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Untitled Article
tion to that disgusting portion of their captivity at least : no change could be fur the worse to them . I was soon called to assist ; ordered to * clap on the jigger , ' i . e . pull upon a tackle which was attached to the cable to take in the ' slack / as it was hove in by the windlass This was stirring amusement for a few minutes , but my hands , in a very little time , gave me notice of their dislike to the toil , as they
became sore and blistered . No matter ; they would soon become callous to such trifles . With nothing more to fear or annoy , I should not repine , though that taught me the difference between hard work and amusement . Oh ! how grand the ship did look when her sails were loosed , topsails sheeted home and hoisted , and she moved along at the pilot ' s word , leaving houses , town , ships , fields , and trees , slipping backward ! But to gaze on this , to me so beautiful a vision , was
not permitted ; every pausing glimpse was broken by an authoritative order to ' lay hold . * I thought trimming sails a most tedious thing , and that it would never be at an end ; nor was the order given for coiling down the ropes till we had rounded Black Rock , and were fairly in the Irish Channel , at sea , with the great arch of sky stooping down to the water on one side , and the Cheshire hills , composedly staying at home , on the other , looking at me to tell me how much wiser they
were . The short swinging motion of the vessel soon taught me to expect what I wished to experience , till I did feel it ; for it was the seasoning ; and there was something in being sea-sick which I was ambitious of knowing ; but I never made any acquaintance whose company was so irksome and nauseous ; it caused a suspension of life , in which actual death would have been welcomed or despised . If any one had offered to toss rne overboard , or put a rope round my neck to
run me up to the yard-arm , he might have done so without a resisting effort on my part : but , for the first time in my life , the utter absence of sympathy occasioned me no regret , no reproach , no uneasiness . Nor was 1 at all concerned at the jeering laughs and the coarse jests which my distress called forth , neither during my sea-sickness , nor any other mishaps or inconveniences which attended me here ; for there
was none with whom I could claim kindred or sociability . I was alone , and they were each of themselves ; nay miseries were not increased by the thought that none cared for them ; that if I complained I should be repulsed ; therefore my unhappiness was isolated in the fact that I felt the fact of being so . True , there was the mulatto man , — a stranger to my country and my blood , did enable me to feel the value and beauty of sympathy . Am I here speaking harshly ? Am I ,
after this lapse of years , and my many lessoning vicissitudes , venting the splenetic humour of a boyish inveteracy ? No , no . I acknowledge , with thankfulness acknowledge , that I had daily met with affection and kindness ; but it was dispensed in so unattractive a form , veiled over in so cold a demeanour , and chilled by such prudential accompaniments , that affection itself looked like an exercise of authority , and solicitude wore the aspect of aversion . But all this was right , I suppose : it was meant to train me for the world .
But with what a mingled sensation of longing and dread did I look to the probability of the waves rolling 4 mountains high / when a change of wind , accompanied by a gathering of black clouds in the
Untitled Article
700 Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1833, page 700, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2624/page/40/
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