would have formed her surest shield. If the English novel does not inculcate vice, it at least impresses on the young female mind an erroneous idea of the world in which she is to live. It paints the manners, customs, and habits, of a strange country; excites a fondness for false splendor; and renders the home-spun habits of her own country disgusting. There are two things wanted, said a friend to the author: that we write our own books of amusement, and that they exhibit our own manners. Why then do you not write the history of your own life? The first part of it, if not highly interesting, would at least display a portrait of New England manners, hitherto unattempted. Your captivity among the Algerines, with some notices of the manners of that ferocious race, so dreaded by commercial powers, and so little known in our country, would at least be interesting; and I see no advantage which the novel writer can have over you, unless your readers should be of the sentiment of the young lady mentioned by Addison in his Spectator, who, as he informs us, borrowed Plutarch's Lives, and, after reading the first volume with infinite delight, supposing it to be a novel, threw aside the others with disgust, because a man of letters had inadvertently told her the work was founded on fact. RELIGIOUS EXERCISES IN A SOUTHERN STATE [FROM THE SAME, CHAPTER XXIV.] In one of the states southward of Philadelphia, I was invited on a Sunday to go to church. I will not say which, as I am loth to offend; and our fashionable fellow citizens, of the south arm of the union, may not think divine service any credit to them. My friend apologised for inviting me to so hum-drum an amusement, but assuring me that immediately after service, there was to be a famous match run for a purse of a thousand dollars, besides private bets, between 'Squire L's imported horse Slamerkin and Colonel F's bay mare Jenny Driver. When we arrived at the church, we found a brilliant collection of well-dressed people, anxiously waiting the arrival of the parson-who, it seems, had a small branch of the river M- to pass; and, we afterwards learned, was detained by the absence of his negro boy, who was to ferry him over. Soon after, our impatience was relieved by the arrival of the parson in his canonicals-a young man not of the most mortified countenance, who, with a switch called a supple jack in his hand, belabored the back and head of the faulty slave all the way from the water to the church door, accompanying every stroke with suitable language. He entered the church, and we followed. He ascended the reading-desk, and, with his face glowing with the exercise of his supple jack, began the service with, “I said I will take heed unto my ways that I sin not with my tongue. I will keep my tongue as it were with a bridle, when I am before the wicked.—When I mused the fire burned within me, and I spake with my tongue," &c., &c. He preached an animated discourse, of eleven minutes, upon the practical duties of religion, from these words, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy"; and read the Fourth Commandment in the communion. The whole congregation prayed fervently that their hearts might be inclined to keep this holy law. The blessing was pronounced; and parson and people hastened to the horse race. I found the parson as much respected on the turf as upon the hassock. He was one of the judges of the race; descanted, in the language of the turf, upon the points of the two rival horses; and the sleeve of his cassock was heavily laden with the principal bets. The confidence of his parishioners was not ill founded; for they assured me, upon oath and honor, that he was a gentleman of as much uprightness as his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. Ay, they would sport him for a sermon or a song against any parson in the union. ABOARD A SLAVE SHIP [FROM THE SAME, CHAPTER XXX.] The day after our arrival at Cacongo, several Portuguese and negro merchants, hardly distinguishable however by their manners, employments, or complexions, came to confer with the captain about the purchase of our cargo of slaves. They contracted to deliver him two hun dred and fifty head of slaves in fifteen days' time. To hear these men converse upon the purchase of human beings, with the same indifference, and nearly in the same language, as if they were contracting for so many head of cattle or swine, shocked me exceedingly. But when I suffered my imagination to rove to the habitation of these victims to this infamous cruel commerce, and fancied that I saw the peaceful husbandman dragged from his native farm, the fond husband torn from the embraces of his beloved wife, the mother from her babes, the tender child from the arms of its parent, and all the tender endearing ties of natural and social affection rended by the hand of avaricious violence, my heart sunk within me. I execrated myself for even the involuntary part I bore in this execrable traffic: I thought of my native land, and blushed. When the captain kindly inquired of me how many slaves I thought my privilege in the ship entitled me to transport for my adventure, I rejected my privilege with horror, and declared I would sooner suffer servitude than purchase a slave. This observation was received in the great cabin with repeated bursts of laughter, and excited many a stroke of coarse ridicule. Captain Russell observed, that he would not insist upon my using my privilege if I had so much of the Yankee about me. Here is my clerk, Ned Randolph, will jump at the chance, though the rogue has been rather unlucky in the trade. Out of five-andtwenty negroes he purchased, he never carried but one alive to port, and that poor devil was broken winded; and he was obliged to sell him for half price in Antigua. Punctual to the day of the delivery, the contractors appeared, and brought with them about one hundred and fifty negroes-men, women, and children. The men were fastened together in pairs by a bar of iron, with a collar to receive the neck at each extremity; a long pole was passed over their shoulder, and between each two was bound by a staple and ring, through which the pole was thrust, and thus twenty, and sometimes, thirty were connected together; while their conductors incessantly applied the scourge to those who loitered, or sought to strangle themselves by lifting their feet from the ground in despair; which sometimes had been successfully attempted. The women and children were bound with cords, and driven forward by the whip. When they arrived at the factory the men were unloosed from the poles, but still chained in pairs, and turned into strong cells built for the purpose. The dumb sorrow of some, the frensy of others, the sobbings and tears of the children, and shrieks of the women, when they were presented to our captain, so affected me, that I was hastening from this scene of barbarity on board the ship, when I was called by the mate, and discovered, to my surprise and horror, that, by my station in the ship, I had a principal and active part of this inhuman transaction imposed upon me. As surgeon, it was my duty to inspect the bodies of the slaves, to see, as the captain expressed himself, that our owners were not shammed off with unsound flesh. In this inspection I was assisted by Randolph the clerk, and two stout sailors. It was transacted with all that unfeeling insolence which wanton barbarity can inflict upon defenceless wretchedness. The man, the affrighted child, the modest matron, and the timid virgin, were alike exposed to this severe scrutiny, equally insulting to humanity and common decency. I cannot even now reflect on this transaction without shuddering. I have deplored my conduct with tears of anguish; and I pray a merciful God, the common parent of the great family of the universe, who hath made of one flesh and one blood all nations of the earth, that the miseries, the insults, and cruel woundings, I afterwards received when a slave myself, may expiate for the inhumanity I was necessitated to exercise towards these my brethren of the human race. |