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Manuel Pereira; or, The Sovereign Rule of South Carolina, a novel by F. Colburn Adams |
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Chapter 6. The Janson In The Offing |
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_ CHAPTER VI. THE JANSON IN THE OFFING AFTER several days' suffering for want of wafer and fatigue of labor, several of the crew were reported upon the sick-list. Manuel, who had borne his part nobly and cheerfully, was among the number; and his loss was more severely felt, having done a double duty, and succeeded, as far as the means were at hand, in making everybody on board comfortable. He had attended upon those who gave up first, like a good nurse, ready at the call, whether night or day, and with a readiness that seemed pleasure to him. From the captain to the little boy Tommy, his loss was felt with regret; and the latter would often go into the forecastle where he lay, lean over him with a child-like simplicity, and smooth his forehead with his little hand. "Manuel! I wish poor Manuel was well!" he would say, and again he would lay his little hand on his head and smooth his hair. He would whisper encouragement in his ear; and having learned a smattering of Portuguese, would tell him how soon they would be in port, and what pleasant times they would have together. On the 21st they descried land, which proved to be Stono, about twenty-five miles south of Charleston. Tommy announced the news to Manuel, which seemed to cheer him up. His sickness was evidently caused by fatigue, and his recovery depended more upon rest and nourishment than medical treatment. That night at ten o'clock the wind came strong north-west, and drove the Janson some distance to sea again; and it was not until the morning of the 23d that she made Charleston light, and succeeded in working up to the bar. Signal was made for a pilot, and soon, a very fine cutter-looking boat, "Palmetto, No. 4," was seen shooting out over the bar in the main channel. Manuel, somewhat recovered, had a few minutes before been assisted on deck, and through the captain's orders was laid upon a mattrass, stretched on the starboard side of the companion-way. By his side sat little Tommy, serving him with some nourishment. The boat was soon alongside, and the pilot, a middle-sized man, well dressed, with a frank, open countenance, rather florid and sun-stained, and a profusion of gold chain and seal dangling from his fob, came on board. After saluting the captain, he surveyed the weather-beaten condition of the craft, made several inquiries in regard to her working, and then said in a sang-froid manner, "Well! I reckon you've seen some knocking, anyhow." Then turning again and giving some orders in regard, to getting more way upon her, he viewed the laborious working at the pumps, and walking about midships on the larboard side, took a sharp survey of her waist. "Don't she leak around her topsides, Captain?" said he. Receiving an answer in the affirmative, he gave a glance aloft, and then at the sky to windward; asked how long he had worked her in that condition, and where he took the gale. "It's a wonder she hadn't swamped ye before now. I'd a' beached her at the first point, if she'd bin mine; I'd never stand at slapping an old craft like this on. She reminds me of one o' these down-east sugar-box crafts what trade to Cuba," he continued. Then walking across the main-hatch to the starboard side, he approached the men who were pumping, and after inquiring about freeing her, suddenly caught a glimpse of Manuel, as he lay upon the mattrass with his face uncovered. "Heavens! What! have you got the yellow fever on board at this season of the year?" he inquired of the mate, who had just come aft to inquire about getting some water from the pilot-boat. "No, we've had every thing else but the yellow fever; one might as well bin on a raft as such an infernal unlucky old tub as she is. It's the steward, sir--he's got a touch of a fever; but he'll soon be over it. He only wants rest, poor fellow! He's bin a bully at work ever since the first gale. He'll mend before he gets to town," was the reply. "Ah! then you've had a double dose of it. It gives a fellow bringer off them capes once in a while.--The steward's a nigger, isn't he?" inquired the pilot. "Nigger!--not he," said the mate. "He's a Portuguese mixed breed; a kind o' sun-scorched subject, like a good many of you Southerners. A nigger's mother never had him, you may bet your 'davie on that. There's as much white blood in his jacket as anybody's got, only them Portuguese are dark-lookin' fellers. He's no fool--his name's Manuel, a right clever feller, and the owners think as much of him as they do of the Skipper." "Gammon," said the pilot to himself. "What would he think if we were to show him some specimens of our white niggers in Charleston?" And turning, he walked past Manuel with a suspicious look, and took a position near the man at the wheel, where he remained for some time fingering the seals of his watch-chain. The Captain had gone into the cabin a few minutes before, and coming on deck again, walked toward the place where the pilot stood, and took a seat upon an old camp-stool. "Cap," said the pilot, "ye'll have trouble with that nigger of your'n when ye