The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African
we quickly fell down the river along with it, till we came among some
outward-bound West Indiamen; for he was resolved to put me on board
the first vessel he could get to receive me. The boat's crew, who
pulled against their will, became quite faint different times, and
would have gone ashore; but he would not let them. Some of them strove
then to cheer me, and told me he could not sell me, and that they
would stand by me, which revived me a little; and I still entertained
hopes; for as they pulled along he asked some vessels to receive me,
but they could not. But, just as we had got a little below Gravesend,
we came alongside of a ship which was going away the next tide for the
West Indies; her name was the Charming Sally, Captain James Doran; and
my master went on board and agreed with him for me; and in a little
time I was sent for into the cabin. When I came there Captain Doran
asked me if I knew him; I answered that I did not; 'Then,' said he
'you are now my slave.' I told him my master could not sell me to him,
nor to any one else. 'Why,' said he, 'did not your master buy you?' I
confessed he did. 'But I have served him,' said I, 'many years, and he
has taken all my wages and prize-money, for I only got one sixpence
during the war; besides this I have been baptized; and by the laws of
the land no man has a right to sell me:' And I added, that I had heard
a lawyer and others at different times tell my master so. They both
then said that those people who told me so were not my friends; but I
replied--it was very extraordinary that other people did not know the
law as well as they. Upon this Captain Doran said I talked too much
English; and if I did not behave myself well, and be quiet, he had a
method on board to make me. I was too well convinced of his power over
me to doubt what he said; and my former sufferings in the slave-ship
presenting themselves to my mind, the recollection of them made me
shudder. However, before I retired I told them that as I could not get
any right among men here I hoped I should hereafter in Heaven; and I
immediately left the cabin, filled with resentment and sorrow. The
only coat I had with me my master took away with him, and said if my
prize-money had been 10,000 £. he had a right to it all, and would have
taken it. I had about nine guineas, which, during my long sea-faring
life, I had scraped together from trifling perquisites and little
ventures; and I hid it that instant, lest my master should take that
from me likewise, still hoping that by some means or other I should
make my escape to the shore; and indeed some of my old shipmates told
me not to despair, for they would get me back again; and that, as soon
as they could get their pay, they would immediately come to Portsmouth
to me, where this ship was going: but, alas! all my hopes were
baffled, and the hour of my deliverance was yet far off. My master,
having soon concluded his bargain with the captain, came out of the
cabin, and he and his people got into the boat and put off; I followed
them with aching eyes as long as I could, and when they were out of
sight I threw myself on the deck, while my heart was ready to burst
with sorrow and anguish.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote L: He had drowned himself in endeavouring to desert.]
[Footnote M: Among others whom we brought from Bayonne, two gentlemen,
who had been in the West Indies, where they sold slaves; and they
confessed they had made at one time a false bill of sale, and sold two
Portuguese white men among a lot of slaves.]
[Footnote N: Some people have it, that sometimes shortly before
persons die their ward has been seen; that is, some spirit exactly in
their likeness, though they are themselves at other places at the same
time. One day while we were at Bayonne Mr. Mondle saw one of our men,
as he thought, in the gun-room; and a little after, coming on the
quarter-deck, he spoke of some circumstances of this man to some of
the officers. They told him that the man was then out of the ship, in
one of the boats with the Lieutenant: but Mr. Mondle would not believe
it, and we searched the ship, when he found the man was actually out
of her; and when the boat returned some time afterwards, we found the
man had been drowned at the very time Mr. Mondle thought he saw him.]
CHAP. V.
_The author's reflections on his situation--Is deceived by a
promise of being delivered--His despair at sailing for the
West Indies--Arrives at Montserrat, where he is sold to Mr.
King--Various interesting instances of oppression, cruelty,
and extortion, which the author saw practised upon the
slaves in the West Indies during his captivity from the year
1763 to 1766--Address on it to the planters._
Thus, at the moment I expected all my toils to end, was I plunged, as
I supposed, in a new slavery; in comparison of which all my service
hitherto had been 'perfect freedom;' and whose horrors, always present
to my mind, now rushed on it with tenfold aggravation. I wept very
bitterly for some time: and began to think that I must have done
something to displease the Lord, that he thus punished me so severely.
This filled me with painful reflections on my past conduct; I
recollected that on the morning of our arrival at Deptford I had
rashly sworn that as soon as we reached London I would spend the day
in rambling and sport. My conscience smote me for this unguarded
expression: I felt that the Lord was able to disappoint me in all
things, and immediately considered my present situation as a judgment
of Heaven on account of my presumption in swearing: I therefore, with
contrition of heart, acknowledged my transgression to God, and poured
out my soul before him with unfeigned repentance, and with earnest
supplications I besought him not to abandon me in my distress, nor
cast me from his mercy for ever. In a little time my grief, spent with
its own violence, began to subside; and after the first confusion of
my thoughts was over I reflected with more calmness on my present
condition: I considered that trials and disappointments are sometimes
for our good, and I thought God might perhaps have permitted this in
order to teach me wisdom and resignation; for he had hitherto shadowed
me with the wings of his mercy, and by his invisible but powerful hand
brought me the way I knew not. These reflections gave me a little
comfort, and I rose at last from the deck with dejection and sorrow in
my countenance, yet mixed with some faint hope that the _Lord would
appear_ for my deliverance.
