straining his eyes to the rim of their sockets, stretching his month from car to
car, grinning like a baboon, and throwing out his chin horizontally with a sudden jerk. Notwithstanding these personal oddities, the sovereign was kind, courteous, hospitable, and disposed for trade. Accordingly, I 'dashed,' or presented him and his head-men a few pieces of cottons, with some pipen, beads and looking-glasses, by way of whet for the appetite of to-morrow.
"Next day we proceeded to formal business. His majesty called a regular 'palaver' of his chiefs and head-men, before whom I stated my dantica and announced the terms. Very soon several young folks were brought for sale, who, I am sure, never dreamed at rising from last night's sleep that they were destined for Cuban slavery! My merchandise revived the memory of peccadilloes that had been long forgotten, and sentences that were forgiven. Jealous husbands, when they tasted my rum, suddenly remembered their wives' infidelities, and sold their better halves for more of the oblivious fluid. In truth, I was exalted into a magician, unroofing the village and baring its crime and wickedness to the eye of justice. Law became profitable, and virtue had never reached so high a price! Before night the town was in a turmoil, for every man cudgeled his brain for an excuse to kidnap his neighbor, so as to share my commerce. As the village was too small to supply the entire gang of fifty, I had recourse to the neighboring settlements, where my 'barkers,' or agents, did their work in a masterly manner. Traps were adroitly baited with goods to lead the unwary into temptation, when the unconscious pilferer was caught by his ambushed foe, and an hour served to hurry him to the beach as a slave for ever. In fact, five days were sufficient to stamp my image permanently on the Matacan settlements, and to associate my memory with any thing but blessings in at least fifty of their families!
"In 1829, vessels were publicly sold, and, with very little trouble, equipped for the coast of Africa. The captures in that region were somewhat like playing a hand — taking the tricks, reshuffling the same cards, and dealing again to take more tricks 1 Accordingly, I fitted a schooner to receive a cargo of negroes immediately on quitting port. My crew was made up of men from all nations, captured in prizes; but I guardedly selected my officers from Spaniards exclusively.
"We were slowly wafting along the sea, a day or two out of the British colony, when the mate fell into a chat with a clever lad who was hanging lazily over the helm. They spoke of voyages and mishaps, and this led the sailor to declare his recent escape from a vessel, then in the Rio Nunez, whose mate had poisoned the captain to get possession of the craft. She had been fitted, he said, at St. Thomas with the feigned design of coasting; but, when she sailed for Africa, her register was sent back to the island in a boat to serve some other vessel, while she ventured to the continent without papers.
"I have cause to believe that the slave-trade was rarely conducted upon the honorable principles between man and man, which, of course, are the only security betwixt owners, commanders and consignees whose commerce is exclusively contraband. There were men, it is true, engaged in it, with whom the
