# The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive/Chapter 36

Contents
We had a short passage to Liverpool. The schooner was condemned as a prize, and was bought in by the owners of the brig. ‘They fitted her out as a privateer; and as they had been informed how large a share I had in her capture, they offered me the command of her. I readily accepted it; and having selected an experienced old sailor for my first lieutenant, I soon collected a crew, and set sail.
The cruising ground which I preferred, was the coast of America. Off the harbor of Boston, we were so lucky as to fall in with, and make prize of a homeward bound East-Indiaman, with a very valuable cargo of teas and silks. We put a prize-crew on board and sent her off for Liverpool, where she arrived safely, and produced us a very handsome sum in prize-money. We now stood to the southward; and for a month or two, we cruised off the capes of Virginia. As we kept well in to the coast, we often made the land; and I never saw it without feeling a strong inclination to send a boat's crew ashore, and to kidnap from their beds, such of the nearest planters as I could ​lay my hands upon. But I did not think it prudent to attempt to carry into execution, this piece of experimental instruction, of which the Virginians stand so much in need.
My cruising adventures, chases, and escapes would fill a volume; — but they are little to my present purpose. Suffice it to say, that while the war lasted I kept the seas; and when it ended, most reluctantly I left them. My share in the prizes we had taken, rendered me wealthy, — at least what the moderation of my wishes made me esteem so. But what was to supply the ever varying stimulus and excitement, which till now, had sustained me, and prevented my mind from preying on itself, and poisoning my peace with bitter recollections? The images of my wife, my child, and of the friend to whom I owed so much, often, on my voyages, flitted mournfully across my mind but the cry of 'Sail ahead' would call off my thoughts, and dissipate my incipient melancholy in the bustle of action. But now that I was on shore, homeless, alone, a stranger, with nothing to occupy my mind, — the thoughts of those dear sufferers haunted me continually. The very first thing I did, was to look up a trusty agent whom I might send in search of them. Such an one I found. I gave him all the information which might promote the object of his mission I allowed him an unlimited credit on my banker; and stimulated his zeal by a handsome advance, and the promise of a still larger reward, if he succeeded in the object of his mission.
He sailed for America by the first opportunity; and I consoled myself with the hope that his search would be successful. In the mean time, to have some occupation that might keep off anxious doubts and troublesome anxieties, I applied myself to study. When a child, I had a fondness for reading, and an ardent love of knowledge. This love of knowledge, the accursed discipline of servitude had stifled and kept under, but had not totally extinguished. I was astonished to find it still so strong. Having once turned my attention that way, my mind drank in all sorts of information, as the thirsty earth imbibes the rain. I might rather be said to devour books, than to read them. I scarcely gave myself time to sleep. No sooner had I ​finished one, than I hurried to another with restless inquietude. Tread on without selection or discrimination. It was a long time before [ learned to compare, to weigh, and to judge. It happened to me as it has happened to mankind in general. In my anxiety to know, I was ready to take every thing on trust; and I did not stop to distinguish between what. was fact, and what was fiction. But while I allowed an abundance of folly and falsehood to be palmed upon me under the sober disguise of truth, I had but little taste for writers professedly imaginative. I could not understand why they wrote, or what they aimed at. I despised the poets; but voyages, travels, histories and narratives of every sort, I devoured with undistinguishing voracity. Time and reflection have since enabled me to extract something of truth and philosophy from these chaotic acquisitions.
For a while, my studies had much the same stimulating, and exciting effect with my former activity. They raised my spirits, and enabled me to bear up under the discouraging advices which I received from America. But they palled at last; — and when my agent returned with the disastrous information, that all his searches had been unavailing, I found no support under the load of grief that overwhelmed me.
From such information as my agent had been able to obtain, it appeared that Mrs Montgomery, Cassy's mistress, had become security to a large amount for that brother of hers, by whose advice and agency she managed her affairs. That brother was a planter; and among the American planters, the passion for gambling is next to universal, — for it is one of the few excitements by which they are able to relieve the listless and wearisome indolence of their useless lives. Mrs Montgomery's brother was a gambler, and an unsuccessful one. Having ruined himself, he began to prey upon his sister. Besides embezzling all such money of hers as he could lay his hands upon, — and as he had the entire management of her affairs, her income was much at his disposal, — he induced her, under various pretences, to put her name to bonds and notes to a large amount. On these notes and bonds suits were commenced; but this, her brother, who strove to defer the disclosure of his villanies as ​long as possible, took care to conceal from her; and the first thing she knew of the matter, her entire property was seized on execution.
Among her other chattels, my wife and child were sold, — for it is the law and the practice of America to sell women and children to pay the debts of a gambler!
