Outalissi; a Tale of Dutch Guiana

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Chapter IX. A Narrow Escape.

‘With caution taste the sweet Circean cup,
He that sips often, at last drinks it up.
Habits are soon assumed; but when we strive
To strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive.
Call'd to the temple of impure delight,
He that abstains, and he alone does right.’
     Progress of Error.

When Edward reached his barracks he expressed his surprise at the abruptness of his recall, to the officer superseding him, and asked if any reason had been assigned for so much anticipating the usual period of his relief?

‘None, whatever to me,’ said the officer, ‘I received my directions from Colonel Vansomner, and he, I believe, his from the Governor; but I know nothing whatever of the reason; there has been some noise about a slave ship, that the Kemphaan frigate has brought up to town; but I did not of course suppose you would be indiscreet

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enough to defeat the connivance of that trade by the authorities here, by volunteering any interference with it, or that my directions to relieve you at this outpost could be in consequence; but if you mean to obey the order of returning with your men in the boats that brought us down here, you have not a moment to spare in collecting your things, for it has been flood-water this half hour, and Sergeant Vanderdonder is, I believe, only waiting your order to embark the men, as I told him to get them ready. You must sleep for a night at a plantation about half way, called Bachelor's Adventure, which you will not reach much before midnight, and the next tide, to-morrow morning, at six o'clock, will carry you easily to Paramaribo by noon, when you will of course present yourself to the Colonel.’

In less than half an hour Edward was on his way to the colonial capital. Whether he should consider his recall as a reproof from his superiors for his officiousness? What would be the consequences to Mr. Cotton of the information he had been the medium of transmitting to them? In what light the share he would be discovered to have had in exposing him to them, would appear to his daughter, whom the more he saw the more he admired, and the more undeniably he felt that

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she had an unrivalled precedence and interest, never to be supplanted in his heart? Whether she would ever allow him an opportunity of vindication; or on the contrary, whether it were not almost certain that her father, at least, if not herself, would interdict for ever all further intercourse between them? These were no very cheerful subjects of reflection for him during his long row, and under the depression of which the consciousness of right intention was hardly able to support him. Will nothing but selfish expediency ever prosper, thought he in this cursed world? If I had not been a Christian or could but have got over the uncompromising singleness of motive that Christianity requires of its professors, and its deep disdain of every shade of hypocrisy and selfish subterfuge, I might have still been living within the delicious influence of the presence and society and even acknowledged friendship of that sweet girl, the opportunity of more successfully cultivating which I have now resigned to another. But the example and conversation of Mr. Schwartz occurred to him, and he could not help saying to himself how vulgar is the courage which enables me or any man to risk his life in energetic exertion, compared to that stayed confidence in God and the sufficient and abundant reward of his approbation, which enables

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a man to endure a long, course of privation and passive suffering with unrepining composure and even graceful dignity. I know my mother too would think that I had done right, and tell me that a Christian without sufficient confidence in the parental providence of God to sacrifice his private wishes when they seemed to interfere with his duty, did not really deserve the name.

A little incident that occurred at this moment in the boat came seasonably in aid of Edward's Christian philosophy to divert his melancholy. Serjeant Vanderdonder said, that since he got into the boat he missed a parcel of tea and sugar which he had put in before him, and he was sure one of the negroes with whom he left it must have taken it out before they left the station, or hid it somewhere in the boat; Edward, who recollected the account given by Stedman^* of the superstition of the negroes, determined to employ the same stratagem as that to which he had recourse on a similar occasion. The boats here are all built with a sort of quarter-deck cabin, in the stern of which the folding-doors, which open towards the stern of the boat when they are shut, appear completely to enclose those within the cabin from the view of the rowers. Accordingly, Edward told the negroes,

* See Stedman's Surinam, vol. ii.

