, so full of the vitality of the wind-swollen canvas, so quick with all the life-instincts of a vessel storming through the deep with buoyant keel and under full control. Oh, heaven! how different from the dull ambling of the morning, the sluggish pitching and rolling to the weak pulling of the spritsail!
Wilkinson and Cromwell kept the deck whilst Billy Pitt and I got our supper, and I had some talk with my negro, who seemed to be a very simple childish fellow, heartily in love with his stomach and very eager to see England. He told me that he had heard it was a fine country, and his wish to see it was one reason of his volunteering.
"Dey say," said he, "dat Lunnon's a very fine place, sah, bigger dan Philadelphy, and dat a man's skin don' tell agin him among de yaller gals dere."
I laughed and said, that in my country people were judged rather by the colour of their hearts than by the hue of their faces.
"But dollars count for something too, sah, I spects?" said he.
"Why, yes," said I, "with dollars enough you can make black white in England."
"Hum!" cried he, scratching his head. "I guess it 'ud take an almighty load of dollars to make me white, massa."
"Put money in your pocket and chink it," said I, "and your face'll be found white enough, I warrant."
"By golly!" cried he, "I'll do it den. S'elp me de Lord, massa, I'd chink twenty year for a white face. Dat comes ob bein' civilized. Tell'ee what dey dew, massa, dey makes you feel like a white man, but dey lets you keep black, blast 'em!"
I checked his excitement by telling him that in my country he would find that the negro was a person held in very high esteem, that the women in particular valued him for that very dinginess which the Americans found distasteful, and told him that I could name several ladies of quality who had married their black servants.