After three days' parley I had just concluded my bargain with his
breechless majesty, when a "barker" greeted me with the cheerless
message that the "Aguila" was surrounded by man-of-war boats! It was
true; but the mate refused an inspection of his craft _on neutral
ground_, and the naval folks departed. Nevertheless, a week after,
when I had just completed my traffic, I was seized by a gang of the
treacherous king's own people; delivered to the second lieutenant of a
French corvette--"La Bayonnaise;"--and my lovely little Eagle caged as
her lawful prey!

I confess I have never been able to understand the legal merits of
this seizure, so far as the act of the French officers was concerned,
as no treaty existed between France and Spain for the suppression of
slavery. The reader will not be surprised to learn, therefore, that
there was a very loud explosion of wrath among my men when they found
themselves prisoners; nor was their fury diminished when our whole
band was forced into a dungeon at Goree, which, for size, gloom, and
closeness, vied with the celebrated black hole of Calcutta.

For three days were we kept in this filthy receptacle, in a burning
climate, without communication with friends or inhabitants, and on
scanty fare, till it suited the local authorities to transfer us to
San Luis, on the Senegal, in charge of a file of marines, _on board
our own vessel_!

San Luis is the residence of the governor and the seat of the colonial
tribunal, and here again we were incarcerated in a military _cachot_,
till several merchants who knew me on the Rio Pongo, interfered, and
had us removed to better quarters in the military hospital. I soon
learned that there was trouble among the natives. A war had broken out
among some of the Moorish tribes, some two hundred miles up the
Senegal, and my Aguila was a godsend to the Frenchmen, who needed just
such a light craft to guard their returning flotilla with merchandise
from Gatam. Accordingly, the craft was armed, manned, and despatched
on this expedition _without waiting the decree of a court as to the
lawfulness of her seizure_!

Meanwhile, the sisters of charity--those angels of devoted mercy, who
do not shun even the heats and pestilence of Africa,--made our prison
life as comfortable as possible; and had we not seen gratings at the
windows, or met a sentinel when we attempted to go out, we might have
considered ourselves valetudinarians instead of convicts.

A month