Chapter 9 - Ran Away to Sea by Mayne Reid
Yes—beyond a doubt I was on board a slave-ship—one regularly fitted up for the inhuman traffic—manned for it. I might also say armed—for although there were no cannon, I observed a large number of muskets, cutlasses, and pistols, that had been brought upon the deck from some secret hiding-place, and distributed to the men to be cleaned and put in order. From all this it was plain that the Pandora was bent upon some desperate enterprise, and although she might not sustain a combat with the smallest vessel of war, she was determined that no mere boat’s crew should capture and rob her of her human freight. But it was to her sails more than to her armour that the Pandora trusted for success; and, indeed, built and rigged as she was, few ships of war could have overhauled her in open water, and with a fair wind.
I say that I no longer doubted of her true character. Indeed the people on board no longer made a secret of it. On the contrary, they appeared to glory in the occupation, regarding it in the light of achievement and enterprise. Over their cups they sang songs in which the “bold slaver” and his “jolly crew” were made to play the heroic, and many a coarse jest was uttered relating to the “black-skinned cargo.”
We had now passed to the southward of Gibraltar Straits, and were sailing in a track where there would be less likelihood of falling in with English men-of-war. The cruisers, whose sole business it is to look after the slave-trade, would be found much farther south, and along the coasts where slaves are usually shipped; and as there was no fear of meeting with them for some days to come, the Pandora’s crew had little else to do than enjoy themselves. A constant carousal, therefore, was kept up, and drinking, singing, dancing, and “skylarking” were practised from morning to night.
You may be surprised to know that a ship so evidently fitted out for slave-traffic could have thus openly and directly sailed out of a British port. But it is to be remembered that the period of which I am writing was many years ago; although so far as that goes, it would be no anachronism to lay the scene of my narrative in the year 1857. Many a slave-ship has sailed from British ports in this very year, and with all our boasted efforts to check the slave-trade it will be found that as large a proportion of British subjects are at present engaged in this nefarious traffic as of any other nation.
The attempt to put down the African slave-trade has been neither more or less than a gigantic sham. Not one of the governments who have engaged in this scheme of philanthropy have had more than a lukewarm interest in the matter, and the puny efforts they have made have been more for the purpose of pacifying a few clamorous philanthropists, than with a real design to stop the horrid traffic. For one slave-ship that is captured at least twenty pass free, landing their emaciated thousands upon the shores of the western world. Nay—worse than ever—the tyrant who, with railroad speed, is demoralising the millions of France, lends his ill-gotten power to re-establish this barter of human souls, and the slave-trade will ere long flourish as luxuriantly as ever.
It would have been an easy matter for Great Britain long since to have crushed out every vestige of the slave-trade, even without adding one item to her expenditure. What can be more absurd than the payment of 300,000 pounds to Portuguese slave-merchants to induce them to abandon the traffic in slaves? Why it is a positive premium upon crime—an indemnity for giving up the trade of pillage and murder! I say nothing would have been easier than for England to have put an end to the very existence of this horror years ago. It would only have required her to have acted with more earnestness, and a little more energy—to have declared that a slave-dealer was a pirate, and to have dealt with him accordingly—that is, hanged him and his crew, when taken, from the yard-arm of their ship—and there was not a nation in the world that would have dared to raise voice against such a course. Indeed it is a perfect absurdity to hang a pirate and let a slaver escape: for if it be admitted that a black man’s life is of as much value as a white man’s, then is the slaver doubly a murderer, for it is a well-known fact, that out of every slave cargo that crosses the Atlantic, full one-third become victims of the middle passage. It is, therefore, a positive absurdity to treat the captain and crew of a slave-ship in any milder way than the captain and crew of a pirate ship; and if a like measure of justice had been constantly served out to both, it is but natural to suppose that slavers would now have been as scarce as pirates are, if not a good deal scarcer. How the wiseacres who legislate for the world can make a distinction between the two sorts of ruffians is beyond my logic to understand, and why a slaver should not be hanged as soon as caught is equally a puzzle to me.
