- end_line
- 14512
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 14468
- text
- disciplinary degradation of the Caucasian crew. Faring sumptuously in
the ward-room; sleek and round, his ebon face fairly polished with
content: ever gay and hilarious; ever ready to laugh and joke, that
African slave was actually envied by many of the seamen. There were
times when I almost envied him myself. Lemsford once envied him
outright, “Ah, Guinea!” he sighed, “you have peaceful times; you never
opened the book I read in.”
One morning, when all hands were called to witness punishment, the
Purser’s slave, as usual, was observed to be hurrying down the ladders
toward the ward-room, his face wearing that peculiar, pinched blueness,
which, in the negro, answers to the paleness caused by nervous
agitation in the white. “Where are you going, Guinea?” cried the
deck-officer, a humorous gentleman, who sometimes diverted himself with
the Purser’s slave, and well knew what answer he would now receive from
him. “Where are you going, Guinea?” said this officer; “turn about;
don’t you hear the call, sir?” “’_Scuse_ me, massa!” said the slave,
with a low salutation; “I can’t ’tand it; I can’t, indeed, massa!” and,
so saying, he disappeared beyond the hatchway. He was the only person
on board, except the hospital-steward and the invalids of the sick-bay,
who was exempted from being present at the administering of the
scourge. Accustomed to light and easy duties from his birth, and so
fortunate as to meet with none but gentle masters, Guinea, though a
bondman, liable to be saddled with a mortgage, like a horse—Guinea, in
India-rubber manacles, enjoyed the liberties of the world.
Though his body-and-soul proprietor, the Purser, never in any way
individualised me while I served on board the frigate, and never did me
a good office of any kind (it was hardly in his power), yet, from his
pleasant, kind, indulgent manner toward his slave, I always imputed to
him a generous heart, and cherished an involuntary friendliness toward
him. Upon our arrival home, his treatment of Guinea, under
circumstances peculiarly calculated to stir up the resentment of a
slave-owner, still more augmented my estimation of the Purser’s good
heart.
Mention has been made of the number of foreigners in the American Navy;
but it is not in the American Navy alone that foreigners bear so large
a proportion to the rest of the crew, though in no navy, perhaps, have
they ever borne so large a proportion as in our own. According to an
English estimate, the foreigners serving in the King’s ships at one
time amounted to one eighth of the entire body of seamen. How it is in
the French Navy, I cannot with certainty say; but I have repeatedly
sailed with English seamen who have served in it.
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