A severe check had been given to the slave trade at first by the closing of its North American market, only a few human cargoes, if any, being delivered among the colonies during the Revolutionary War. On the other hand, the dealers in black labor were encouraged by a steadily increasing demand from the British and Spanish islands, and from South America.
So entirely different was the ocean world, therefore, from what it is to-day, and so easy does it become to form wrong ideas concerning old-time war and peace on sea and land.
The Yankee privateer, the Noank, Captain Lyme Avery commanding, had indeed left a large British fleet behind her, and all the sea was before her. Conversations between her commander and his very free-spoken subordinates, however, revealed the fact that what might be called her commission as a ship of war was exceedingly roving. Even that very next morning, as he and his mate stood forward, anxiously scanning the horizon, the latter inquired:—
"Lyme,—I say! How'd it do to tack back and try to cut out one o' them supply ships?"
"Too risky, altogether," replied the captain. "South! South! I say. We mustn't hang 'round here. There are more ships runnin' between Cuby and Liverpool than there ever was before."
"Fact!" said Sam. "The British can't git their tobacker from the colonies any more. They git a first-rate article from the Spaniards, though, and they have to pay tall prices for it."
"That's it," said Avery. "I want to run one o' those fine-leaf cargoes into New London. Good as gold and silver to trade with. I'd a leetle ruther have sugar, though, full cargo, ship and all, with plenty o' molasses."
Others of the schooner's company chimed in, agreeing generally with the captain, and it looked more and more as if the immediate errand of the Noank might be considered settled. She herself was going ahead very well, and was in fine condition.
Away forward, at the heel of the bowsprit, with no sailor duty pressing him just now, loafed Guert Ten Eyck. He had borrowed a telescope from Vine Avery, and he had been using it until he grew tired of searching the horizon in vain, and he had shut it up. He was feeling just a little homesick, perhaps, after the over-excitement of the previous days. He was thinking of his mother rather than of stunning successes as a young privateersman.
"Wouldn't I like to see her this morning!" he was thinking. "I'd like to tell her and the rest how we beat that British fleet—"