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six in number, that a parrot's feather was to grow within six minutes upon the tip of the nose of him who was guilty, at the same time pronouncing a few incoherent words, and making two or three circles with his sabre, he shut himself up within the cabin; here peeping through the key-hole, and observing the rowers with great attention without their perceiving him, he soon saw one of them, at every stroke of the oar, put up his hand and feel the tip of his nose; upon which he instantly ran up to him, and cried, ‘I see the parrot's feather; thou art the thief, thou rascal.’ To which the poor superstitious fellow instantly answered, ‘Yes, me, Massa!’ then kneeling to the sorcerer, as he thought him, for mercy, the serjeant goodnaturedly said, that in return for his confession he would forgive him.

‘What an evidence is such superstition,’ thought Edward, ‘impressed upon the wildest and most untutored of the human species, of the universality of the belief in the invisible world, and the irresistible power and authority of its agents.’ His abstract reflections and soliloquies, however, were interrupted for a short time by his approaching the plantation, where he was directed to remain for the night, and where he arrived with his party between eleven and twelve o'clock. The owner of

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the plantation was not at home, but the officer that had taken Edward's station at the outpost had prepared the servants to expect the return party, who occasioned therefore very little derangement. The men were accommodated in the coffee lodges, and Edward found a good supper prepared for him in the dwelling house, and a hammock in a room adjoining.

The day had not been one of much bodily exertion, but the pressure upon his heart and spirits, and the anxiety of mind that the occurrences of it had occasioned to him, had made it a fatiguing one, he therefore soon dispatched his supper, and having disencumbered himself of his suffocating woollen uniform,^* loosely enveloped himself in a light linen roquelaure, and threw himself into his hammock. He however had not been there many minutes, when (before he was overtaken by sleep) a naked bust of great symmetry and beauty ^† of a very young negress, (who, from the legal prohibition in Surinam of slaves wearing shoes, had entered the room without his perceiving it,) ap-

* See note C.

† Whoever supposes a sable Venus to be without attraction supposes so from having never had an opportunity of experiencing it. They have often not only the grace of the most perfect symmetry, but the most acute vivacity and intelligence, as well as benevolence of feature. - Note by the Author.

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peared close to his pillow and within the embrace of his arm. ‘I come to tell massa good night,’ said she. After examining for a few seconds the object from whence proceeded this address, his hand in moving, some how or another caught in the beautifully plaited chain of grass which he had purloined from Matilda, and which still remained upon his neck, and he said firmly, ‘Good night to you, go!’ and the vision disappeared. How often in the course of his equatorial campaign this little talisman acted with equally saving potency, the notes from which this little narrative is collected do not say. Certain it is that surrounded, as he was, by every temptation as well as facility of indulgence, nothing but such a spell upon his heart, or religious impressions of more than human strength could have preserved him in that point of conduct, from irretrievable moral ruin.

The next morning Edward proceeded with the tide according to his directions to head-quarters at Paramaribo, which he reached about noon, nothing particular having occurred in his progress, and on his arrival in obedience to his orders, he waited immediately on Colonel Vansomner his commanding officer.

‘Well, sir!’ said Colonel Vansomner, ‘you've given us a great deal of trouble here, and got me

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goose beside from the governor for sending such a colonial novice to that station, but I did not like to banish another to that torrid Siberia, as we call it here, out of his routine; how could you be so foolish as to trouble yourself about the slave trade, Mr. Bentinck? Of course you know it could only be continued here by the connivance of the authorities, and no man likes to have his eyes opened against his will; and by informing the British commissioners too, you compel the colonial government to inconvenience the parties accused, by going through the forms of prosecution, although the court of policy, whose members are all planters or administrators of plantations, will no doubt somehow or another shuffle them out of the scrape, after saving appearances by letting them lie in prison a few months, till the first bruit of the business is blown over a little: but this gives a great deal of trouble, and exposes the colony besides to the complaint of the British government.’

‘I really thought,’ said Edward, ‘that it was the sincere wish of his Netherland majesty to suppress this frightful traffic, from the laws that he has passed for that apparent purpose, and the public expression of his ministers.’

