e hold, getting ready for our cargo again.
It would have been a very anxious night, except that I felt relieved
by the presence of the brig which kept within hail. Soon after daybreak
Captain Thompson came on board again, and we made a count of the
captives as they were sent below; 188 men and boys, and 166 women and
girls. Seeing everything snug and in order the captain returned to the
brig, giving me final orders to proceed with all possible dispatch to
Monrovia, Liberia, land the negroes, then sail for Porto Praya, Cape de
Verde Islands, and report to the commodore. As the brig hauled to the
wind and stood to the southward and eastward I dipped my colors, when
her crew jumped into the rigging and gave us three cheers, which we
returned.

As she drew away from us I began to realize my position and
responsibility: a young midshipman, yet in my teens, commanding a prize,
with three hundred and fifty prisoners on board, two or three weeks'
sail from port, with only a small crew. From the first I kept all hands
aft except two men on the lookout, and the weather was so warm that we
could all sleep on deck. I also ordered the men never to lay aside their
pistols or cutlasses, except when working aloft, but my chief reliance
was in my knowledge of the negro,--of his patient, docile disposition.
Born and bred a slave he never thought of any other condition, and he
accepted the situation without a murmur. I had never heard of blacks
rising or attempting to gain their freedom on board a slaver.

My charges were all of a deep black; from fifteen to twenty-five years
of age, and, with a few exceptions, nude, unless copper or brass rings
on their ankles or necklaces of cowries can be described as articles of
dress. All were slashed, or had the scars of branding on their foreheads
and cheeks; these marks were the distinguishing features of different
tribes or families. The men's hair had been cut short, and their heads
looked in some cases as if they had been shaven. The women, on the
contrary, wore their hair "a la pompadour;" the coarse kinky locks were
sometimes a foot or more above their heads, and trained square or round
like a boxwood bush. Their features were of the pronounced African
type, but, notwithstanding this disfigurement, were not unpleasing in
appearance. The figures of all were very good, straight, well developed,
some of the young men having bodies that would have graced a Mercury or
an Apollo. Their hands were