I resolved I would spend more
discreetly.

Liverpool at that time fitted out a number of slavers--the slave-trade,
which was afterwards prohibited, being then lawful, and having many
respectable people engaged in it. Hearing from a shipmate that the
_Royal Oak_, a ship of eighteen guns, with a letter-of-marque
commission, was fitting out for the coast of Africa, and was in want of
hands, I went and entered on board her. She carried, all told, eighty
hands. I found two or three old shipmates aboard her, but no one whom I
could call a friend.

We reached the coast without any adventure, and in those days the slaves
who had come down from the interior being collected in depots, ready for
shipment, we soon got our cargo on board. For several years I remained
in this trade, sometimes carrying our cargo of hapless beings to Rio de
Janeiro or other parts of the Brazils, and sometimes to the West Indies.
It never occurred to me that there was anything wrong in the system.
All the lessons I had received in the West Indies, in my early days,
were thrown away. The pay was good; the work not hard, though pretty
frequently we lost our people by fever; and so I thought no more about
the matter.

At length I found my way back to Liverpool, just as the battle of
Waterloo and Napoleon's abdication brought the blessings of peace to
Europe.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

WHALING IN THE SOUTH-SEA.

Every sea-port in England was thronged with seamen whom the cessation of
war had cast on shore without employment, when as I was strolling along
the quays of Liverpool with my hands in my pockets, in rather a
disconsolate mood, wondering in what direction my wayward fate would
carry me, I ran bolt up against a post near which a gentleman was
standing, and somehow or other managed to tumble over him.

"Beg pardon, sir," said I, looking up in his face; "I did not see you."

"No harm done, my man; but stop," said he, as I was moving on; "I think
I remember that voice and face. Jack Williams, I am certain?"

"Yes, that's certain," said I, looking at him hard. "And I may make
bold to guess that you, sir, are Mr Carr."

"You are right in your guess, Jack;--that is to say, I have been Captain
Carr for some years past. I am glad to have fallen in with you, for I
am fitting out a ship for a long voyage, and I like to have men with me
whom I know and can trust."

"Glad to have your good opinion, sir, and without another question I'll
ship