of rank are, of all others, the most influential witnesses we could adduce, if they, like you, have had opportunities of judging for themselves. But I am rambling from my object. You may remember our escapade into Cuba, a thousand years ago, when you were a lieutenant of the Firebrand. Well, you may also remember Don Ricardo's doctrine regarding the gradual emancipation of the negroes, and how we saw his plan in full operation—at least I did, for you knew little of these matters. Well, last year I made a note of what then passed, and sent it to an eminent West India merchant in London, who had it published in the Courier, but it did not seem to please either one party or the other; a signal proof, one would have thought, that there was some good in it. At a later period, I requested the same gentleman to have it published in Blackwood, where it would at least have had a fair trial on its own merits, but it was refused insertion. My very worthy friend, *** who acted for old Kit at that time as secretary of state for colonial affairs, did not like it, I presume; it trenched a little, it would seem, on the integrity of his great question; it approached to something like compulsory manumission, about which he does rave. Why will he not think on this subject like a Christian man? The country—I say so —will never sanction the retaining in bondage of any slave, who is willing to pay his master his fair appraised value. "Our friend *** injures us, and himself too, a leetle by his ultra notions. However, hear what I propose, and what, as I have told you formerly, was published in the Courier by no less a man than Lord--. "Scheme for the gradual Abolition of Slavery. "The following scheme of redemption for the slaves in our colonies is akin to a practice that prevails in some of the Spanish settlements. "We have now bishops, (a most excellent measure,) and we may presume that the inferior clergy will be much more efficient than heretofore. It is therefore proposed,-That every slave, on attaining the age of twenty-one years, should be, by act of Parliament, competent to apply to his parish clergyman, and signify his desire to be appraised. The clergyman's business would then be to select two respectable appraisers from amongst his parishioners, who should value the slave, calling in an umpire if they disagreed.. "As men even of good principles will often be more or less swayed by the peculiar interests of the body to which they belong, the rector should be instructed, if he saw any flagrant swerving it. from an honest appraisement, to notify the same to his bishop, who, by application to the governor, if need were, could thereby rectify When the slave was thus valued, the valuation should be registered by the rector, in a book to be kept for that purpose, an attested copy of which should be annually lodged amongst the archives of the colony. "We shall assume a case, where a slave is valued for L.120, Jamaica currency. He soon, by working by-hours, selling the produce of his provision grounds, etc., acquires L.20; and how easily and frequently this is done, every one knows, who is at all acquainted with West India affairs. "He then shall have a right to pay to his owner this L.20 as the price of his Monday for ever, and his owner shall be bound to receive it. A similar sum would purchase him his freedom on Tuesday; and other four instalments, to use a West India phrase, would buy him free altogether. You will notice, I consider that he is already free on the Sunday. Now, where is the insurmountable difficulty here? The planter may be put to inconvenience, certainly, great inconvenience, but he has compensation, and the slave has his freedom-if he deserves it; and as his emancipation in nine cases out of ten would be a work of time, he would, as he approached absolute freedom, become more civilized, that is, more fit to be free; and as he became more civilized, new wants would spring up, so that when he was finally free, he would not be content to work a day or two in the week for subsistence merely. He would work the whole six to buy many little comforts, which, as a slave suddenly emancipated, he never would have thought of. "As the slave becomes free, I would have his owner's allowance of provisions and clothing decrease gradually. “It may be objected-" Suppose slaves partly free, to be taken in execution, and sold for debt." I answer, let them be so. Why cannot three days of a man's labour be sold by the deputy-marshal as well as six? "Again-"Suppose the gang is mortgaged, or liable to judg ments against the owner of it." I still answer, let it be so-only, in this case let the slave pay his instalments into court, in place of paying them to his owners, and let him apply to his rector for information in such a case. 666 By the register I would have kept, every one could at once see what property an owner had in his gang—that is, how many were actually slaves, and how many were in progress of becoming free. Thus well-disposed and industrious slaves would soon become freemen. But the idle and worthless would still continue slaves, and why the devil shouldn't they? There does seem to be a rough, yet vigorous sound sense in all this. But I take leave of the subject, which I do not profess to understand, only I am willing to bear witness in favour of my old friends, so far as I can, conscientiously. We returned next day to Santiago, and had then to undergo the bitterness of parting. With me it was a slight affair, but the skipper! However, I will not dwell on it. We reached the town towards evening. The women were ready to weep, I saw ; but we all turned in, and next morning at breakfast we were moved, I will admit-some more, some less. Little