Outalissi; a Tale of Dutch Guiana

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Chapter VII. The Deposition.

Throned in the vaulted heart, his dread resort,
Inexorable Conscience holds his court:
Wrapp'd in dark night, with terrors all his own,
He speaks in thunder when the deed is done.
Hear him, ye senates, hear this truth sublime,
He who allows oppression shares the crime.

Edward Bentinck had just finished his breakfast the next morning, and was sinking into a profound reverie on the conversation and events of the preceding day, debating with himself how far it was his duty to report to his superiors what he had seen, first communicating fairly to Mr. Cotton the obligation he found himself under of so doing, when Serjeant Vanderdonder informed him that an English sailor was waiting to speak to him. An English sailor, said Edward - what can an English sailor possibly want with me? however, hand him in, serjeant; and accordingly with a short scrape of the foot, nod of the head, and hitch

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of the trowsers, but with a sort of curtailed and begrudged obsequiousness that seemed to express a full consciousness that it was but a swab of a Dutchman that he was addressing after all, Jack was introduced to the presence. ‘Your name and business with me my lad?’ said Edward.

‘My name's Bob Jackson, your honour; and my business is to swear.’

‘That's a business, Bob, of which I am afraid you are but too capable yourself, without my assistance,’ said Edward.

‘Why as to the matter of that,’ said Bob, ‘I can't say but our lingo is not always quite as much like a parson's blessing as it shou'd be, but what I means at present is to swear against that d--d French lubber Captain Ledger, as they calls him.’

‘Well, what have you to say against him, Bob?’ said Edward. ‘Did I not see you amongst the men that shot that poor negro in Mr. Cotton's walk yesterday morning? are you not therefore one of his crew?’

‘No, thank God!’ said Bob, ‘not now. I was only engaged for the voyage, and as soon as he come on board last night, and gave us a good rating of his d--d aggravating French jabber for being so handy with our fire-arms in this here

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civilized country, as he called it, I told him a bit of my mind, that his trade was nothing better than piracy and murder, that I 'd seen quite enough of it, and therefore if 'twas all the same to him, should be glad if he 'd pay me my wages and put me ashore, which he was glad to do the first thing this morning, lest, as he said, cursing me for an English hypocrite, 'I should infect the rest of his crew with my dislike to the service.' So I thought I 'd come to your honour, and see if I couldn't lighten my conscience a little, by taking my davy of what I 'd see'd since I went a board that hell boat!’

‘But,’ said Edward, ‘does not the captain, when he engages you, exact a promise from you not to disclose what you see?’

‘No,’ said Bob, colouring, ‘a promise is a promise, although made to the devil himself; and although we British sailors are queer fellows sometimes, I must confess, there are not many of us that would break our sea word;^* but if he was to ax for any promise of that sort before he engaged us, he'd be shewing his colours too soon, before he knowd whether 'twas friend or foe that he was speaking to, and may be he'd never get his com-

* Engagements contracted under the pledge of their professional honour, I suppose Jack meant - Note by the Author.

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plement at all, for its too bloody a business for any but such as are next kin to the devil to engage in knowingly; they trusts to this, that, if they puts theirselves in our power we puts ourselves in theirs; but, if I was to be hang'd to morrow, I could not rest till I had giv'd information of all I knowd. I hope your honour will not say as 'twas I as told you, at least for the next two months. You're welcome to make what other use of the information you please, and I'm ready to swear to it; but these slave traders are spiteful fiends, as your honour may suppose, and if they was to know as 'twas I as started the law upon them, till I am fairly out of their reach, 'twould be as much as my life's worth to open my lips about the business.’

‘Well, well,’ said Edward, ‘I'll not betray you into any danger, I promise you, therefore fire away my lad, only dont be too prosy. I 've rather a curiosity to hear your story, but I have no authority to take your oath.’

‘Well, your Honour, this is my story. I come out to the West Indies a few months ago on board His Majesty's sloop of war, the Saucy Anne, as brisk and fine a boat as ever swam, your honour, and when we come off Martinique, for some words which I had with the boatswain, the captain, he's

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not a bad man neither, said as hands were plenty now, he'd give me my choice of a good buffing, or a run amongst the Frenchmen without my wages, so, - that buffing's no joke, your honour! - as I thought I should soon get on board an English ship again by some wind or other, I chose the latter, and had not been long cruising about St. Pierre's, before this Captain Ledger, as they calls him, seeing me unemployed, said I was a good likely sea looking lad, and asked if I had a mind to take a run with him to Africa for a cargo of mules, as he should sail next day, and was rather short of hands? Being quite out of prog, your honour, and rather sulky at the moment, I said I didn't care, and he took me a board with him immediately. When we came into the Bight of Benin, I soon found what a cargo of mules meant, and one of the men, an Englishman like myself, of the name of Bill Askens - (there are black sheep in all professions your honour!) - said he knowd of a king as liv'd somewhere in those parts, about twenty miles up the country, that had taken him home and cured him of a fever once when he was wrecked upon that coast, and that if the captain would send a dozen hands with him, and give a trifle head money, he'd bring away the whole village, king and all. Accord-

