Page:The American Slave Trade (Spears).djvu/252

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THE AMERICAN SLAVE TRADE

most liberal terms. On the second occasion he had to go further up the river to secure the cargo, but he succeeded in delivering six hundred captives at the mouth of the river. They were more intelligent than the first cargo, lighter in color, and better in many respects than those captured nearer the coast. A number of them died during the voyage, and the Wanderer was put to her best speed on several occasions to get away from undesirable acquaintances, but she was never overhauled, and she arrived off the Georgia coast in December. She was caught in a violent gale, and in attempting to enter Jekyl Creek, between Jekyl and Cumberland Islands, she ran aground one stormy night, and a number of the captives escaped from the hold and jumped into the sea and were drowned. . . . The negroes were sent to New Orleans and sold, except a few that were scattered about among the Georgia planters. "The profits were quite as large as from the first expedition, and but for the breaking out of the war and the blockading of the port at Savannah, the Wanderer might have made another voyage in 1860. As it was, she was hemmed up in the river by the blockade and finally sold to the Confederate Government."

Lamar wrote a letter regarding this second voyage that is interesting as showing the kind of a heart he had. He said:

The man who went on her before would like to go again, but he made an extraordinary claim the last time, and it, of course, was not settled in full — and he might take some advantage and throw us, to pay off any feeling he might have against the old company. He claimed he was to have received $30 a head for every one who had life in him, that was