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Chapter IV. Morning Adventure.
‘For ever fallen! no son of nature now,
With freedom charter'd on his manly brow;
Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,
And when the sea wind wafts the dewless day,
Starts with a bursting heart for evermore
To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore.’
The symptoms of Edward's complaint were now too unequivocal to
allow him to mistake them, and he returned from his morning excursion
under much greater depression of spirits and derangement of his self-complacency than he had sallied forth; so that, on disencumbering
himself of his heavy European regimentals, which are rather adapted to
the frigid than the torrid zone, he threw himself listlessly across two or
three chairs in a state very little qualified to attend to regimental returns,
when Serjeant Vanderdonder appeared with a bundle of papers for his
examina-
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tion and signature, and the short salute of, ‘the returns, your honour!’
‘O! curse the returns,’ said Edward, ‘what have I to do with
regimental returns? 'Othello's occupation's gone!'’
‘Your honour bid me bring them to you, when you came back from
your walk,’ said the serjeant. ‘But the heat's enough to kill the
devil,’ observed Edward; ‘who can trouble himself about returns
with the thermometer at 95? Leave them, however, I'll look at them this
evening.’ 'Othello's occupation's gone!' sighed Edward again, as
soon as the serjeant had withdrawn. ‘Is marriage then the only cure
for love?’ and a thought of great unworthiness crossed him for a
single moment; but to do him justice, scarcely for a moment. ‘No!’
said he, ‘bubble as it is, in some respects, there is glory in the
reputation wrested from the cannon's mouth, the pride, pomp, and
circumstance of war - the consentaneous estimation of personal
courage by all mankind - the conscious superiority to the basest of all
passions, personal fear - the heart and eye that fail not in the worst
extremity, and only to be acquired by constant exposure to danger, are
worth something; but, if such reputation is only to be won by the sacrifice
of private principle and private honour, my ambition is at an end. What-
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ever be the bias of my heart at this moment, it is so free from every taint of
impurity, that if it is not my duty to pursue it, at least, I am sure that I may
safely leave the issue of it to that particular Providence to revere which I have
always been carefully instructed, and, indeed, my own reason persuades me to
confide; for without this supporting doctrine of a particular Providence, not
only the Christian religion must be a fable, but no other religion can be true.
There can be no moral relationship between man and his Maker, at least no
individual moral responsibility, if individual men are not objects of His
attention and care.’
Having thus, very much to his own satisfaction, settled his accounts
with his own heart, he called in the serjeant to proceed with those of his
regiment, to which, with my reader's permission, I must leave him for a
few hours, whilst we return to his neighbours at Anne's Grove.
No girl could be less forward to think herself an object of particular
interest with any one than Matilda Cotton, for from the absence of all
opportunity of self-comparison, she was totally insensible to the
superiority of her own endowments, mental or personal; but it was not
probable that a companion like Edward Bentinck, the only one that was
qualified since her mother's death to enter into
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either her amusements or studies, should have an attraction for her; and her
father, a man of observation and great natural acuteness, although not of much
reading perhaps, began to suspect such a possibility.
‘You seem heated, my dear Matilda, why will you walk so fast?’
said he, as she entered the breakfast-room.
‘I was afraid you would be waiting, papa; I have been chatting with
Mr. Bentinck, and engaged him to spend the day with us to-morrow,’
replied Matilda, ‘I know I am but a wretched companion for you, and it
is my duty, when I can, to provide you others.’
‘You have hitherto been always dutiful, my dear,’ said Mr. Cotton,
laying considerable stress upon the last word, ‘and as long as you
continue so, your happiness will be the dearest study of my heart, but do
not call yourself a wretched companion for me, or you will make me
suspect I am an insufficient one for you; your society is the most
delightful that remains to me!’ he continued with a half suppressed
sigh. ‘However, I shall be glad to see Mr. Bentinck to dinner; but all
the morning I am likely to be particularly engaged.’
‘I can find him plenty of employment, papa,’
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said Matilda, ‘in correcting my designs for the alcove, or supplying me
with better, as I may never again have the advantage of such
assistance.’
‘So you have been killing two birds I see with one stone,’ said her
father; ‘but’ (observing a slight blush on his daughter's cheeks)
‘as you please, my love! You know I trust you perfectly.’
