all is that it's so unpopular, you can't get a lawyer worth seven
cents to undertake it. It would be as dangerous as an attempt to
extricate a martyr from the burning flames. Public opinion in Charleston
is controlled by politicians; and an attempt to move in a thing so
unpopular would be like a man attempting to speak, with pistols and
swords pointed to his head."

"Then it's folly to ask justice in your city, is it?" asked the Captain.
"But your people are generous, a'n't they? and treat strangers with a
courtesy that marks the character of every high-minded society?"

"Yes!--but society in South Carolina has nothing to do with the law; our
laws are gloriously ancient. I wish, Cap, I could only open your ideas
to the way our folks manage their own affairs. I'm opposed to this law
that imprisons stewards, because it affects commerce, but then our other
laws are tip-top. It was the law that our legislature made to stop free
niggers from coming from the abolition States to destroy the affections
of our slaves. Some say, the construction given to it and applied to
stewards of foreign vessels a'n't legal, and wasn't intended; but now
it's controlled by popular will,--the stewards a'n't legislators, and
the judges know it wouldn't be popular, and there's nobody dare meddle
with it, for fear he may be called an abolitionist. You better take my
advice, Cap: ship the nigger, and save yourself and Consul Mathew the
trouble of another fuss," continued the pilot.

"That I'll never do! I've made up my mind to try it, and won't be driven
out of a port because the people stand in fear of a harmless man. If
they have any souls in them, they'll regard with favor a poor sailor
driven into their port in distress. I've sailed nearly all over
the world, and I never got among a people yet that wouldn't treat a
shipwrecked sailor with humanity. Gracious God! I've known savages to be
kind to poor shipwrecked sailors, and to share their food with them. I
can't, pilot, imagine a civilization so degraded, nor a public so lost
to common humanity, as to ill treat a man in distress. We've said enough
about it for the present. I'll appeal to Mr. Grimshaw's feelings, when
I get to the city; and I know, if he's a man, he'll let Manuel stay on
board, if I pledge my honor that he won't leave the craft."

"Humph!--If you knew him as well as I do, you'd save your own feelings.
His sympathies don't run that way," said the pilot.

The Janson had now cr