‘Pshaw!’ said Colonel Vansomner, ‘all that, you know, is merely to humbug the British government; his Netherland majesty's ministers are

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obliged ostensibly to comply with whatever directions my Lord Londonderry pleases to send them, but we know better here than to suppose it can ever really be the wish of the Dutch government to ruin their own colonies.’

‘I do not believe,’ said Edward, ‘that the solid prosperity of any community can ever be consulted by the tolerance of such an all crime-comprising practice; but surely if the West Indian interests are in the state of depression which is contended, the rigid prevention of fresh supplies of labourers is the only chance that remains of their salvation, the best way of helping any declining market is to shut out all further competition, and the best way of helping the existing West Indian proprietors, I should think, would be rather to contract the field of West Indian cultivation, than invite fresh speculators to employ new capital in its extension, by continuing the facilities of obtaining fresh supplies of African muscle.’

‘Well!’ said Colonel Vansomner, ‘I can't enter into that; you may now, sir, go and hear what Monsieur Derague the governor has to say to you upon the subject, as he desired that I would send you to him.’

‘So, Mr. Bentinck,’ said the governor,^* on Ed-

* See note D.

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ward's presenting himself, ‘you are in correspondence with the British commissioners here I find, to help us in the discharge of our duty.’

‘I could not be aware,’ said Edward, ‘that my furnishing those gentlemen with information of a case, which I understood it to be their especial duty to attend to, would be disagreeable to your excellency.’

‘Their duty,’ said his excellency, ‘only extends to the adjudication in conjunction with his Netherland majesty's commissioners, of slave vessels found trading under Dutch or British colours, and brought before them by a Dutch or British cruiser, but like other gentlemen, it is not very easy always to confine them to their duty; I do not however blame them so much, their business is of course to affect a confidence in the earnestness of the wishes of our government to extinguish this traffic, corresponding with that of their own, or rather of the English fanatics whom that popular government is reluctantly compelled to humour, and upon this pretence they are unceasingly tormenting me with complaints of the continuance of slave importations, on which occasions my only refuge is to reply, 'procure me conclusive evidence, gentlemen, and I will take care to punish the offenders you complain of,' which I know without the kind assistance of such

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volunteer philanthropists as Mr. Bentinck, it is scarcely possible they should obtain. One of them the other day wished to advertise a reward for information, but I told him that did not belong to his functions, and refused him permission to do so; he then wished me to advertise one myself, as the governors of the English colonies are in the habit of doing, which also I assured him our Dutch laws would not allow. I did not anticipate that the Dutch army would have so soon supplied them with what the Dutch laws denied.’

‘I am sorry that I have incurred your excellency's displeasure by the step I have taken,’ said Edward, ‘but I did not conceive that my duties either as a man, a christian, or an officer of his Netherland majesty, could be at variance with those of gentlemen appointed with his majesty's concurrence, to put down a practice of which every state in christendom has expressed its abhorrence and reprobation.’

‘Their duties don't agree with our interests, Mr. Bentinck!’ said the governor, ‘and as for Christendom, the admission there of these poor Africans is really only a work of christian humanity, for they would all be butchered by their own chiefs if they could no longer sell them.’

‘The first reflux of prisoners,’ said Edward,

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‘with which the slave dealers are now supplied, upon the hands of their masters might, I'm afraid, be exposed to destruction; but I humbly submit, if by the introduction of a commercial intercourse their masters found the labour of their prisoners subserve the same purpose as the sale of their persons, viz. that of procuring them European articles by legitimate commerce, they would be too valuable to be in danger of being wantonly slaughtered.’

‘Well!’ said the governor, ‘by the time you have been here as long as I have, you will see this subject in a different light, in the mean time, whilst you remain one of my subjects, I have only to request that you will confine your philanthropy to the duties of your own service, and not interfere with mine.’

Without replying to the last observation of his excellency's, Edward only made his bow and retired, but the worst of this day's gauntlet he had to run yet, in encountering the sarcasms and derisions of his mess.

‘You got goose from the governor this morning, Bentinck, I suppose?’ said Colonel Vansomner as soon as they were set down to dinner.

