filled the world
with horror.

Three armed Peruvian ships, manned by gangs of cut-throats, appeared in
the South Pacific, and seized over four hundred unfortunate natives in
the old African slave-trading fashion, and carried them away to work the
guano deposits on the Chincha Islands. Not a score of them returned to
their island homes--the rest perished under the lash and brutality of
their cruel taskmasters.

Towards 1870 the demand for South Sea Islanders became very great. They
were wanted in the Sandwich Islands, in Tahiti and Samoa; for, naturally
enough, with their ample food supply, the natives of these islands do
not like plantation work, or if employed demand a high rate of pay.
Then, too, the Queensland and Fijian sugar planters joined in the
quest, and at one time there were over fifty vessels engaged in securing
Kanakas from the Gilbert Islands, the Solomon and New Hebrides Groups,
and the great islands near New Guinea.

At that time there was no Government supervision of the traffic. Any
irresponsible person could fit out a ship, and bring a cargo of human
beings into port--obtained by means fair or foul--and no questions were
asked.

Very soon came the news of the infamous story of the brig _Carl_ and
her fiendish owner, a Dr. Murray, who with half a dozen other scoundrels
committed the most awful crimes--shooting down in cold blood scores
of natives who refused to be coerced into "recruiting". Some of these
ruffians went to the scaffold or to long terms of imprisonment; and
from that time the British Government in a maundering way set to work
to effect some sort of supervision of the British ships employed in the
"blackbirding" trade.

A fleet of five small gunboats (sailing vessels) were built in Sydney,
and were ordered to "overhaul and inspect every blackbirder," and
ascertain if the "blackbirds" were really willing recruits, or had been
deported against their will, and were "to be sold as slaves". And many
atrocious deeds came to light, with the result, as far as Queensland was
concerned, that every labour ship had to carry a Government agent, who
was supposed to see that no abuses occurred. Some of these Government
agents were conscientious men, and did their duty well; others were
mere tools of the greedy planters, and lent themselves to all sorts of
villainies to obtain "recruits" and get an _in camera_ bonus of twenty
pounds for every native they could entice on board.

Owing to my knowled