sum to free them. This he
pretended to have paid for them, and, having purchased a cargo for his
voyage, he got them all on board, and again ran for the coast of Africa.
In three months he returned with another cargo, which he sold. He had
found out his mother, and now he expended the money he had made, in
purchasing a good property about seven miles from Rio, where he placed
his mother and some slaves to take care of it, and cultivate it. He
contrived to defraud his crew as much as he could, and before he went to
the coast again he married an amiable young person, the daughter of a
neighbour. He made a third and a fourth voyage with equal success, but
on the third voyage he contrived to get rid of a portion of his English
crew, who were now becoming troublesome, by taking some Portuguese
sailors out with him, and leaving the English on the coast, as if by
mistake. Previous to the fourth voyage, it appears that he satisfied
the remainder of the English crew by producing accounts, and sharing out
to them several hundred dollars previous to their departure for the
coast. He made a slight addition to his Portuguese sailors, not putting
too many on board, to avoid suspicion, and when on the coast of Africa,
a portion of the English crew died, whether by poison or not is not
known, and the others he put on shore, seizing all their property, and
the dollars with which he had satisfied them. On his return from his
fourth voyage, having now nothing to fear from the partners in his
atrocious deed, having realised a large sum, he determined to remain on
shore altogether, and live on his property with his mother and wife. He
did so, and sent out the schooner under a Portuguese captain and crew,
to be employed for him as owner in the slave traffic, and she has made
two voyages since, and is expected back again every day. Now, my son,
retribution has fallen heavily upon this bad man. Had he been
discovered and punished when he first did the deed, it would have been
as nothing compared to what it has been now; he then had no property--no
ties--in fact, nothing or little to regret; but now, with a wife and
child, with a valuable property, living in independence, and increasing
that wealth daily--now, when he is at the very summit of his ambition,
restored to his own country, respected and considered as being a man of
wealth, he has been seized, thrown into a dungeon, put to the question,
and now lies in a state of misery, awai