the instant I saw a certain flag flying from the fort.

I have rarely seen matters conducted more skilfully than they were by
this daring Gaul. Next morning early the Governor's boat was sent for
the specie; the fourth day disclosed the signal that called us to the
beach; the fifth, sixth, and seventh, supplied us with _eight hundred
negroes_; and, on the ninth, we were underway for our destination.

The success of this enterprise was more remarkable because fourteen
vessels, waiting cargoes, were at anchor when we arrived, some of
which had been detained in port over fifteen months. To such a pitch
had their impatience risen, that the masters made common cause against
all new-comers, and agreed that each vessel should take its turn for
supply according to date of arrival. But the astuteness of my veteran
circumvented all these plans. His anchorage and non-intercourse as _a
French man-of-war_ lulled every suspicion or intrigue against him, and
he adroitly took advantage of his kegs of specie to win the heart of
the authorities and factors who supplied the slaves.

But wit and cleverness are not all in this world. Our captain returned
in high spirits to his vessel; but we hardly reached the open sea
before he was prostrated with an ague which refused to yield to
ordinary remedies, and finally ripened into fever, that deprived him
of reason. Other dangers thickened around us. We had been several days
off the Cape of Good Hope, buffeting a series of adverse gales, when
word was brought me after a night of weary watching, that several
slaves were ill of small-pox. Of all calamities that occur in the
voyage of a slaver, this is the most dreaded and unmanageable. The
news appalled me. Impetuous with anxiety I rushed to the captain, and
regardless of fever or insanity, disclosed the dreadful fact. He
stared at me for a minute as if in doubt; then opening his bureau and
pointing to a long coil of combustible material, said that it
communicated through the decks with the powder magazine, and ordered
me to--"_blow up the brig!_"

The master's madness sobered his mate. I lost no time in securing
both the dangerous implement and its perilous owner, while I called
the officers into the cabin for inquiry and consultation as to our
desperate state.

The gale had lasted nine days without intermission, and during all
this time with so much violence that it was impossible to take off the
gratings, release the slaves, purify the dec