Peter sails for Gibralter with Captain Bainbridge—his character—horrible storm—Henry falls from aloft and is killed—a funeral at sea—English lady prays—Gibralter and the landing of soldiers—a frigate and four merchantmen—Napoleon—Wellington and Lord Nelson—a slave ship—her cargo—five hundred slaves—a wake of blood fifteen hundred miles—sharks eat ’em—Amsterdam—winter there—Captain B. winters in Bristol—Dutchmen—visit to an old battle field—stories about Napoleon—Peter falls overboard and is drowned, almost—make New York the fourth of July—Peter lends five hundred dollars and loses it—sails to the West Indies with Captain Thompson—returns to New York and winters with Lady Rylander—sails with Captain Williams for Gibralter—fleet thirty-seven sail—cruise up the Mediterranean—Mt. Etna—sails to Liverpool—Lord Wellington and his troops—war between Great Britain and the United States—sails for New York and goes to sea no more—his own confessions of his character—dreadful wicked—sings a sailor song and winds up his yarn. Peter. “The next spring in the fore part of May, I saw Captain Bainbridge on the Battery, and he hails me and says, ‘don’t you want a berth for a summer v’ge? I says, ‘yis Sir,’ and then we bargains about wages; and I was to have twenty-five dollars a month, and he told me to go to the Custom-house in the mornin’; and so I did, and several others he’d seen, and we all hired out, and he gin me a steward’s perquisites and twenty-five dollars a month. So we goes aboard his fine new ship jist built in New Bedford, and ’twas one of the best I ever see; and she was to sail in a week on Monday, and all on us agreed to be aboard, by ten o’clock; and by ten o’clock all on us was there to a man, and we received our orders, and they was mazin’ strict, for he was the strictest captain I ever sailed under, but a fine feller with all—sound, good hearted and a hail feller well met.
“We all hands stood on deck, and a sight of passengers, and we’d bid our wives and sweethearts all farewell, and at twelve o’clock, noon, we weighed anchor for Gibralter. The pilot took us out to sea—she was a little steamboat, for only two or three years afore this, Fulton got his steamboat invented on the Hudson. Well she left us ’bout three o’clock and bid us all ‘good bye;’ and a nice evenin’ breeze sprung up, and we spread all sail and cut the waves like any thing. And so ’bout midnight I goes on deck, and looked and looked ashore, but the shore of my country was hid, for we’d moved on so brisk, it had disappeared. We had a beautiful time till we’d sailed eight days; and one day afterwards the breeze grew stronger, and the moon shone and played over the waters, till it looked like silver; and such an evenin’ I hardly ever see be at sea.
“Well next day, at one o’clock, a dark awful cloud riz up out of the northeast, and it got so the lightnin’ played along the edge of the cloud pretty briskly afore it covered the sun. The thunder rattled like great chariots over a great stone pavement. Captain orders all hands to their posts, and begun to reef and make all fast, and cover the hatches, and prepare for a storm. Finally the cloud covered the whole face of the heavens, and the captain says ‘attention all hands! Now fellow sailors be brave, we’ve got a new ship and her riggin’ will slack some, and we don’t know how she’ll work; but stick to your posts, and by the help of God, we’ll weather the storm.’
“Well the storm increased, and we kept a reefin’; for you see I used to be ’bout as much of a sailor as any on ’em, and in a storm there warn’t much to be cooked till ’twas over. And I quit the caboose, and was in the riggin’ and all round the sap works till it abated. While we was a takin’ a double reef on the main sail of the mizzen mast, there was a boy by the name of Henry Thomson, the captain’s boy, who went up aloft with an old sailor, to larn to take a reef-plat, and by misfortune, one of the foot-ropes gin way, and the little feller fell and struck on the quarter-deck railin’, and left part of his brains there, and his body went overboard; and we was agoin’ so fast, we couldn’t ’bout and get him, and we had to leave the poor feller to find companions in the deep. Oh! he was a noble boy and I felt so arter it, that I always thought of this varse of an old sailor song.
