up.

"It is an imperative duty on me to seek the comfort of my officers
and crew," said the Captain. "I received a note from my steward, this
morning,--here it is, (handing him the note,) you can read it. He
requested me to call upon him at the jail, where I lost no time in
going, and found what he stated there to be too true. How is it! From
the great liberality of tone which everywhere met my ears when I first
arrived, I was led to believe that he would be made comfortable; and
that the mere confinement was the only feature of the law that was a
grievance. Now I find that to be the only tolerable part of it. When a
man has committed no crime, and is imprisoned to satisfy a caprice
of public feeling, it should be accompanied with the most favoring
attendants. To couple it with the most disgraceful abuses, as are shown
here, makes it exceedingly repugnant. If we pay for confining these men,
and for their living while they are confined, in God's name let us get
what we pay for!"

The reader will observe that Mr. Grimshaw was a man of coarse manners
and vulgar mind, with all their traces preserved on the outer man. He
looked up at the Captain with a presumptuous frown, and then said, "Why,
Mr. Captain, how you talk! But that kind o' talk won't do here in
South Carolina. That nigger o' yourn gives us a mighty site of trouble,
Captain. He doesn't seem to understand that he must be contented in
jail, and live as the other prisoners do. He gets what the law requires,
and if he gives us any further trouble, we shall lock him up in the
third story."

"You cannot expect him to be contented, when you furnish the means of
discontent. But I did not come here to argue with you, nor to ask any
thing as a favour, but as a right. My steward has been left to suffer!
Am I to pay for what he does not get? Or am I to pay you for the
pretence, and still be compelled to supply him on account of the owners?
You must excuse my feelings, for I have had enough to provoke them!"
returned the Captain.

"That business is entirely my own! He gets what the State allows, and I
provide. Your steward never wrote that note; it was dictated by some of
them miserable white prisoners. I can hear no complaints upon such cases
as them. If I were to listen to all these nonsensical complaints, it
would waste all my time. I wish the devil had all the nigger stewards
and their complaints; the jail's in a fuss with them all the time. I can
hear nothing furth