Previous - next
presenting themselves to my mind, the recollection of them made me
shudder. However, before I retired I told them that as I could not get
any right among men here I hoped I should hereafter in Heaven; and I
immediately left the cabin, filled with resentment and sorrow. The
only coat I had with me my master took away with him, and said if my
prize-money had been 10,000 £. he had a right to it all, and would have
taken it. I had about nine guineas, which, during my long sea-faring
life, I had scraped together from trifling perquisites and little
ventures; and I hid it that instant, lest my master should take that
from me likewise, still hoping that by some means or other I should
make my escape to the shore; and indeed some of my old shipmates told
me not to despair, for they would get me back again; and that, as soon
as they could get their pay, they would immediately come to Portsmouth
to me, where this ship was going: but, alas! all my hopes were
baffled, and the hour of my deliverance was yet far off. My master,
having soon concluded his bargain with the captain, came out of the
cabin, and he and his people got into the boat and put off; I followed
them with aching eyes as long as I could, and when they were out of
sight I threw myself on the deck, while my heart was ready to burst
with sorrow and anguish.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote L: He had drowned himself in endeavouring to desert.]
[Footnote M: Among others whom we brought from Bayonne, two gentlemen,
who had been in the West Indies, where they sold slaves; and they
confessed they had made at one time a false bill of sale, and sold two
Portuguese white men among a lot of slaves.]
[Footnote N: Some people have it, that sometimes shortly before
persons die their ward has been seen; that is, some spirit exactly in
their likeness, though they are themselves at other places at the same
time. One day while we were at Bayonne Mr. Mondle saw one of our men,
as he thought, in the gun-room; and a little after, coming on the
quarter-deck, he spoke of some circumstances of this man to some of
the officers. They told him that the man was then out of the ship, in
one of the boats with the Lieutenant: but Mr. Mondle would not believe
it, and we searched the ship, when he found the man was actually out
of her; and when the boat returned some time afterwards, we found the
man had been drowned at the very time Mr. Mondle thought he saw him.]
CHAP. V.
_The author's reflections on his situation--Is deceived by a
promise of being delivered--His despair at sailing for the
West Indies--Arrives at Montserrat, where he is sold to Mr.
King--Various interesting instances of oppression, cruelty,
and extortion, which the author saw practised upon the
slaves in the West Indies during his captivity from the year
1763 to 1766--Address on it to the planters._
Thus, at the moment I expected all my toils to end, was I plunged, as
Previous - next