‘My dear papa,’ said Matilda, after her father had left the room,
‘can any faults of yours affect your claims upon my affection and
gratitude? You are too good to me.’
The next morning when breakfast was over, he apologised to Edward
for committing him for a few hours to the charge of his daughter,
‘who,’ said he playfully, ‘is always plundering me upon some
pretence or other, and has expressed her intention of engaging you this
morning in one of her schemes, so I am afraid I shall come badly off
between you. See what it is, Mr. Bentinck, to have a fanciful daughter!
Well, I suppose I must bear it with the best grace I can, but, Matilda, my
dear, be moderate in the expense of your alcove, as West Indian banks,
in the present day, are not quite as inexhaustible as they were fifty years
ago, although yours, thank God, has hitherto been one of the best.’
‘O yes! I dare say,’ replied Matilda, ‘and
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when it is finished, if the critical eye of a certain gentleman discover any defect,
and I allege in my defence that I was afraid of the expense, I shall get a good
scolding for my self-denial.’
‘Why, that has happened sometimes, perhaps, I must confess,’
said Mr. Cotton, ‘so I believe, as usual, you must have it all your own
way, for I see I shall save nothing by interfering.
‘Bold is the man, how great so e'er his skill,
Who dares to combat with a woman's will;
For if she will, she will, you may depend on't,
And if she won't, she won't, and there's an end on't.’
‘Mr. Bentinck, au bon revoir; I shall, perhaps, be able to pick up an
acquaintance or two to meet you at dinner.
‘I shall always be happy to be introduced to any of your friends,
sir,’ said Edward.
As soon as Mr. Cotton was gone, and Edward and Matilda had spent
some time in sketching, altering, comparing, and selecting from a variety
of designs for alcoves, and grottoes, and summer-houses in one of the
portfolios of the latter, and she had summoned two of her little female
negro pages (of which she had always half a dozen at least of the
handsomest upon the plantation, more especially attached to her own
person) to follow
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then, she called upon her companion to attend her to the sea-shore to give her
his opinion of the site where she proposed to erect the alcove.
‘You are attached to this spot, Miss Cotton,’ observed Edward, as
they entered upon their beautiful sylvan walk, completely over-canopied
by an intertexture of foliage, impervious even to the rays of the meridan
sun, but kept perfectly dry and healthy by the constant draught through it
from the sea (to which it formed a vista), of a fresh and scarcely ever
failing breeze, loading itself with, and diffusing over the house as it
approached it, the rich perfume of the orange, the jessamine, and the
tube-rose, profusely intermixed with the cinnamon and other native
aromatic plants on each side and through the whole length of the
avenue, ‘as the embellishments by which your house is surrounded,
almost all of which own the fair hand of their author, sufficiently
manifest?’
‘It is my birth-place,’ replied Matilda, ‘and I have never found it
unhealthy, like most other parts of Guiana, and from the prevalence of
the sea-breeze the heat is much less oppressive on the coast than it is
in the interior. The luxuriance of vegetation here and the inexhaustible
field of botanical research and amusement have great charms
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for me; there is only one spot in the world for which I would exchange it.’
‘May I ask where that spot is?’ said Edward.
‘O, England! England!’ exclaimed Matilda, ‘whose glorious
history is ever to my imagination the first and brightest chapter in that of
the world, whose sons are ever prompt to show their manly bosoms to
the fiercest foe, and her illustrious Senate - the home of liberty, the light
of truth, the lofty guardian of all the highest hopes and interests of the
human species, the only impregnable asylum of persecuted justice,
where, as at the bar of God, I had almost said, kings and subjects,
masters and servants, planters and slaves must take their trial; but it is
not her pre-eminence in arts and arms, in freedom and enterprise, that
excite my admiration so much as the Christian morality and generosity of
her national character; where is the field of general philanthropy which
her courage is not the first to undertake, and her constancy the last to
abandon? But I beg your pardon, Mr. Bentinck, you speak our language
so exactly like a native, that I always forget you are not an Englishman.
You must excuse me; I have acquired a habit of being, perhaps, too
warm in defence of England, from the pain I am here frequently exposed
to of hearing it decried; for your countrymen,
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I am afraid are not very fond of it, and my father is quite a Citizen of the World,
but the name of England uttered with the deepest affection, was mingled with
my last blessing from my mother's lips.’