‘Days, months, years, and ages, shall circle away,
And still the vast waters above thee shall roll,
Earth loses thy pattern, for ever and aye,
Oh! sailor boy! sailor boy! peace to thy soul.’
“Well we sailed on, and the storm increased till midnight; and oh! how the ocean did look! It seemed as though it was all a blaze of fire, and the ship couldn’t keep still one second. She pitched and tumbled about like a drunken man, and yit every thing held as strong as iron; and so ’bout one o’clock at night, the storm passed off ’bout as quick as it had come, and as soon as any light appeared in the heavens, the captain says, ‘cheer up boys! the storm is agoin’ over and all hands to bunk, only the watch.’
“In the mornin’ it was as clear and pleasant as clear could be, only the sea was dreadful rough; for you know it takes the sea a good while to git calm arter a storm; but we gits breakfast and she grows kind’a calmish, and then the captain comes on deck and tells one of the hands to go and git a canvass sack and sow it up, and put a stick in it, and a cannon ball at each end; and then he orders a plank lashed to the side of the ship, with one end slantin’ down to the water, and calls ‘all hands ‘tention,’ and then asks, ‘is there any body aboard that feels as though he could pray?’ And it was as still as death, and all looked at one another, and nobody answered; for you see in all that company of ’bout fifty, nobody could pray to his God. And all was awful, for I tell ye what ’tis Domine, it’s a pretty creepy feelin’ gits hold on a body, if they knows that nobody round ’em can pray! ?
“But in the suspense there steps out an elderly English lady, and she said ‘Let us pray! Oh! thou who stillest the waves, &c.’ And so she went on and if she didn’t make the best prayer I ever heard afore or since, and she made a beautiful address to us, and she did talk enough to move the heart of a stone, and with tears in her eyes; and she reproved us for swearin’ so. And while she was a talkin’ and prayin’ so, there lay the like of that beautiful boy cold in death, and I tell ye it made us cry some and feel a good deal. Well we made as though we put Henry in that sack, and put him on the plank, and let him slide off into the ocean, and when he sunk it seemed as though my heart went into the sea arter him.
“Well the spot where his brains lay there on the deck, stayed there as long as I stayed aboard that ship; and I used to stand there and watch it at evenin’, and cry and cry; and I guess if all the tears I shed had been catched, they’d a filled a quart cup; but I couldn’t help it, for he was a noble boy, and I loved him like a brother. But we sailed on and left Henry behind us, and the thoughts on him sometimes checked our glee and sin, but only for a little while, and all on board soon forgot him, only me. But oh! how I did love that boy. ?
“Well we made Gibralter in thirty-six days from New York, and as we lowered sail and cast anchor under the old fort, they fired six cannon over our mast, and the English officer comes aboard, and three of his aids, and the ship and cargo and all her writings was examined, and findin’ all right side up, he gin us permission to come ashore and do business; and the governor bought our load of provisions for the navy sarvice, and we got an extra price ‘case ’twas scarce; and while we lay there, there was four English gun-ships of the line come in freighted with soldiers from Plymouth, in England, and they was under the convoy of Admiral Emmons; and they left their soldiers and took some on the rock, and when they come in sight, if there warn’t some music and some smoke. All the instruments used in the English navy was played on the ships, and they fired gun arter gun, from the ships to the fort, and the fort to the ships, and every round they fired, they beat the English revelie, and oh! how them cannon shook the ship under us, and the smoke was so thick, you could fairly cut it; and so they kept it up, and I tell ye they had jolly times enough.
“Next day they begun to land their recruits, rank and file by companies, and as one company from the ship marched up the rock to the top of the fort, another company from the rock would march down aboard the ship, and in this way we see a heap on ’em landed and shipped. And there stood the Royal band all day in plain sight; and they was all colored folks, and they felt good tu, and every time they landed they’d fire a broadside from the fort, and shelter ’em with smoke; and every time a company of the fort’s soldiers come aboard the ship, they’d cover ’em with smoke; and put it all together, it was by all odds the handsomest sight I ever see in my travels.
