Frederick Marryat – The Complete Collection

Chapter 53

During the war the fear of impressment was certainly a strong inducement to our seamen to enter into the American vessels, and naturalise themselves as American subjects; but they were also stimulated even at that period, by the higher wages, as they still are now that the dread of impressment no longer operates upon them.

It appears, then, that from various causes, our merchant vessels have lost their sailing properties, whilst the Americans are the fastest sailers in the world; and it is for that reason, and no other, that, although sailing at a much greater expense, the Americans can afford to outbid us, and take all our best seamen.

An American vessel is in no particular trade, but ready and willing to take freight anywhere when offered. She sails so fast that she can make three voyages whilst one of our vessels can make but two: consequently she has the preference, as being the better manned, and giving the quickest return to the merchant; and as she receives three freights whilst the English vessel receives only two, it is clear that the extra freight wilt more than compensate for the extra expense the vessel sails at in consequence of paying extra wages to the seamen. Add to this, that the captains, generally speaking, being better paid, are better informed, and more active men; that, from having all the picked seamen, they get through their work with fewer hands; that the activity on board is followed up and supported by an equal activity on the part of the agents and factors on shore--and you have the true cause why America can afford to pay and secure for herself all our best seamen.

One thing is evident, that it is a mere question of pounds, shillings, and pence, between us and America, and that the same men who are now in the American service would, if our wages were higher than those offered by America, immediately return to us and leave her destitute.

That it would be worth the while of this country, in case of a war with the United States, to offer 4 pounds a-head to able seamen, is most certain. It would swell the naval estimates, but it would shorten the duration of the war, and in the end would probably be the saving of many millions. But the question is, cannot and ought not something to be done, now in time of peace, to relieve our mercantile shipping interest, and hold out a bounty for a return to those true principles of naval architecture, the deviation from which has proved to be attended with such serious consequences.

Fast-sailing vessels will always be able to pay higher wages than others, as what they lose in increase of daily expense, they will gain by the short time in which the voyage is accomplished; but it is by encouragement alone that we can expect that the change will take place. Surely some of the onerous duties imposed by the Trinity House might be removed, not from the present class of vessels, but from those built hereafter with first-rate sailing properties. These, however, are points which call for a much fuller investigation than I can here afford them; but they are of vital importance to our maritime superiority, and as such should be immediately considered by the government of Great Britain.

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FORTY TWO.

REMARKS--SLAVERY.

It had always appeared to me as singular that the Americans, at the time of their Declaration of Independence, took no measures for the gradual, if not immediate, extinction of slavery; that at the very time they were offering up thanks for having successfully struggled for their own emancipation from what they considered foreign bondage, their gratitude for their liberation did not induce them to break the chains of those whom they themselves held in captivity. It is useless for them to exclaim, as they now do, that it was England who left them slavery as a curse and reproach us as having originally introduced the system among them. Admitting, as is the fact, that slavery did commence when the colonies were subject to the mother country admitting that the petitions for its discontinuance were disregarded, still there was nothing to prevent immediate manumission at the time of the acknowledgement of their independence by Great Britain. They had then everything to recommence they had to select a new form of government, and to decide upon new laws; they pronounced, in their declaration, that "all men were equal;" and yet, in the face of this declaration, and their solemn invocation to the Deity, the n*****s, in their fetters, pleaded to them in vain.

I had always thought that this sad omission, which has left such an anomaly in the Declaration of Independence as to have made it the taunt and reproach of the Americans by the whole civilised world, did really arise from forgetfulness; that, as is but too often the case, when we are ourselves made happy, the Americans in their joy at their own deliverance from the foreign yoke, and the repossessing themselves of their own rights, had been too much engrossed to occupy themselves with the undeniable claims of others. But I was mistaken; such was not the case, as I shall presently show.

In the course of one of my sojourns in Philadelphia, Mr Vaughan, of the Athenium of that city, stated to me that he had found the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, in the hand-writing of Mr Jefferson, and that it was curious to remark the alterations which had been made previous to the adoption of the manifesto which was afterwards promulgated. It was to Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin, that was entrusted the primary drawing up of this important document, which was then submitted to others, and ultimately to the Convention, for approval and it appears that the question of slavery had NOT been overlooked when the document was first framed, as the following clause, inserted in the original draft by Mr Jefferson, (but expunged when it was laid before the Convention,) will sufficiently prove. After enumerating the grounds upon which they threw off their allegiance to the king of England, the Declaration continued in Jefferson's nervous style:

"He [the king] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty , in the person of a distant people who never offended him; captivating and carrying them into slavery, in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain, determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold; he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce; and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting these very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."