‘I assure you, Miss Cotton,’ said Edward, (unconsciously
returning a deep sigh to that with which Matilda had concluded her
panegyric,) ‘your animation in defence of England requires no apology
to me, although a foreigner. Any country whose institutions are such as
to occasion an attachment like yours to predominate in the breasts of
her children must be ever great and glorious; besides, I am not at all
insensible to the advantages of your institutions, and consequently of
the English character in many points, over those of other countries.
Indeed I have often wished myself an Englishman, and never more so
(continued Edward, looking earnestly at Matilda,) than since my
introduction to the family at Anne's Grove.’
‘O,’ said Matilda, with a slight blush, ‘I did not mean to tax your
politeness so far as that, Mr. Bentinck; your own country is entitled to
your preference.’
‘My own country is not what I have understood it was,’ said
Edward; ‘it has never recovered the leaven of atheistical principles
which it
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received when it was overrun and so long occupied by the patricidal armies of
the French revolution. Away from home, the character of my countrymen has
always been rather ferocious, mercenary, and cruel, as the history of Brazil and
the Molucca islands illustrate; but formerly, after their glorious emancipation
from the yoke of Spain, they had at home some great redeeming qualities,
indefatigable industry, a determined spirit of independence, and a stern
simplicity of character. This resulted in part from the gloom of Calvinistic
impressions of Christianity, but which conduced upon the whole to their
maintaining the dignity of their Christian calling, by a strict and exemplary
adherence to, and discharge of, their moral and domestic duties and affections;
but now those that retain any faith in revelation at all, are for the most part
philosophical Socinians, and the mass of the people seem to me decidedly
materialists; which makes their industry sordid, their courage stubbornness, and
their simplicity coarseness.’
‘I cannot say that your picture of the modern Dutch is very
captivating,’ said Matilda; ‘but if materialism is one of their national
features, it will account for any degeneracy - a process of such unlimited
degradation of the human character, that a people must already be
degraded to employ
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it, as if instead of refining ore into pure gold they should take pleasure in
reconfusing the precious metal into ore. From what I see of your countrymen
settled here, I confess to you fairly I should not call your picture much
overcoloured; but I do not allow myself to think that people of the
miscellaneous character and often desperate fortunes of colonial settlers, are a
fair specimen of the society of the mother country.’
At the end of the walk next the sea, where Edward and Matilda soon
arrived, was a little circular artificial mound or platform, with almond
trees all round the edge, the stems of which were quite clear, like so
many columns, and their intervals open, but the heads were trained to
grow at right angles with the stems, and so interspliced and drawn
together as to form a screen from the sun exactly like the sounding-board of a pulpit - a termination to the avenue rather curious and formal
than beautiful, which suggested to Matilda the substitution of an alcove.
Mr. Bentinck's task was to assist her in contriving one that should form
in itself an interesting object of repose to the eye in looking down the
vista from the house, without intercepting the view of the sea. They had
been sitting for some time upon the benches under the almond trees in
close consultation upon this per-
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plexity, when before they had satisfactorily overcome it, their attention was
diverted to a gallows looking vessel as the sailors call it, (that is, a vessel made
for evading pursuit, as if she were designed for some illegal employment, with
low flat sides, strait gunwale, and masts sloping very much back), and which by
standing off and on the coast, making and answering signals, seemed to be in
communication with some one from the shore.
‘That vessel is after no good I am afraid,’ said Edward, ‘her
appearance and conduct look very suspicious.’
‘O,’ said Matilda, after looking at her attentively for a few
seconds, ‘you will be too familiar with vessels of that description if you
are quartered much longer in this neighbourhood; it's a slave ship, I
cannot bear the sight myself, but if you will just walk round that point of
land a hundred yards lower down, you will see that they'll run in
presently to the mouth of the creek, and discharge their miserable cargo,
where I dare say there are boats ready to receive them.’
‘I was in hopes that this scandal of the Christian world had been
almost extinguished,’ said Edward, ‘is not the importation of
Africans illegal by your laws, and is there not a court here
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under an express treaty composed of British and Dutch commissioners for its
repression?’
‘The commissioners I am informed,’ said Matilda, ‘have only
authority to interfere with vessels that are caught in the trade under
British or Dutch colours, by a Dutch or British ship of war, and therefore
the British or Dutch colours are of course never or scarcely ever used in
such a business, that vessel you see is under French colours, which are
not subject to visitation by the British cruisers, and the persons here who
ought to enforce the laws of your country for the abolition of the trade,
are almost all of then directly or indirectly concerned in its
encouragement.’
