LETTER XXII.
We still remain without any accurate intelligence respecting the great body of our convoy; and, having no tidings of the commander in chief, we continue in equal uncertainty when we may proceed to our original destination, at St. Domingo. All here is suspense and anxiety. The solicitude of the mercantile world is not less than that of the military. No packet is arrived; the affairs of commerce are interrupted; and we have no news of Europe or the war. Straggling vessels of our disastrous fleet continue to join us; and, most unhappily, from the transports coming out, in this dispersed and unprotected manner, we have the painful intelligence of frequent captures being made by the enemy’s cruisers from Guadaloupe.
A ship which came in this day reports that she parted from the Admiral and a hundred sail of the convoy, on the seventh of January, in latitude 45, longitude 17. This is received, by some, as favorable intelligence, it seeming to strengthen the hope that the fleet has not been under the necessity of again putting back to Cork, or Spithead. But it is now so long since the seventh of January, and we have known in the interval such violent,—such repeated and long-continued gales, that, to many of us, this news is equally unsatisfactory as all we had heard before. So little does it meet our hopes, that we have still many apprehensions lest the majority of the convoy may have been obliged to return to Ireland or to England.
Unhappily the finest season is passing away; and before the whole army can arrive, and be brought into action, the rainy period will be fast approaching; but, as many of the men already here are in a sickly state, we hope the delay may prove beneficial to them, by affording them an opportunity of recovering from the ills of the voyage, and of their long confinement on board, before they enter upon the fatigues of the campaign. They are daily taken on shore to relieve them from the close atmosphere of the transports; and, from being regularly exercised, they will have the advantage of becoming, in some degree, seasoned previous to being ordered upon actual service.
We learn from our captain that a great desertion is taking place among the sailors of his vessel. Six have already absconded, and the number of our crew is reduced to fourteen. This intelligence makes us apprehensive lest, by the time we sail for St. Domingo, we may not have enough hands to work the ship. But we are consoled in the recollection that the friendly trades will be entirely in our favor; and that we cannot require so strong a ship’s company as amidst the adverse and terrific gales which so long beset us on our passage hither.
A sad alarm has spread throughout the harbour, and we have all been in fearful concern, respecting the fate of twelve men who went out in a flat-bottomed boat to consign to the deep the body of a deceased shipmate. Desirous not to throw over the corpse within the harbour, where it would be instantly devoured by the numerous sharks which infest the bay, and which we see almost daily swimming round the vessels in search of prey, they rowed so far out to sea as to be unable to pull back again; and the tide being against them, their heavy boat, notwithstanding all their efforts to row her into the harbour, was carried out into the wide Atlantic, with all hands on board. The captain finding it long before his men returned, grew very apprehensive regarding their safety. A general concern spread through the bay: it extended likewise to the shore, and multitudes soon covered the beach, while the shrouds, and yards of the ships, were thronged with anxious crowds looking out for the funeral party. No boat appeared, and the fears respecting their perilous situation becoming universal, two schooners were despatched in search of them. Happily the weather was moderate, or the whole would have been certainly lost, for the boat was found adrift at open sea! Fortunately all the men were in her, and were brought back in safety to the harbour, expressing themselves very thankful for their unexpected deliverance from the all-devouring ocean.
A strong contrast to the dangerous situation of these poor men presented itself in the repose of some other seamen, whom we perceived sitting at rest in their boats, and sailing about the harbour by means of their oars; a custom which we find to be common here; for we often see parties of negroes, boatmen, or sailors, scud indolently about the bay, employing their oars by way of sails. They fix the handles of them at the bottom of the boat, and setting them up, two on each side, with the flat surface to the wind, collect a sufficiency of the breeze to carry them along without the trouble of rowing.
The captains of the Guineamen frequently relieve their ships’ company from the duty of the boat, by training some of their black cargo to the use of the oar: indeed so adroit do many of the negroes become, during the passage, and the time they are detained on board, that their assistance is of much service in working the vessel. We see occasionally the master of a slave-ship rowed ashore by four of his naked Africans, who appear as dexterous, in the management of the boat, as if they had been for years accustomed to it.
Sometimes we observe the captains parading the streets, accompanied by parties of their prime slaves—apparently with the intention of exhibiting them to the eye of the public, in a sound and good condition. This contributes, at the same time, to the health and amusement of these poor beings, who seem delighted at placing their feet on shore, and, in due obedience to their captain, dance and frolic as they go along, either in real, or in well dissembled contentment.
I made a visit to Bridge-town this morning with the intention of leaving some books to be bound, which I brought out, in sheets, from the printer; but you will be surprised to learn that no such person as a book-binder can be found in Barbadoes. We called on Mr. Hinde, and were informed that, by the assistance of his friends Messrs. Jordan and Maxwell, he had provided horses for our intended “marooning party” to Hackleton’s Cliff, and the northern coast of the island; when, upon our apologizing to him, and his friends, and observing that we had sent our servants to hire horses for the journey, he replied that no apologies could be heard, for it would be “quite inconsistent with Barbadoes to suffer strangers to have the trouble of procuring horses, or of seeking, themselves, the accommodations for a country excursion.”