‘Something like it indeed, Colonel,’ said Edward.

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‘It was my fault too I confess,’ added the Colonel, ‘in some measure, for not giving you a hint not to see any slave vessels.’

‘How could you be so indiscreet, Mr. Bentinck,’ said Captain Gencherit, ‘as to stir up a hornet's nest about your ears, by meddling with the slave trade in such a place as this? as a good Dutchman and friend to the colony, you should rather help the inhabitants to save appearances to the British government (which is all the ministers at home care about) than betray them to it.’

‘I don't know about a good Dutchman,’ said Edward, ‘but as a good christian, I know I would not by any species of negative connivance, make myself a party in the unutterable guilt of such a commerce for the value of my commission.’

‘Christianity!’ exclaimed Lieutenant Van Whistletop, ‘that's all d--d Humbug and doctrine of ninety-five, nobody here believes in Christianity, my dear follow!’

‘For that very reason,’ said Edward, ‘this is the last place where a man of honour would confess any doubts even if he had any. Mankind have agreed to look upon even religious conversion, the substitution, I mean, of one view of christianity for another with great jealousy, because almost all religious questions, from their very na-

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ture, are insusceptible of demonstrative proof, and the motive therefore is always suspicious, unless an obvious sacrifice of self-interest accompanies the change; but apostacy has ever been regarded with unqualified abhorrence, because the difficulties of honest dis-conviction are at least equal to those of honest conviction, and if in the absence of certainty a man abjure the faith of his education, he does it at the desperate risk of committing treason to his maker, his country, and his own soul, a risk surely which no one in his senses would run except for the purpose of excusing a vicious life, or advancing some temporal purposes, and every man's own breast tells him, that the deliberate abjuration of his religious principles from either of these motives, justly deserves the infamy which mankind have uniformly agreed to attach to it.’

‘G--d d--e, Bentinck!’ said the Lieutenant, ‘why 'twould take me a month at least to understand all that theology, you must have been brought up for an English bishop to be sure! where the devil did you learn it all? at Eton, or amongst those d--d English methodists, that are always preaching liberty and practising la loi du plus fort, taking from us the best half of Guiana, and stuffing their abolition of the slave trade down

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our throats, so as to destroy the value of the remainder?’

‘Without the English,’ said Edward, ‘I don't see very well how we should have had either ships, colonies, or commerce; beside I've always understood an ample equivalent was given for Demarara and Berbice, in the contribution of England towards the expense of fortifying the frontiers of the Netherlands, and as to the abolition of the slave trade, the only fault that I have to find with them on that head, is that they did not go far enough, they thought that the atheistical principles of the French revolution, with which every country in Europe except their own had been so long over-run, had left us more right feeling than they have; they should have made the strict bona fide relinquishment of that inhuman horrid commerce, the sine qua non of restoring to us any colonies at all.’

‘Well d--n politics and religion too,’ said Ensign Essuan, who presided by rotation at the bottom of the table, ‘I hate them both, give us a toast, Bentinck.’

‘I give you,’ said Edward, ‘Admiral Van Capellan, and his gallant companions in the attack of Algiers, or if you like it better in fewer words, the progress of rational liberty.’

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‘I don't care a tinker's curse for either one or the other,’ said the Ensign, ‘if you had given us the Progress of Pleasure now, I'd have drank it in as many bumpers as you please; but come, tell us something of your life out there in torrid Siberia. I understand there's a devilish pretty girl, the daughter of a Mr. Cotton a planter out there?’

‘I know no lady of that name, exactly corresponding with such a description,’ said Edward.

‘Well! exactly!’ replied the Ensign, ‘never mind exactly, but you know a Mr. Cotton a planter and his daughter Matilda, who live there, they tell me the latter is quite a nonpareil of beauty and accomplishments, a perfect model of elegance in her manners, of decisive christian principles, and what is of much more importance, one hundred thousand pounds fortune in expectancy besides, in short, a regular, virtuous, dignified, well bred European lady of the first attractions.’