git to town. If you want to save yerself and the owners a d--d site o' bother and expense, y' better keep him close when y' haul in; and ship him off to New York the first chance. I've seen into the mill, Cap, and y' better take a friend's advice." "Nigger!" said the Captain indignantly, "what do they call niggers in Charleston? My steward's no more a nigger than you are!" "What, sir?" returned the pilot in a perfect rage. "Do you know the insulting nature of your language? Sir, if the law did not subject me, I would leave your vessel instantly, and hold you personally responsible as soon as you landed, sir." The Captain, unconscious of the tenacity with which the chivalrous blood of South Carolina held language that mooted a comparison of colors, considered his answer; but could see nothing offensive in it. "You asked me a question, and I gave you a proper answer. If you consider such a man as my steward--poor fellow--a nigger, in your country, I'm glad that you are blessed with so many good men." "We polishes our language, Captain, when we speak of niggers in South Carolina," said the pilot. "A South Carolinian, sir, is a gentleman all over the world. It don't want nothin' further than the name of his State to insure him respect. And when foreign folks and Northerners from them abolition States bring free niggers into South Carolina, and then go to comparing them to white folks, they better be mighty careful how they stir about. South Carolina ought to've seceded last year, when she talked about it, and sent every Yankee home to make shoe-pegs. We wouldn't bin insulted then, as we are now. I'll tell you what it is, Cap," said he, rather cooling off, "if our folks was only as spunky as they were in eighteen hundred and thirty-two times, them fellers what come here to feed upon South Carolina, put the devil in the heads of the niggers, and then go home again, would see stars and feel bullet-holes." The Captain listened to the pilot's original South Carolina talk, or, as the pilot himself had called it, polished language, without exhibiting any signs of fear and trembling at its sublime dignity; yet, finding that the pilot had misconstrued the tenor of his answer, said, "You must have mistaken the intention of my reply, sir; and the different manner in which you appropriate its import may be attributed to a custom among yourselves, which makes language offensive that has no offensive meaning. We never carry pistols or any such playthings in my country. We have a moral security for our lives, and never look upon death as so great an enemy that we must carry deadly weapons to defend it. In fact, pilot," he said in a joking manner, "they're rather cumbersome little bits for a feller's pocket: I'd rather carry my supper and breakfast in my pocket. Now tell us, who do you call niggers in South Carolina?" "Why, Captain, we call all what a'n't white folks. Our folks can tell 'em right smart. They can't shirk out if it's only marked by the seventeenth generation. You can always tell 'em by the way they look--they can't look you in the face, if they are ever so white. The law snaps 'em up once in a while, and then, if they're ever so white, it makes 'em prove it. I've known several cases where the doubt was in favor of the nigger, but he couldn't prove it, and had to stand aside among the darkies. Dogs take my skin, Cap, if theren't a Jew feller in town as white as anybody, and his father's a doctor. It got whispered round that he was a nigger, and the boarders where he stayed raised a fuss about it. The nigger's father had two of them sued for slander, but they proved the nigger by a quirk of law that'd make a volume bigger than Blackstone; and instead of the old Jew getting satisfaction, the judges, as a matter of policy, granted him time to procure further proof to show that his son wasn't a nigger. It was a very well-considered insinuation of the judges, but the young-un stands about A-1 with a prime nigger-feller." "I should like to have 'em try me, to see whether I was a nigger or a white man. It must be a funny law, 'nigger or no nigger.' If a feller's skin won't save him, what the devil will?" said the Captain. "Why, show your mother and her generation were white, to be sure! It's easy enough done, and our judges are all very larned in such things--can tell in the twinkling of an eye," said the pilot. "I should think the distinguishing points would be to show that their mother had nothing to do with a nigger. Do your judges make this a particular branch of jurisprudence? If they do, I'd like to know what they took for their text-books. If the intermixture is as complex as what you say, I should think some of the judges would be afraid of passing verdict upon their own kin." "Not a whit!" said the pilot; "they know enough for that." "Then you admit there's a chance. It must be an amusing affair, 'pon my soul! when a nice little female has to draw aside her vail before a court of very dignified judges, for the purpose of having her pedigree examined," said the Captain. "Oh! the devil, Cap; your getting all astray--a woman nigger never has the advantage of the law. They always go with the niggers, ah! ha! ha!!" "But suppose they're related to some of your big-bugs. What then? Are your authorities so wise and generous that they make allowance for