“Well, two days arter this, ’bout nine o’clock in the morning, the cannon begun to blaze away from the old fort agin’, and we concluded we was agoin’ to have some more doin’s, and I up on deck and looked and looked, and bim’by I see a large frigate comin’ up leadin’ four merchantmen with flying colors, and she blazed back agin’, and when she got into the harbor, the seventy-fours in port opened their mouths agin’, and so we had it pretty lively.
“These merchantmen were loaded with provisions for the navy; oh! what a heap of folks there was in that Rock!! Our captain says ‘boys, they’ve bought our cargo, but I don’t s’pose ‘twould make a mouthful apiece for ’em.’ And what an expensive establishment that English army and navy is!
“We stayed there at the Rock a good while, and these merchant vessels went out under the protection of these navy ships, to victual the English fleet there; and we heard a good deal ’bout Napoleon and Lord Wellington. They was all the talk, and Wellington was all the toast; and their armies was a shakin’ the whole ‘arth, and ships and armies agoin’ and comin’ all the time; and there Lord Nelson, he was at the head of the English navy, and he was a great toast; and every day the papers would come and fetch stories of battles on land and at sea, till I was as sick on ’em as I could be. It seemed to be nothin’ but a story of blood all the time; and Europe and all the ocean was only jist a great buryin’ and murderin’ ground; and, for my part, I never thought much of these ’ere great wholesale murderers, as I calls Bonaparte, Wellington, and Lord Nelson, and sich like sort of fellers. Why, Domine, I should think, from all accounts I heard at the time, and arter it, that they must have killed all of five millions of folks, in all that fightin’ agin Napoleon. Oh! it’s a cruel piece of business to butcher folks so; and yit, nevertheless, notwithstanding, them same men was toasted, and be-toasted now all over the world, and it makes me sick of human natur’; and if I am a black man, I hate to see respectable people act so.
“Finally, arter a long stay, we hauled up anchor for Port Antonio. One day a man aloft cries out ‘ship ahoy.’ The captain looks through his big glass and says, ‘bear down on her helmsman;’ and when we got nigh ’nough, the captain hails her; ‘what ship?’
“‘Torpedo.’
“‘What captain?’
“‘Trumbull.’
“‘Where from?’
“‘African coast.’
“‘Where bound?’
“‘America.’
“‘Can I come on board you?’
“‘Yes.’
“So he bears down and lays too, and I, ‘mong the rest, went aboard. The captain treats us very genteel; and when they’d finished drinkin’ Captain Trumbull orders the hatch open, and I looked down, and to my sad surprise I see ’twas crowded with slaves. The first thing I see was a colored female, as naked as she was born into the world, and she looked up at me with a pitiful look; and an iron band went round her leg, and then she was locked to an iron bolt that went from one end of the ship to the other; and there was five hundred slaves down in that hole; men, women, and children, all chained down there, and among ’em all not one had a rag of clothes on,—and not a bit of daylight entered, only that hatch-way, and then only when they opened it to throw out the dead ones, or else feed ’em; and when I put my head over the hole, a steam come out strong ’nough to knock down a horse, for there they was in their own filth, and oh! how they did smell. There was several women that had jist had children, and a good many sick, and there they was, and oh! what a sight,—some on ’em was cryin’ and talkin’ among themselves, but I couldn’t understand a word they said; and there was a parcel of leetle fellers, that was from two to ten years old, a runnin’ round ‘mong ’em, and some on ’em was dead, and you could hear the dyin’ groans of others. Oh! I never did think a body of folks could suffer so and live. Why, how do you think they sat? They all sat down with their legs straddled out right up close agin’ one another, and they couldn’t stir only one arm and hand, for all else was chained.
“I felt worse, I ‘spose, and it was entirely more heart-rendin’ to me, because they was my own species; they warn’t only human bein’s but Africans. ? Oh! if I didn’t hate slavery arter this worse than ever; why! it seemed to me a thousand times worse than it ever did afore, when I was a slave myself.