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ingly I was ordered of the party, and exactly at midnight - (for Bill knowd the way very well) - we arrived at a long straggling street of rush cabins, which was - (I think Bill called it) - the metropolis of King Outalissi. This village was surrounded by a sort of wattling fence too high to be overlooked, and too stiff to be easily pushed through, but with only one entrance, giving the poor inhabitants the idea of security, but in fact, proving their destruction. Across this entrance Bill ordered us to dig and cover such a trench as it was impossible they could pass without falling into or over it, and to remain there whilst he went and set fire to the opposite end of the village, which happened also to be the windward end, and which, as soon as he had done, 'Now then,' said he, 'take it easy, boys! take it easy, boys! You'll see what bolting there'll be by and by!' Accordingly, as soon as the poor unsuspecting savages heard their hovels crackling over their heads, and saw the blaze by which they were surrounded, they all rushed out helter skelter in the greatest confusion, overthrowing each other into the trench; and by binding them as fast as they fell with the cordage and crippling irons with which we were provided, we soon had all the natives in our possession, but one who was too

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strong and active for us, and escaped into the woods, and now,’ said Bob, biting his lips and looking inward, ‘began, what upon my soul I'm ashamed to tell your honour the rights of, although I'm not purtikler bashful neither, but I will only say, that after the most violent and brutal indulgence of our men with the women and womenchildren, and the slaughter of all as persisted in their resistance, we found ourselves the next morning, (besides the infants as we was obliged to leave to perish at the breasts of their dead mothers, and several whose broken limbs or excessive sickness from their fright and ill usage made it impossible as we could move,) in the possession of nearly a hundred slaves of all sorts, men, women, and children. Early in the morning, just as we were about to march off with our prize, the person who had escaped come stealing out of the woods to reach an oyster,^* I thinks 'twas as Bill said, or some such lubberly lingo, as he larned when he was a soldier, for this Bill isn't above a half-bred sort of a land swab of a sailor after all, your honour, or he'd never be so bloody, cruel, and such an ungrateful villain as he is. Howsumdever

* Reconnoitre I suppose. - Note by the Author.

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the poor man came out of the wood to see how the wind sit, as I should say, and Bill said that this was the King Outalissi, for he knowd him very well, by reason of having lived several weeks with him and his father, who was since dead, when they took Bill home with 'em to nurse him and cure him of his fever after his shipwreck. When our people heard he was King Outalissi, most of 'em was for scuttling his knob, as they said, for fear of his bringing down a rescue upon us, for as for catching him, as well attempt to catch His Majesty's sloop of war the Saucy Anne, under top, top-gallant royals, sky-scrapers, and moon-rakers, when she tears through it like a rocket your honour; but Bill said, 'No! no! put up your levellers and bilboas lads; we must take him alive, or we shall lose the very pride of the haul, when they've had him digging out their d--d Dutch coffee dams.' Just so, your honour; for Bill was always very ready with his tongue, although I told him that I didn't see why Dutch coffee dams should be more d--d than any other, your honour.’

‘Well, go on,’ said Edward.

‘When they 've had him' (continued his informant) 'digging out their d--d Dutch coffee

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dams in Surinam for a twelvemonth over his --^* in mud, exposed all day as naked as he was born, to sun, wind, and rain, without either shade or shelter; they'll have taken some of the royal shine out of his Majesty's breeches,' said Bill, just so, with a sneer, your honour; as I told him, royalty was royalty, breeches or no breeches, your honour. And with that Bill brought forward an old woman, that he said was King Outalissi's mother, for we could not find that he had wife or children, in order that the king might see that we had his mother a prisoner. As soon as the king distinguished his mother, your honour; he jumped, and tore, and struck his breast, and threw himself upon his knees, and beat his head against the earth, and clenched his hands, and seemed to me like a ship in her last throes before she founders, your honour; but Bill said, 'let him flounder about a bit; let him flounder about a bit; I knows the sprat to catch a gudgeon! I've got him fast enough I see,' and with that, your honour, Bill went up to King Outalissi, and palavered with him a little, and at last, he told him, 'that if his majesty would surrender him-

* An hiatus in my copy of this deposition makes it impossible to supply this word. I suppose Bill meant up to his waist. - Note by the Author.

