the forecastle were sick. Terribly short-handed, with slaves in the hold likely to rise up and strike for freedom in case they learned this fact, and with the probability that others of the crew would take the fever, Captain Lindsay found himself in a serious strait, but, worse than all that, "he could see daylight al round her bow under deck."

And yet Captain Lindsay came up from that fearsome look at the open seams of his vessel and went on loading her for the long voyage across the Atlantic.

If we will but look at the case in the light of that day the courage, the fortitude, of the stout-hearted old skipper was inspiring. Nor shall we fail to observe his thoughtfulness for the wife that would hear of the condition of the rotten ship with quaking fears.

So it is with a feeling of relief, and with increased admiration for his pluck, that we find a letter which shows that he reached Barbadoes safely after a most perilous voyage; our admiration is all the greater because the perils are described so simply. The letter is as follows:

BARBADOES, June 17th, N. S. 1753. "GENTLE'N :-These are to acqt of my arivel heare ye Day before yesterday in 10 weeks from Anamaboe. I met on my passage 22 days of very squally winds & continued Rains, so that it beat my sails alto pieces, soe that I was oblige Several Days to have sails onbent to mend them. The vesiel, Likwise is all open Round her bows under deck. For these Reasons am oblige to enter my vesiel heare and have valued myself on Mr. Elias Meriveal, who is to despatch me in three or four weeks' Time. My slaves is not landed yet: they are 56 in number for owners, all in helth & fatt. I lost one small gall. I've got 40 oz gould dust & eight or nine hundred weight Maligabar pepper for owners.

"Not to Inlarge, shall rite in a day or 2. We are all well on bord. Mr. Sanford died the 3d day of March, & one John Wood who went in ye boat with him, died ye 3d of April, at sea. I left Capt. Hamblet at Cape Coast, sick. His slaves had rose & they lost the best of what they had. Heare is no slaves at market now."

The reader who knows the sea will fully appreciate the condition of that tiny ship during those "22 days of very squally winds"-the tiny ship that was "open all Round her bows under deck." For she was shorthanded through deaths and sickness, and yet her pumps had to be kept going during all that time, while several days were spent in repairing sails that the winds had blown to pieces.

Nor does this letter tell us of fortitude alone, for it is a significant fact that Lindsay "lost one small gall" only, while all the rest were landed "in helth & fatt." They had been cared for in kindly fashion. The facts seems to show that Lindsay was superior to the average slaver of his day. It was then a lawful trade, and we have testimony that it was "very genteel.” More important still, it was a trade that, more than all others, taxed the trading ability, the patience, the skill as a seaman and the fortitude of the men engaged in it; also, it was, when successfully carried on, the most profitable branch of commerce. Naturally the most capable men of the sea were called to this trade. In short, Lindsay was a type of the race of Yankee slaver captains.

With all these facts in mind it is amusing to turn to one other characteristic of this hard-headed old slaver. Before starting on this eventful voyage he must needs consult an astrologer, or conjurer, as the

seers of the time were often called, to learn the day and hour when the ship must sail in order to have all

the kindly influences of the heavenly bodies in her favor. Fortunately the chart which he obtained has been preserved, and we know from it that "D. L."

sailed "for Guinea at 11.32 o'clock on Aug. 22d, 1752."

Of the English captains engaged in the American trade there was Captain "Billy" Boates, also called "William Boates, Esq., whose extensive transactions in the commercial world rendered him a most useful member of society," to quote an obituary notice of the man from a Liverpool paper. Captain Boates was a waif. His mother or her friends cast him adrift in a Liverpool harbor boat a few hours after his birth. He was picked up, reared in an orphan asylum, apprenticed to a ship master, and then began a career that showed the kind of stock from which he sprang. From the forecastle to the after-cabin required but three steps easily taken. From the cabin to the counting house was a step longer than the three preceding taken together; but he made the leap.

In the Knight he sailed from Anamaboe on Januuary 6, 1758, with three hundred and ninety-eight negroes, of whom, after a voyage that lasted less than six weeks, he landed three hundred and sixty at Jamaica. That was a voyage worth recording for its speed alone; but off the Leeward Islands the Knight fell in with a French privateer that carried "twelve carriage guns and full of men, which attempted to board him several times."

The odds against Captain "Billy" were tremendous, but what he lacked in men and arms he made up by his magnificent pluck. The privateersmen swarmed to his deck, "but never a Dago that got over the rail lived to return.'

More famous still as a fighter was Captain Hugh Crow, the one-eyed slaver of Liverpool, "one of the

bravest, shrewdest, quaintest and most humorous old sea-dogs that ever breathed"; but he was of a later date than Lindsay or Boates, being, in fact, captain of the last lawful Liverpool slaver. One would like to tell his whole story, but space can be spared only to say that when in the slaver Mary he was attacked at night by two sloops-of-war, each of which was of far superior force. Captain Hugh supposed they were Frenchmen, and, calling his men to quarters, for six hours fought off the determined attacks of both meno'-war. And then when daylight came he found they were British sloops at that. They had supposed that he was French. All things considered, that was the most splendid battle known to the history of "peaceful commerce."

Indeed as the most important branch of British commerce-the commerce of the new England as well as the old England-the slave-trade became the chief nursery of British seamen. The instincts inherited from viking ancestors were fostered and encouraged there. It must be frankly admitted that not only did the boasted prosperity of both English and American over-sea commerce have its foundation in the slavetrade, but also that the magnificent qualities of the Anglo-Saxon naval seamen of the eighteenth century were nourished in the tiny traders, "of an average of seventy-five tons burthen" from Liverpool, of an average of forty tons from Newport and Boston, that went forth to face the unavoidable hurricanes of the tropical seas and to meet, yardarm to yardarm, the war-ships, privateers, and pirates that were ever on the lookout for such rich prizes as the slavers. The fact is the seamen who manned our ships in the War of the