Soon afterwards, as my new master was going ashore, he called me to
him, and told me to behave myself well, and do the business of the
ship the same as any of the rest of the boys, and that I should fare
the better for it; but I made him no answer. I was then asked if I
could swim, and I said, No. However I was made to go under the deck,
and was well watched. The next tide the ship got under way, and soon
after arrived at the Mother Bank, Portsmouth; where she waited a few
days for some of the West India convoy. While I was here I tried every
means I could devise amongst the people of the ship to get me a boat
from the shore, as there was none suffered to come alongside of the
ship; and their own, whenever it was used, was hoisted in again
immediately. A sailor on board took a guinea from me on pretence of
getting me a boat; and promised me, time after time, that it was
hourly to come off. When he had the watch upon deck I watched also;
and looked long enough, but all in vain; I could never see either the
boat or my guinea again. And what I thought was still the worst of
all, the fellow gave information, as I afterwards found, all the while
to the mates, of my intention to go off, if I could in any way do it;
but, rogue like, he never told them he had got a guinea from me to
procure my escape. However, after we had sailed, and his trick was
made known to the ship's crew, I had some satisfaction in seeing him
detested and despised by them all for his behaviour to me. I was still
in hopes that my old shipmates would not forget their promise to come
for me to Portsmouth: and, indeed, at last, but not till the day
before we sailed, some of them did come there, and sent me off some
oranges, and other tokens of their regard. They also sent me word they
would come off to me themselves the next day or the day after; and a
lady also, who lived in Gosport, wrote to me that she would come and
take me out of the ship at the same time. This lady had been once very
intimate with my former master: I used to sell and take care of a
great deal of property for her, in different ships; and in return she
always shewed great friendship for me, and used to tell my master that
she would take me away to live with her: but, unfortunately for me, a
disagreement soon afterwards took place between them; and she was
succeeded in my master's good graces by another lady, who appeared
sole mistress of the Ætna, and mostly lodged on board. I was not so
great a favourite with this lady as with the former; she had conceived
a pique against me on some occasion when she was on board, and she did
not fail to instigate my master to treat me in the manner he did[O].
However, the next morning, the 30th of December, the wind being brisk
and easterly, the Oeolus frigate, which was to escort the convoy,
made a signal for sailing. All the ships then got up their anchors;
and, before any of my friends had an opportunity to come off to my
relief, to my inexpressible anguish our ship had got under way. What
tumultuous emotions agitated my soul when the convoy got under sail,
and I a prisoner on board, now without hope! I kept my swimming eyes
upon the land in a state of unutterable grief; not knowing what to do,
and despairing how to help myself. While my mind was in this situation
the fleet sailed on, and in one day's time I lost sight of the
wished-for land. In the first expressions of my grief I reproached my
fate, and wished I had never been born. I was ready to curse the tide
that bore us, the gale that wafted my prison, and even the ship that
conducted us; and I called on death to relieve me from the horrors I
felt and dreaded, that I might be in that place
"Where slaves are free, and men oppress no more.
Fool that I was, inur'd so long to pain,
To trust to hope, or dream of joy again.
* * * * *
Now dragg'd once more beyond the western main,
To groan beneath some dastard planter's chain;
Where my poor countrymen in bondage wait
The long enfranchisement of ling'ring fate:
Hard ling'ring fate! while, ere the dawn of day,
Rous'd by the lash they go their cheerless way;
And as their souls with shame and anguish burn,
Salute with groans unwelcome morn's return,
And, chiding ev'ry hour the slow-pac'd sun,
Pursue their toils till all his race is run.
No eye to mark their suff'rings with a tear;
No friend to comfort, and no hope to cheer:
Then, like the dull unpity'd brutes, repair
To stalls as wretched, and as coarse a fare;
Thank heaven one day of mis'ry was o'er,
Then sink to sleep, and wish to wake no more[P]."
The turbulence of my emotions however naturally gave way to calmer
thoughts, and I soon perceived what fate had decreed no mortal on
earth could prevent. The convoy sailed on without any accident, with a
pleasant gale and smooth sea, for six weeks, till February, when one
morning the Oeolus ran down a brig, one of the convoy, and she
instantly went down and was ingulfed in the dark recesses of the
ocean. The convoy was immediately thrown into great confusion till it
was daylight; and the Oeolus was illumined with lights to prevent