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self up, and come with the rest of his subjects to Surinam, where they'd make a gentleman of him, (which is a much greater thing than a king, said Bill, and he'd be much better off than he was in his own country,) he'd let his mother go free,' to which King Outalissi seemed very agreeable, and it quite seemed to compose him, your honour; but Bill knowd if he let his mother go before he got the king in the grimpets, he'd have knocked her brains out with his tomahawk may be, and been out of sight himself sooner than a shot could follow him, or perhaps have caught up the old woman, and been too quick for Bill even with his mother in his arms, and the king knowd as Bill was not to be trusted if he givd himself up before his mother was free, so 'twas agreed that, after binding one of the king's hands, his mother was to be unbound altogether, which was accordingly done, and the old woman might have got a pretty good start into the wood by the time the king's binding was finished, for she wasn't so old but that she could have run, although Bill would have caught her again I 've no doubt, your honour, if 'twas only to aggravate the king, (tried to do it indeed, I know he would, as he 'd ordered some of the youngest to be ready to start after her again as soon as he gave the signal,) but she

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positively refused to leave her son, when Bill said jeeringly, your honour, 'that since she was so pressing, and his majesty had agreed to make his voyage with him, he'd give his mother her passage for nothing,' but she died, your honour, about three days after we got on board again, with between thirty and forty more men, women, and children, some of whom at least died, and some they were obliged to throw overboard to make room for the rest, or they would have all died of suffocation and dissentery, your honour; as they was all laid in the hold one a top of 'tother all night like so many sacks, and only brought upon deck by a dozen at a time for half an hour twice a day, which made me tell the captain last night that he was Jonas enough to sink the bravest fleet that ever left a British port, if the Bible was true, and what is said about heaven and hell wasn't all a flam, your honour. There are such places as heaven and hell, your honour,’ said Bob doubtingly.

‘You have given an experimental description of one,’ said Edward, ‘and its inhabitants, and the best proof of the existence of the other somewhere, is the contest of the two principles of good and evil in every man's own heart, and which made you so sensible of the difference as to take

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the honourable resolution you did of invoking, at any risk to yourself, the vengeance of even human justice upon those who have become little better than pure incarnate demons, by exclusively practising the latter; but finish your story.’

‘That's my story, your honour; I 've nothing further to add; but that when we arrived off the Marawina, we were ordered to land what survived of the slaves, and take 'em down the creek to Mr. Cotton's the planter at Anne's Grove, who would give us a receipt for 'em, which we did after recovering King Outalissi, who broke away from us after landing, in yonder walk of Mr. Cotton's, as your honour knows. Now if your honour will just lend me a Bible for a minute, as I may put my oath to it, my heart will feel as light as a bird again.’

‘There is a Bible,’ said Edward, after taking down the purport of Bob's story, and making him subscribe it; ‘but I have no authority to take oaths.’

‘God has authority,’ said Bob Jackson, ‘its only afore your honour that I takes my oath to God,’ then kissing the Bible, ‘I swear as all I says is true, so help me God!’ said Bob.

‘And now I 've heard your story,’ said Edward Bentinck, ‘what would you have me do with it?’

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‘Just what your honour pleases, if you will only give me time to get on board my old ship the Saucy Anne again. She's still out here, I understand, somewhere, and I dare say the captain would forgive me by this time; they don't use us over well always in the king's service, to be sure, although his majesty himself, they say, has a fine sailor's heart in him, God bless him! But he never knows the rights of half that's done in his name, worse luck, or he'd soon put an end to it; for when we're on shore, sometimes they hunts us about like wild cats.’

‘And when we're at sea, the cats hunt you, I suppose,’ said Edward.

‘And when we're at sea, as your Honour observes, the cats hunts us. But I'd sooner be tied up to the grating for a round five dozen, your honour, under Captain Switchem of theTottunofog, and he's one of the readiest men with the cat as ever I heard of, than be consarned again in such a bloody sarvice as this here slave trading, your honour.’

‘But why don't you take your information to the British commissioners at Paramaribo?’ said Edward.

‘Why, maybe, your honour, they would'nt believe what I says, that I did'nt know what mules were when this here Frenchman engaged me, your

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honour, and might get me pen'd up for six months in their putrid black hole there at Fort Zelandia, till they could send me home to be hang'd or transported as a felon; for slave trading by the British laws is felony, and liable to death without benefit of clargy,^* your honour. And besides, your honour, if I'd been seen going into the British commissioners in my sea gear, I should have been in more danger from the vengeance of these here traders, your honour; some of whose spies might watch me, or hear of me from the sarvants. Now, if your honour will send a copy of my davy to the British commissioners, or put the governor up to what I've told you, he'll have nothing to do but to send down the Comet, or any other small war craft that happens to be in the harbour, and whip up this here Frenchman just as if he fell in with her quite unsuspecting-like, your honour, without any one's being a bit the wiser how he got his information.’

‘Well, my lad, I'll consider of it,’ said Edward. So, with the same nod, hitch, and scrape, as he entered, exit Bob, leaving Edward Bentinck in a dilemma of no very enviable kind; for he did not know the British commissioners, and revolted as he was by the outrageous guilt of the slave trade which had just been laid open to him, he, of

* Piracy now, thank God. - EDIT.