Such was the paragraph which had been inserted by Jefferson, in the virulence of his democracy, and his desire to hold up to detestation the king of Great Britain. Such was at that time, unfortunately, the truth; and had the paragraph remained, and at the same time emancipation been given to the slaves, it would have been a lasting stigma upon George the Third. But the paragraph was expunged; and why I because they could not hold up to public indignation the sovereign whom they had abjured, without reminding the world that slavery still existed in a community which had declared that "all men were equal;" and that if, in a monarch, they had stigmatised it as "violating the most sacred rights of life and liberty," and "waging cruel war against human nature," they could not have afterward been so barefaced and unblushing as to continue a system which was at variance with every principle which they professed.

Note. Miss Martineau, in her admiration of democracy, says, that, in the formation of the government, "The rule by which they worked was no less than the golden one, which seems to have been, by some unlucky chance, omitted in the Bibles of other statesmen, ` Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you '" I am afraid the American Bible, by some unlucky chance, has also omitted that precept.

It does, however, satisfactorily prove, that the question of slavery was not overlooked ; on the contrary, their determination to take advantage of the system was deliberate, and, there can be no doubt, well considered--the very omission of the paragraph proves it. I mention these facts to show that the Americans have no right to revile us on being the cause of slavery in America. They had the means, and were bound, as honourable men, to act up to their declaration but they entered into the question, they decided otherwise, and decided that they would retain their ill-acquired property at the expense of their principles.

The degrees of slavery in America are as various in their intensity as are the communities composing the Union. They may, however, be divided with great propriety under two general heads--eastern and western slavery. By eastern slavery, I refer to that in the slave states bordering on the Atlantic, and those slave states on the other side of the Alleghany mountains, which may be more directly considered as their colonies, viz, in the first instance, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North and South Carolina; and, secondly, Kentucky and Tennessee. We have been accustomed lately to class the slaves as non-predial and predial,--that is, those who are domestic, and those who work on the plantations. This classification is not correct, if it is intended to distinguish between those who are well, and those who are badly treated. The true line to be drawn is between those who work separately, and those who are worked in a gang and superintended by an overseer. This is fully exemplified in the United States, where it will be found that in all states where they are worked in gangs the slaves are harshly treated, while in the others their labour is light.

Now, with the exception of the rice grounds in South Carolina, the eastern states are growers of corn, hemp, and tobacco; but their chief staple is the breeding of horses, mules, horned cattle, and other stock: the largest portion of these states remain in wild luxuriant pasture, more especially in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, either of which states is larger than the other four mentioned.

The proportion of slaves required for the cultivation of the purely agricultural and chiefly grazing farms or plantations in these states is small, fifteen or twenty being sufficient for a farm of two hundred or three hundred acres; and their labour, which is mostly confined to tending stock, is not only very light, but of the quality most agreeable to the n***o. Half the day you will see him on horseback with his legs idly swinging--as he goes along, or seated on a shaft-horse driving his wagons. He is quite in his glory; nothing delights a n***o so much as riding or driving, particularly when he has a whole team under his control. He takes his wagon for a load of corn to feed the hogs, sits on the edge of the shaft as he tosses the cobs to the grunting multitude, whom he addresses in the most intimate terms; in short, everything is done leisurely, after his own fashion.

In these grazing states, as they may very properly be called, the n*****s are well fed; they refuse beef and mutton, and will have nothing but pork; and are, without exception, the fattest and most saucy fellows I ever met with in a state of bondage; and such may be said generally to be the case with all the n*****s in the eastern states which I have mentioned. The rice grounds in South Carolina are unhealthy, but the slaves are very kindly treated. But the facts speak for themselves. When the n***o works in a gang with the whip over him, he may be overworked and ill-treated; but when he is not regularly watched, he will take very good care that the work he performs shall not injure his constitution.