Reefy, poor fellow, was crying like a child; indeed he was little more, being barely fifteen. Oh! Mr Cringle, I wish I had never seen Miss Candalaria de los Dolores; indeed I do." 66 This was Don Ricardo's youngest niece. "Ah, Reefy, Reefy," said I, "you must make haste, and be made post, and then” "What does he call her?" said Aaron. "Señora Tomasa Candalaria de los Dolores Gonzales y Vallejo," blubbered out little Reefy. "What a complicated piece of machinery she must be!" gravely rejoined Bang. The meal was protracted to a very unusual length, but time and tide wait for no man. We rose. Aaron Bang advanced to make his bow to our kind hostess; he held out his hand, but she, to Aaron's great surprise apparently, pushed it on one side, and regularly closing with our friend, hugged him in right earnest. I have before mentioned that she was a very small woman; so, as the devil would have it, the golden pin in her hair was thrust into Aaron's eye, which made him jump back, wherein he lost his balance, and away he went, dragging Madama Campana down on the top of him. However, none of us could laugh now; we parted, jumped into our boat, and proceeded straight to the anchorage, where three British merchantmen were by this time riding all ready for sea. We got on board. "Mr Yerk," said the captain, "fire a gun, and hoist blue Peter at the fore. Loose the foretopsail." The masters came on board for their instructions; we passed but a melancholy evening of it, and next morning I took my last look of Santiago de Cuba. CHAPTER XV. THE CRUISE OF THE WAVE-THE ACTION WITH THE SLAVER. "O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, The Corsair. Ar three o'clock next morning, about an hour and a half before daydawn, I was roused from my cot by the gruff voice of the boatswain on deck-" All hands up anchor." The next moment the gunroom steward entered with a lantern, which he placed on the table-"Gentlemen, all hands up anchor, you please." if "Botheration!" grumbled one. "Oh dear!" yawned another. "How merrily we live that sailors be!" sung another in a most doleful strain, and in all the bitterness of heart consequent on being roused out of a warm nest so unceremoniously. But no help for it; so up we all got, and opening the door of my berth, I got out, and sat me down on the bench that ran along the starboard side of the table. For the benefit of the uninitiated, let me describe a gunroom on board of a sloop of war. Everybody knows that the captain's cabin occupies the after part of the ship; next to it, on the same deck, is the gunroom. In a corvette, such as the Firebrand, it is a room, as near as may be, twenty feet long by twelve wide, and lighted by a long scuttle, or skylight, in the deck above. On each side of this room runs a row of small chambers, seven feet long by six feet wide, boarded off from the main saloon, or, in nautical phrase, separated from it by bulkheads, each with a door and small window opening into the same, and generally speaking, with a small scuttle in the side of the ship towards the sea. These are the officers' sleeping apartments, in which they have each a chest of drawers and basin-stand; while overhead is suspended a cot, or hammock, kept asunder by a wooden frame, six feet long by about two broad, slung from cleats nailed to the beams above, by two lanyards fastened to rings, one at the head, and the other at the foot; from which radiate a number of smaller cords, which are fastened to the canvass of the cot; while a small strip of canvass runs from head to foot on each side, so as to prevent the sleeper from rolling out. The dimensions of the gunroom are, as will be seen, very much circumscribed by the side berths; and when you take into account, that the centre is occupied by a long table, running the whole length of the room, flanked by a wooden bench, with a high back to it, on each side, and a large clumsy chair at the head, and another at the foot, not forgetting the sideboard at the head of the table, (full of knives, forks, spoons, tumblers, glasses, etc. etc. etc., stuck into mahogany sockets,) all of which are made fast to the deck by strong cleats and staples, and bands of spunyarn, so as to prevent them fetching way, or moving, when the vessel pitches or rolls, you will understand that there is no great scope to expatiate upon, free of the table, benches, and bulkheads of the cabins. While I sat monopolizing the dull light of the lantern, and accoutring myself as decently as the hurry would admit of, I noticed the officers, in their night-gowns and night-caps, as they extricated themselves from their coops; and picturesque-looking subjects enough there were amongst them, in all conscience. At length, that is in about ten minutes from the time we were called, we were all at stations-a gun was fired, and we weighed, and then stood out to sea, running along about four knots, with the landwind right aft. Having made an offing of three miles or so, we outran the terral, and got becalmed in the belt of smooth water between it and the sea-breeze. It was striking to see the three merchant-ships gradually draw out from the land, until we were all clustered together in a bunch, with half a gale of wind curling the blue waves within musket-shot, while all was long swell and smooth water with us. At length the breeze reached us, and we made sail with our convoy to the southward and eastward, the lumbering merchantmen crowding every inch of canvass, while we could hardly keep astern, under close-reefed topsails, foresail, jib, and spanker. "Pipe to breakfast," said the captain to Mr Yerk. "A sail a-beam of us to windward!" "What is she?" sung out the skipper to the man at the masthead who had hailed. |