In years past this might have been done, and the slave-trade crushed completely. It will be more difficult now, since the despot of France has put the stamp of his licence on the inhuman trade, and the slave-dealer is no longer an outlaw. It would be a very different affair to hang to the yard-arm some French ruffian, bearing his commission to buy souls and bodies, and under the signature of imperial majesty.
Alas, alas! the world goes back; civilisation recedes—humanity has lost its chance, and the slave-trade goes on as briskly as ever!
I was too young at the time of my first voyage to moralise in this philosophic manner; but for all that I had imbibed a thorough disgust for the slave-trade, as, indeed, most of my countrymen had done. The period of which I am speaking was that when, by the laudable efforts of Wilberforce and other great philanthropists, our country had just set before the world that noblest example on record—the payment of twenty millions of sterling pounds in the cause of humanity. All glory to those who took part in the generous subscription. Young as I was, I like others, had heard much of the horrors and cruelties of the slave-trade, for at that time these were brought prominently before the public of England.
Fancy, then, the misery I experienced, at finding myself on board a ship actually engaged in this nefarious traffic—associating with the very men against whom I had conceived such antipathy and disgust—in fact myself forming one of the crew!
I cannot describe the wretchedness that came over me.
It is possible I should have been more shocked had I made the discovery all at once, but I did not. The knowledge came upon me by degrees, and I had long suspicions before I became certain. Moreover, harassed as I had been by personal ill-treatment and other cares, I did not so keenly feel the horror of my situation. Indeed, I had begun to fancy that I had got among real pirates, for these gentry were not uncommon at the time, and I am certain a gang of picaroons would not have been one whit more vulgar and brutal than were the crews of the Pandora. It was rather a relief, therefore, to know they were not pirates—not that their business was any better,—but I had the idea that it would be easier to get free from their companionship; which purpose I intended to carry out the very first opportunity that offered itself.
It was about the accomplishment of this design that I now set myself to thinking whenever I had a moment of leisure; and, verily, the prospect was an appalling one. It might be long months before I should have the slightest chance of escaping from that horrid ship,—months! ay, it might be years! It was no longer any articles of indenture that I dreaded, for I now perceived that this had been all a sham, since I could not be legally bound to a service not lawful in itself. No, it was not anything of this sort I had to fear. My apprehensions were simply that for months—perhaps years—I might never find an opportunity of escaping from the control of the fiends into whose hands I had so unwittingly trusted myself.
Where was I to make my escape? The Pandora was going to the coast of Africa for slaves; I could not run away while there. There were no authorities to whom I could appeal, or who could hold me against the claims of the captain. Those with whom we should be in communication would be either the native kings, or the vile slave-factors,—both of whom would only deliver me up again, and glory in doing so to gratify my tyrant. Should I run off and seek shelter in the woods? There I must either perish from hunger, thirst, or be torn to pieces by beasts of prey—which are numerous on the slave-trading coasts. One or other of these would be my fate, or else I should be captured by the savage natives, perhaps murdered by them,—or worse, kept in horrid bondage for life, the slave of some brutal negro,—oh! it was a dread prospect!
Then in my thoughts I crossed the Atlantic, and considered the change of escape that might offer upon the other side. The Pandora would no doubt proceed with her cargo to Brazil, or some of the West India islands. What hope then? She would necessarily act in a clandestine manner while discharging her freight. It would be done under cover of the night, on some desert coast far from a city or even a seaport, and, in fear of the cruisers, there would be great haste. A single night would suffice to land her smuggled cargo of human souls, and in the morning she would be off again—perhaps on a fresh trip of a similar kind. There might be no opportunity, whatever, for me to go ashore—in fact, it was not likely there would be—although I would not there have scrupled to take to the woods, trusting to God to preserve me.
The more I reflected the more was I convinced that my escape from what now appeared to me no better than a floating prison, would be an extremely difficult task,—almost hopeless. Oh! it was a dread prospect that lay before me.
Would that we might encounter some British cruiser! I heartily hoped that some one might see and pursue us. It would have given me joy to have heard the shot rattling through the spars and crashing into the sides of the Pandora!