‘But is not your father,’ said Edward, ‘as a British subject
exposed to the penalties of the British abolition laws, which are very
severe, and extend I believe even to death?’
‘Not here,’ said Matilda ‘and if the British commissioners
should report him to their government, it would be difficult in England to
collect the evidence against him; indeed the authorities here would not
give up a British subject to the vengeance of his own country, unless he
were actually engaged and found on board a slave ship, brought by a
British or Dutch cruiser before the mixed Court, which in that case I
understand has authority
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to send him home for, trial, but not otherwise. I do not know that my father is
concerned at all in the present vessel, but if he is, it is probably only in common
with his neighbours, and there is no one but the captain of the slave ship
himself that could prove which was the original importer; in a few hours these
slaves will be divided perhaps between a dozen plantations.’
‘Might not the government seize them,’ said Edward, before their
dispersion, and punish the owner of the plantations where they were
found?’
‘Their intelligence in Paramaribo, one hundred and fifty miles off,’
said Matilda, ‘could not be quick enough, and if it was, the seizure of
the slaves would not necessarily implicate the planter, as they might be
landed without his knowledge; they might, to be sure, order you or
whoever was the officer stationed at your outpost to interrupt such
proceedings, but we know that they would rather forbid you. In short,
they connive at it as much as possible, they will never act upon
information if they receive any, unless they are goaded and urged to it
by the British commissioners, much less lay themselves out for it; and if
they should be forced to prosecute any one under your abolition laws,
exculpation is easy where there is great reluctance to condemn, and
what between the intimidation of
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witnesses, the simulation of ships' papers, and the conscious infringement of
the laws by the judges themselves, the worst consequence probably would be a
short confinement. I am therefore under little apprehension of personal danger
to my father: but the enormous guilt and all-crime-comprising character of the
trade is the great drawback on my happiness. I have no doubt that a third of the
original number of that cargo of despair have died on the passage from Africa,
and at least another third of those that remain will not survive their voyage a
twelvemonth. It is, as you may suppose, a forbidden subject between my father
and me, but there is a sort of implied compact between us, that he is not to
interfere with my management of his slaves, if I do not inquire much into his,
and I cannot better employ his indulgence than by endeavouring to alleviate
their sufferings, and make them if possible some reparation for the wrongs, to
the infliction of which he is a party. At my earnest entreaty he has lately
allowed me a Moravian missionary to instruct them on the Sundays, in the
apostolical simplicity of whose character and prudence, and inofficiousness of
whose conduct, my father (to do him justice) always expresses the utmost
confidence.’
‘With such an advocate and benefactress,’ said
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Edward, ‘upon every plantation, the slaves might find some freeman
who would not be unwilling to change places with them, the transition
from the hold of a slave ship to the ministration of angels, must be like a
translation to heaven.’
‘I am afraid you think me fishing for compliments,’ said Matilda,
‘by your readiness to bestow them; but go,’ said she, and bring me
word when they have landed their miserable captives, that's a spectacle
that will soon sober your fancy, as in case any of them should be taken
to Anne's Grove, I must hasten home to make some addition to my
father's provision for them, but I will wait your return.’
I need not remind such of my readers as are familiar with the models of
ancient sculpture, that the expression of figure is often quite as definite
as that of feature. Constraint, freedom, authority, subjection, boldness,
fear, strength, weakness, exertion, repose, hilarity, dejection, attention,
listlessness, and many other moods of mind, may be conveyed distinctly
to the imagination by attitude and position of muscle alone. When
Edward had run round the point of land before mentioned, he saw some
sailors assembling on the beach, a little farther down between two or
three hundred slaves, some of whom were in pretty good flesh, others
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nearly skeletons, but one figure, different from the others, arrested his particular
attention, he did not obey the sailors who were marshalling them as quickly as
the rest, he did not move either lamely or alertly like the others, but deliberately
and firmly although with evident reluctance; when he came in contact with the
others, he started out of it again as if he declined their fellowship, his chest was
alternately compressed and dilated, and almost convulsed from indignation or
some strong emotion. There was no stoop in his shoulders, his stature was
perfectly erect, his knees and ancles and all his limbs were beautifully clean and
elastic, his muscles had evidently none of them been unequally strained, his
whole appearance, in short, denoted a man who had never had any other master
than his own will; his wrists were bound together by a strong hand-cuff, with an
iron bar of nearly a foot in length and an inch in diameter between the loops.
