ourteous to his men, but
subject to fits of humour, dislike, and passion, during which he was
very violent, tyrannical, and cruel. He took a particular dislike at one
sailor aboard, an elderly man, called Bill Jones, or some such name. He
seldom spoke to this person without threats and abuse, which the old
man, with the license which sailors take on merchant vessels, was very
apt to return. On one occasion Bill Jones appeared slow in getting out
on the yard to hand a sail. The captain, according to custom, abused the
seaman as a lubberly rascal, who got fat by leaving his duty to other
people. The man made a saucy answer, almost amounting to mutiny, on
which, in a towering passion, the captain ran down to his cabin, and
returned with a blunderbuss loaded with slugs, with which he took
deliberate aim at the supposed mutineer, fired, and mortally wounded
him. The man was handed down from the yard, and stretched on the deck,
evidently dying. He fixed his eyes on the captain, and said, "Sir, you
have done for me, but _I will never leave you_" The captain, in return,
swore at him for a fat lubber, and said he would have him thrown into
the slave-kettle, where they made food for the negroes, and see how much
fat he had got. The man died. His body was actually thrown into the
slave-kettle, and the narrator observed, with a _naivete_ which
confirmed the extent of his own belief in the truth of what he told,
"There was not much fat about him after all."

The captain told the crew they must keep absolute silence on the subject
of what had passed; and as the mate was not willing to give an explicit
and absolute promise, he ordered him to be confined below. After a day
or two he came to the mate, and demanded if he had an intention to
deliver him up for trial when the vessel got home. The mate, who was
tired of close confinement in that sultry climate, spoke his commander
fair, and obtained his liberty. When he mingled among the crew once more
he found them impressed with the idea, not unnatural in their situation,
that the ghost of the dead man appeared among them when they had a spell
of duty, especially if a sail was to be handed, on which occasion the
spectre was sure to be out upon the yard before any of the crew. The
narrator had seen this apparition himself repeatedly--he believed the
captain saw it also, but he took no notice of it for some time, and the
crew, terrified at the violent temper of the man, dared not call his
a