these things," asked the Captain, innocently. "Oh! poh! there you're again: you must live in Charleston a year or two, but you'll have to be careful at first that you don't fall in love with some of our bright gals, and think they're white, before you know it. It doesn't matter seven coppers who they're got by, there's no distinction among niggers in Charleston. I'll put you through some of the bright houses when we get up, and show you some scions of our aristocracy, that are the very worst cases. It's a fact, Cap, these little shoots of the aristocracy invariably make bad niggers. If a fellow wants a real prime, likely nigger wench, he must get the pure African blood. As they say themselves, 'Wherever Buckra-man bin, make bad nigger.'" "Well, Pilot, I think we've had enough about mixed niggers for the present. Tell me! do you really think they'll give me trouble with my steward? He certainly is not a black man, and a better fellow never lived," inquired the Captain earnestly. "Nothing else, Cap," said the pilot. "It's a hard law, I tell you, and if our merchants and business men had a say in it, 'twouldn't last long; ye can't pass him off for a white man nohow, for the thing's 'contrary to law,' and pays so well that them contemptible land-sharks of officers make all the fuss about it, and never let one pass. Just take the infernal fees off, and nobody'd trouble themselves about the stewards. It all goes into old Grimshaw's pocket, and he'd skin a bolt-rope for the grease, and sell the steward if he could get a chance. He has sold a much nearer relation. I'm down upon the law, you'll see, Cap, for I know it plays the dickens with our business, and is a curse to the commerce of the port. Folks what a'n't acquainted with shipping troubles, and a shipowner's interests, think such things are very small affairs. But it's the name that affects us, and when an owner stands at every item in the disbursements, and a heavy bill for keeping his steward, and another for filling his place, or boarding-house accommodations, and then be deprived of his services, he makes a wry face, and either begins to think about another port, or making the rate of freight in proportion to the annoyance. It has an effect that we feel, but don't say much about. I'm a secessionist, but I don't believe in running mad after politics, and letting our commercial interests suffer." "But what if I prove my steward a'n't a colored man?" said the Captain; "they surely won't give me any trouble then. It would pain my feelings very much to see Manuel locked up in a cell for no crime; and then to be deprived of his services, is more than I can stand. If I'd known it before, I'd suffered the torments of thirst, and put for a port farther north." "It'll cost more than it's worth," said the pilot. "Take my plain advice, Cap; never try that; our lawyers are lusty fellows upon fees; and the feller'd rot in that old nuisance of a jail afore you'd get him out. The process is so slow and entangled, nobody'd know how to bring the case, and ev'ry lawyer'd have an opinion of his own. But the worst of 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 crossed the bar, and was fast approaching Fort Sumpter. Manuel had overheard enough of the conversation to awaken fears for his own safety. Arising from the mattrass, in a manner indicating his feeble condition, he called Tommy, and walking forward, leaned over the rail near the fore-rigging, and inquired what the Captain and the pilot were talking about. Observing his fears, the little fellow endeavoured to quiet him by telling him they were talking about bad sailors. "I think it is me they are talking about. If they sell me for slave in Charleston, I'll kill myself before a week," said he in his broken English. "What's that you say, Manuel?" inquired the first mate as he came along, clearing up the decks with the men. "Pilot tell Captain they sell me for slave in South Carolina. I'd jump overboard 'fore I suffer him," said he. "Oh, poh! don't be a fool; you a'n't among Patagonians, Manuel; you won't have to give 'em leg for your life. They don't sell foreigners and outlandish men like you for slaves in Carolina--it's only black folks what can't clothe the'r words in plain English. Yer copper-colored hide wouldn't be worth a sixpence to a nigger-trader--not even to old Norman Gadsden, that I've heard 'em tell so much about in the Liverpool docks. He's a regular Jonathan Wild in nigger-dealing; his name's like a fiery dragon among the niggers all over the South; and I hearn our skipper say once when I sailed in a liner, that niggers in Charleston were so 'fraid of him they'd run, like young scorpions away from an old he-devil, when they saw him coming. He sells white niggers, as they call 'em, and black niggers--any thing that comes in his way, in the shape of saleable folks. But he won't acknowledge the corn when he goes away from home, and swears there's two Norman Gadsdens in Charleston; that he a'n't the one! When a man's ashamed of his name abroad, his trade must be very bad at home, or I'm no sailor," said the mate. "Ah, my boys!" said the pilot in a quizzical manner, as he came to where several of the men were getting the larboard anchor ready to let go,--"if old Norman Gadsden gets hold of you, you're a gone sucker. A man what's got a bad