When the rest of the party were arranged, one of the sailors, a very strong
robust fellow, seemed to order him to move, and on his expressing or betraying
some hesitation, had the temerity to strike him with great violence, as he stood
fronting him, close under his face, in a single instant the captive raised his
hands, and bringing down the iron bar with the force of both his arms upon the
sailor's
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head, who dropt instantly as if he had been shot, by one brave bound of nearly
twenty feet, he sprang into the wood, followed however as instantly by half a
dozen sailors with cutlasses and pistols.
When Edward Bentinck returned to Miss Cotton, a little sobered in his
view of the angelic nature of slavery under any circumstances, and told
her what he had seen, ‘God speed him!’ said Matilda, ‘but he
has no chance, their cutlasses will cut down the underwood which will
effectually impede him, especially as he is manacled; but we shall
perhaps hear the result of his attempt to escape, this evening, as I think
it very likely you will meet the captain of the vessel at dinner, at any rate
we must defer our deliberations on the alcove to a better opportunity, as
I wish to get home in case any of his poor fellow victims should have
occasion for my services.’
‘Are labouring hands then so scarce here,’ said Edward, ‘that
men of established wealth and information like your father, will risk their
character, as well as personal peace and security, by so disreputable a
practice?’
‘O no!’ said Matilda, ‘there are more slaves in the colony, I am
sorry to say, than many of their owners can afford properly to clothe and
feed; with regard to my father, I believe it is more
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out of resentment to the interference of the British government than any thing
else, that he continues it; but he is like other planters, too much accustomed to
the almost absolute disposal of the lives of his dependents, and they will never
any of them forgive the invasion of their despotism.’
Conversing in this way, they had not got above half the length of the
avenue on their return to the house, when they were startled by a hoarse
voice of some one concealed by the bushes on one side of them, but
very near, exclaiming ‘D--n you, shoot him!’ when three or four
bullets whistled by them, and in the same instant the noble savage
darted into the avenue, and threw himself covered with blood at their
feet, crying, ‘Save me, massa! save me from those devils! me be your
slave, massa! me give my life for you.’ Matilda fainted, and sunk in
the arms of her companion, her little pages, to whom she was more than
a mother, cried and sobbed, and wrung their hands, saying, ‘Missy
gone dead, Missy gone dead!’ ‘To the house for a couple of men
and a hammock,’ said Edward to one of the little girls, ‘quick
Lucy!’ and in the meantime kneeling on one knee, and supporting
Matilda on the other, and taking off her bonnet and using it as a fan, he
soon removed the syncope, but it was not possible for him to give any
effectual
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assistance to his sable supplicant, against half a dozen men of his own strength,
although the imploring gestures and tone of voice of the unhappy victim were
as pathetic to him, as they were proud, scornful, and indignant to his pursuers,
all he could do as they bound and dragged him off was, to say, ‘remember
that you have been seen, and if you use him illegally it is at your
peril.’ ‘Ay! ay!’ said one of the scoundrels, whose name he
afterwards found to be William Askens.
‘We don't want none of your instructions, we know'se what's legal as
well as you and what is not, and if we did not we shouldn't come to you
to inquire.’
‘Very well!’ said Edward, ‘but depend upon it I shall make some
inquiries about you.’
Whether any of the men knew Miss Cotton, or suspected from some
parts of Edward's dress and military figure, although out of uniform, that
he was the officer commanding the detachment on that station, they
seemed to abate something of their violence with their prisoner, and he
thought he heard one of them say to Askens, ‘hush Bill, the least said
the soonest mended, you're always so d--d ready with your tongue, that
ere gentleman has got the guard down here, its my opinion, and you
know'se very well that this here trade as they
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call's it is out of all law and gospel too, and if I don't wash my hands of all
consarn in it afore long my name's not Bob Jackson.’
The arrival of the hammock prevented Edward's distinguishing any
more of their dialogue, and having carefully conveyed his fair patient to
her house, he repaired to his barracks to shift his clothes and collect
himself a little before dinner. |
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