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course, saw that he could not report his information to the governor without danger of being looked upon as a busy intermeddling fool, for troubling himself with what did not concern him, and making them open their eyes where they wanted to shut them; and the danger which Edward no longer affected to disguise from himself, and which was a great deal more embarrassing, viz. that of interrupting his intercourse with the Cottons, who, if any inconvenience should result to them, would suspect him perhaps of being the author of intelligence to government from the personal observation, for the opportunity of which he was indebted to their hospitalities - a suspicion from which his informant's injunction of secrecy for two months would, for so long at least, make it impossible he could vindicate himself, and to communicate only a portion of the information he had received, and keep back the name of perhaps the most guilty party, namely, the planter to whom the slaves were consigned, would, besides the inefficiency of it if government pursued any enquiry into the business as they ought to do, be sacrificing public duty to private feeling.

For a long time Edward inclined to put the deposition quietly in his own writing-desk, and say nothing about it.

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‘What have I to do with the slave trade,’ said he to himself, ‘horrible as it is? Why should I turn Don Quixote, and stir up a hornet's nest about me of all the planters here, besides incurring the secret ill will of all the official authorities, and probably even of that of my own commanding officer, and hazard besides that hope which,’ said he, smiling, at the alteration in his own feelings, ‘I would not exchange for the occupation of any Othello that ever lived, or all the fame and glory of the world;’ and he spent a great part of the morning endeavouring to satisfy himself of the honour of keeping his own counsel, and leaving the slave trade to those whose especial duty it was to attend to it.

‘Are there not fanatics enough in the world,’ continued he in soliloquy, ‘to run a muck, and tilt at all these things, as Pope says, without me?’ But it would not do; it was impossible that any zeal in the suppression of such monstrous ultra-heathen enormities could be fairly obnoxious to the charge of fanaticism. He then tried another position. ‘Did not our Saviour himself,’ said he, ‘enjoin the wisdom of the serpent: and St. Paul declare that all things were not expedient?’ But his honesty was too stubborn for him still. ‘Base subterfuge!’ he exclaimed, ‘Who does not see

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that the expediency there recommended, both by Christ and his illustrious servant, is an expediency upon general principles and for the general good, and not an expediency to be determined by the petty and often unwarrantable wishes of individual egotism. - Here's this excellent man Mr. Schwartz, with a wife and children, whom such a man must love with ten times the intenseness of a man of worldly dissipation, even if not absolutely untrue to his nuptial engagements, yet he cheerfully foregoes that greatest of all luxuries to a benevolent heart, the pursuit of the means of indulging those we love, confines them as well as himself to the utmost simplicity of shelter, food, and raiment; and after these are procured, devotes every spare hour and every spare shilling to the prosecution of Christianity, asking for no return in this world, but always carrying a serene and satisfied, although a decisively serious aspect, regardless of any personal dangers although extending to his life, and cheerfully committing his family to the protection of that parental Providence of whom his utmost ambition is to be found a faithful servant at his death, still counting his utmost services as nothing compared with the value of his Master's favour and goodness in the pardon of his faults; here also is even my honest friend, who has brought this dilemma upon

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me, and who, if something in his breast had not taught him to disdain the principles of selfish expediency, would never have incurred the danger of making a disclosure - For shame, Edward Bentinck, to suffer a British seaman to outdo you in Christian principle and disinterested generosity. - No, Matilda! I will not sacrifice the singleness of Christian truth and honour even for you;’ and he immediately took his pen and wrote a full account of what he had learned, (reserving only the name of his informant,) and addressed it to Colonel Vansomner, his commanding officer at Paramaribo; concluding his note by saying, that his informant was an Englishman, and had requested him to send a copy of his deposition to the British commissioners, which he therefore did by the same opportunity, but without any accompanying remark whatever of his own either confirmatory or explanatory; in the mean time, lest the vessel should escape, he thought it right to send a soldier immediately to head quarters to acquaint the colonel with the practices which had been disclosed to him, and which he feared were but of too frequent occurrence, of course leaving it to him (the colonel) to take whatever further steps in the business he thought proper; and having ordered a soldier to proceed immediately with his letter, Edward

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Bentinck, although very far from cheerful, felt quite satisfied that he had done the thing which was right.

Of the divine passion of love, in its finest influences, a libertine is no longer susceptible; but from libertinism Edward's principles had hitherto saved him, and Edward was in love. Those who have never been so, will either laugh at his scruples of acting upon the convenient doctrine of selfish expediency, or condemn his hesitation from such a motive, in obeying the stern dictates of duty. Those who have been in love will not deny him the credit he deserves on this occasion for his anti-selfish decision.