Poor Bentinck upon this sally looked a little (as they say) as if he could not help himself.

‘Oh! Oh!’ continued the merciless Ensign, ‘look at him Colonel! egad! you must have led a fine mahometan life out there, with Miss Cotton to go and talk humbug and sentiment to of a morning, and a fine seraglio of sable houris, I'll answer for it, at your quarters there of an evening, for

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the more substantial indulgence of the divine passion; I for my part like the black houris the best of the two.’

The very association of so gross an idea with an idol that his heart had enshrined in the purest and chastest radiance of truth, constancy, and honour, shocked Edward in the same sort of way as sacrilege and profanation, or some monstrous and impious blasphemy would have done, and gave him such excessive pain that he half filled a tumbler with water, to dash into Mr. Essuan's face; but he had been brought up under strong impressions of the antichristian nature of private duelling, and its total discrepancy with national war, (the former proceeding generally from motives of personal resentment, and involving all the feelings of which Christianity expressly enjoins the subduction, the latter none,) and he resolved that, at least after he had once had an opportunity of proving that his courage was quite equal to the public duties of his profession, he would never fight a duel, he therefore by an effort of self-command drank off the water that was intended for his gay collocutor, and merely said quietly, ‘Sir, any man who is capable of the one indulgence, would be unworthy of the other.’

‘Why you don't mean to say,’ observed the

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Ensign, ‘that there's any harm in such indulgence?’

‘I do mean to say,’ said Edward, ‘that there is very great harm in every practice which desecrates the divine passion of love, upon the sanctimonies of which depend all the benignant charities of life. The religious sanction of that passion in fact by the institution of marriage, is the great hinge upon which the moral refinement of all communities must turn, and in proportion to its observance or neglect, all nations must either advance in civilization or retrograde towards barbarism; what says Dr. Esquirol on the effect of the banishment of religious influence in France?’^*

‘Marry or be d--d then seems your maxim,’ said the Ensign.

‘Marry, or abstain, is the direction of religion,’ said Edward.

‘To marry and be ruined is the practice of a fool,’ said the Ensign.

‘To marry and renounce the vanities of ostentation and display is the practice of a wise man,’ said Edward. ‘If you are not a man of fortune, you must choose between the enjoyment of domestic happiness, 'that only bliss of paradise which has survived the fall,' and the indulgence of the pride of aristocratic station.’

* See note E.

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‘D--n pride,’ said the Ensign, ‘indulgence of pleasure, married or unmarried, is all I contend for; and if you or any other man says there's any harm in that, or pretend in that respect to more purity than your neighbours, by G--d, I say, you're a d--d hypocrite.’

‘Don't bluster, Essuan,’ said Colonel Vansomner, ‘or you'll get the worst of it, I see.’

‘I make no pretensions,’ replied Edward, ‘and measure out no man's guilt, which is perhaps only a question of degree and circumstance between any of us. I may not be pure, but that will not deter me from insisting upon its being the duty of us all to make the best fight we can against impurity; but, gentlemen,’ continued he, rising, and with great firmness, ‘in reference to Mr. Essuan's application to me of so revolting a term as hypocrisy, I shall perhaps still more surprise him, by declaring it to be against my conscience to fight a duel. After this, no man of real courage will insult me, I am sure; should any other, I can only say,

“The man that will traduce because he can
with safety to himself is not a man.”’

This answer, delivered with the most composed determination, effectually puzzled the Ensign, and put an end to the discussion, and the conversation took another channel till the officers dispersed.

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I trust upon the whole the reader will think my white hero acquitted himself well here. Such trials may appear trifling in parallel pages with those of Fox's Book of Martyrs, but they are by no means so in reality to the modern disciple who values, as he ought to do, his Christian consistency.^*

* Ensign Essuan was horsewhipped a few days afterwards by one of the Governor's sons for taking the lead of him and his partner in going down a dance. Young Mr. Derague offered him satisfaction, but he said it was contrary to his principles as a christian to fight a duel. - Note by the Author.