“Well, the captain said he started with eight hundred, and three hundred had died on the v’yge! ? and he’d only been out ten days, and that’s mor’n one an hour; and that he had to keep one hand in there nigh upon half the time, to knock off the chains from the dead ones, and pitch ’em upon deck; and, says he, I have left a wake of blood fifteen hundred miles; for, no sooner than I fling one out than a shark flies at him and colors all the water with blood in less than one minute; why, says he, ‘a shoal of sharks follows our slave ships clear from Africa to America!!’ Oh! my soul, if there is one kind of wickedness greater, and worser, and viler, and more devilish and cusseder than any other, it is sich business. ?
“The slave captain asked our captain if he thought he could git into America? He told him he didn’t think he could. ‘How long do you calculate to be in that business?’ says Captain Bainbridge.
“‘I can’t tell, Sir.’
“‘Well, Sir,’ says our captain, as he left the ship, ‘I advise you to clear up your ship when you git into port, and quit that cussed traffic, and go aboard a merchantman, and be a gentleman.’[13] And he didn’t like it nother’![14] Well, we left, and boarded our own ship; but that scene of blood I couldn’t forgit! I could see them poor crutters, for a good many days, in my thoughts and dreams; and sometimes I could see ’em jist as fresh and sorrowful as ever. Hundreds and hundreds of poor slaves, now at the South, are their descendants; and, like enough, you see some on ’em Mr. L.——, when you was at the South; and I know how to pity the descendants of them that’s fetched over in slave ships, for one of my grandfathers was fetched out in one, as I told you in the beginnin’ on my story.
13.  All over the world slavery, in all its forms, is repugnant and offensive to noble and generous feeling: and every where, in all ages and nations, oppression and this unholy traffic meet with a just rebuke. Man’s better feeling will revolt from cruelty and injustice until they are extinguished.
14.  Of course he didn’t “like it.” It never did please the devil to be reproved of his evil deeds. It don’t please Southern soul-dealers and soul-drivers to be rebuked.
“Well, we made Port Antonio in three weeks, and stayed there thirteen days, and got a cargo, and then the captain says ‘boys, we shall have a rough passage home, if we go this fall, it’s so late, for we stayed a good while over the brine, and now who will hold up hands for staying till next spring?’
“So all on us up with both hands, and we hauled up anchor for Amsterdam—that’s in the Dutch country—and we made port in four weeks; and when we’d been there ’bout a fortnight, the captain got a letter from his uncle, James Bainbridge, who was in Bristol, and wanted him to come there and winter with him, for he was a sea captain, tu. So he leaves his ship in our hands, and makes the first mate captain, and we had to obey all his orders; and the captain starts and says, ‘farewell boys, keep ship safe till you see me, and I’ll write to ye often, and let you know how I cut my jib.’ And we see no more on him till airly next spring.
“Well, we had all the fun on shore and aboard we could ask for. White and black, we was all hail fellers, well met. We used to have a heap of visiters aboard, to hear ’bout America. We’d have an interpreter to tell our stories, and almost make some of them smoking, thick-skulled Dutchmen b’lieve that America flowed with milk and honey, and that pigs run ‘round the streets here with knives and forks in their backs, cryin’ out ‘eat me.’ I used to be a pretty slick darkey for fixin’ out a story, tu, and a big one ’bout America; and then some white man would set by my side and put the edge on, and ‘twould go without any greasin’; and the captain used to say, always, that if any deviltry was agoin’ on, Pete was always sure to have a finger in the pie. Well, we used to talk a considerable ’bout the wars they was a havin’ in the old countries, at that time, and they said they could take us up to a place, a few miles from there, where there had been a great battle, sometime afore; and for curiosity, we all went up to see it. Well, we goes, and finds thirty or forty acres, and there wasn’t a green thing on it, and ’twas covered with bones and skulls, and all kinds of balls and spikes, and bayonets, and whole heaps of bones, and I guess you never see so melancholy a place in all your life. Oh! it made me sick of war to see thousands and thousands of human bein’s a bleachin’ on the sand. And it seemed that the ground where that battle was fit, wouldn’t let any green thing grow there, and I don’t b’lieve any green thing grows there till th............