nigger has only got to say Old Gadsden to him, and it's equal to fifty paddles. The mode of punishment most modern, and adopted in all the workhouses and places of punishment in South Carolina, is with the paddle, a wooden instrument in, the shape of a baker's peel; with a blade from three to five inches wide, and from eight to ten long. This is laid on the posteriors--generally by constables or officers connected with the police. Holes are frequently bored in the blade, which gives the application a sort of percussive effect; The pain is much more acute than with the cowhide; and several instances are known where a master ordered an amount of strokes beyond the endurance of the slave, and it proved fatal at the workhouse. They tell a pretty good story about the old fellow. I don't know if it's true, but the old fellow's rich now, and he does just what he pleases. It was that somebody found one of those little occasional droppings of the aristocracy, very well known among the secrets of the chivalry, and called foundlings, nicely fixed up in a basket.--It's among the secrets though, and mustn't be told abroad.--The finders labelled it, 'Please sell to the highest bidder,' and left it at his door. There was a fund of ominous meaning in the label; but Norman very coolly took the little helpless pledge under his charge, and, with the good nursing of old Bina, made him tell to the tune of two hundred and thirty, cash, 'fore he was two year old. He went by the name of Thomas Norman, the Christian division of his foster-father's, according to custom. The old fellow laughs at the joke, as he calls it, and tells 'em, when they stick it to him, they don't understand the practice of making money. You must keep a bright look out for him, Manuel--you'll know him by the niggers running when they see him coming." The pilot now returned to the quarter, and commenced dilating upon the beauty of Charleston harbor and its tributaries, the Astley and Cooper Rivers--then upon the prospects of fortifications to beat the United States in the event of South Carolina's seceding and raising an independent sovereignty, composed of her best blood. The Captain listened to his unsolicited and uninteresting exposition of South Carolina's prowess in silence, now and then looking up at the pilot and nodding assent. He saw that the pilot was intent upon astonishing him with his wonderful advancement in the theory of government, and the important position of South Carolina. Again he looked dumbfounded, as much as to acknowledge the pilot's profundity, and exclaimed, "Well! South Carolina must be a devil of a State: every thing seems captivated with its greatness: I'd like to live in Carolina if I didn't get licked." "By scissors! that you would, Captain; you ha'n't an idee what a mighty site our people can do if they're a mind to! All South Carolina wants is her constitutional rights, which her great men fought for in the Revolution. We want the freedom to protect our own rights and institutions--not to be insulted and robbed by the General Government and the abolitionists." "Do you practice as a people upon the same principles that you ask of the General Government!" inquired the Captain. "Certainly, Captain, as far as it was intended for the judicious good of all white citizens!" "Then you claim a right for the whites, but withhold the right when it touches on the dark side. You'll have to lick the Federal Government, as you call it, for they won't cut the constitution up to suit your notions of black and white." * * * "That's just the thing, Cap, and we can do it just as easy as we now protect our own laws, and exterminate the niggers what attempt insurrections. South Carolina sets an example, sir, of honor and bravery that can't be beat. Why, just look a-yonder, Cap: the Federal Government owns this 'er Fort Sumpter, and they insulted us by building it right in our teeth, so that they could command the harbor, block out our commerce, and collect the duties down here. But, Cap, this don't scare South Carolina nohow. We can show 'em two figures in war tactics that'd blow 'em to thunder. Ye see yonder!" said he, with an earnest look of satisfaction, pointing to the south, "That's Morris Island. We'd take Fort Moultrie for a breakfast spell, and then we'd put it to 'em hot and strong from both sides, until they'd surrender Fort Sumpter. They couldn't stand it from both sides. Yes, sir, they shut Fort Moultrie against us, and wouldn't let us have it to celebrate independence in. There's a smouldering flame in South Carolina that'll burst forth one of these days in a way that must teach the Federal Government some astonishing and exciting lessons. There's old Castle Pinckney, sir; we could keep it for a reserve, and with Generals Quattlebum and Commander, from Georgetown and Santee Swamp, we could raise an army of Palmetto regiments that would whip the Federal Government troop and gun-boat." We have given this singular conversation of the pilot with a strange Captain, which at the time was taken as an isolated case of gasconade peculiar to the man; but which the Captain afterward found to harmonize in sentiment, feeling, and expression with the general character of the people--the only exceptions being the colored people. _ |
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