Cassy and her infant had fallen into the hands of a gentleman, — such is the American phrase, — who followed the lucrative and respectable business of a slave-trader. My agent no sooner learned his name, than he set out in pursuit of him. But he found that the man had been dead for a year or two; and that he had left no papers behind him, from which might be traced the history of his slave-trading expeditions. Not yet discouraged, my agent travelled over the entire route, which he was told the deceased slave-trader had usually followed. He even succeeded in getting some trace of the very gang of slaves which had been purchased at the sale of Mrs Montgomery's property. He tracked them from village to village, till he arrived at Augusta in the state of Georgia, — but here he lost sight of them altogether. 'That town is or was, one of the great marts of the American slave-trade; and here in all probability, the slaves were sold; but to whom, it was impossible to discover..
Thus baffled in his search, my agent had recourse to advertisements in the newspapers, in which the person of my wife was particularly described, mention was made of the name of her late owner, and a very generous reward was offered to any one who would give information where she or her child was to be found. These advertisements brought him an abundance of communications, but none to the purpose; and after having spent near two years in the search, he gave it up, at last, as unavailing.
Of Thomas he could learn nothing, except that general Carter had never retaken him. A man of his figure and appearance had been occasionally seen, traversing. the woods of that neighborhood, and lurking about the plantations; and it seemed not unlikely that he was still alive, and the leader of some band of runaways. Such was the information which my agent brought me. ​While he remained in America, however little encouragement his letters gave, still I could hope. But now, the last staff of consolation was plucked from under me. What availed it, that I had myself shaken off the chains, which were still hanging, and perhaps with a weight so much the heavier, to the friend of my heart, to the wife of my bosom, to the dear, dear infant, the child of my love? The curse of tyranny indeed is multifold; — nay, infinite! — It blasted me across the broad Atlantic; and when I thought of Gassy and my boy, I shrunk and trembled as if again the irons were upon me, and the bloody lash cracking about my head! — Almighty God! why hast thou created beings capable of so much misery!
I recovered slowly from the shock, which at first had quite unmanned me. But though I regained some degree of composure, it was in vain that I courted any thing like enjoyment. A worm was gnawing at my heart which would not be appeased. Never was there a bosom more inclined than mine to the gentle pleasures of domestic life. But I found only torture in the recollection that I was a husband and a father. Oh, had my wife and my dear boy been with me, in what a sweet retirement I could have spent my days, ever finding a new relish for present bliss in the recollection of ills endured, and miseries escaped!
The sense of loneliness which oppressed me, and the bitter thoughts and hateful images that were ever crowding on my mind, made my life an irksome burden, and drove me to seek relief in the excitements of travel. I visited every country in Europe, and sought occupation and amusement in examining their scheme of society, and studying their laws and manners. I traversed Turkey and the regions of the East, once the seats of art and opulence, but long since ruined by the heavy hand of tyranny, and the ever renewed extortions of military pillage. I crossed the Persian deserts, and saw in India a new and better civilization slowly rising upon the ruins of the old.
The interest I felt in the oppressed and unfortunate race, with which, upon the mother's side I am connected, carried me again across the ocean. I have climbed the lofty crests of the Andes, and wandered among the flowery forests of Brazil ​Every where I have seen the hateful empire of aristocratic usurpation, lording it with a high hand, over the lives, the liberty, and the happiness of men. But every where, or almost every where, I have seen the bondsmen beginning to forget the base lore of traditionary subserviency, and already feeling the impulses, and lisping in the language of freedom. I have seen it every where; — every where, except in my native America.
There are slaves in many other countries; but no where else is oppression so heartless and unrelenting. No where else, has tyranny ever assumed a shape so fiendish. No where else is it, of all the world beside, the open aim of the laws, and the professed purpose of the masters, to blot out the intellects of half the population, and to extinguish at once and forever, both the capacity and the hope of freedom.
In catholic Brazil, — in the Spanish islands, where one might expect to find tyranny aggravated by ignorance and superstition, the slave is still regarded as a man, and as entitled to something of human sympathies. He may kneel at the altar by his master's side; and he may hear the catholic priest proclaiming boldly from his pulpit, the sacred truth that all men are equal. He may find consolation and support in the hope of one day becoming a freeman. He may purchase his liberty with money; if barbarously and unreasonably punished, he may demand it as his legal right; he may expect it from the gratitude or the generosity of his master; or from the conscience-stricken dictates of his priest-attended deathbed. When he becomes a freeman, he has a freeman's rights, and enjoys a real and practical equality, at the mere mention of which, the prating and prejudiced Americans are filled with creeping horror, and passionate indignation,
Slavery, in those countries, by the force of causes now in operation, is fast approaching to its end; and let the African slave-trade be once totally abolished, and before the expiration of half a century, there will not a slave be found in either Spanish or Portuguese America.
It is in the United States alone, that country so apt to claim a monopoly of freedom, that the spirit of tyranny still ​soars boldly triumphant, and disdains even the most distant thought of limitation. Here alone, of all the world beside, oppression riots unchecked by fear of God, or sympathy for man.
To add the last security to despotism, the American slave-holders, while they fiercely refuse to relinquish the least tittle of their whip-wielding authority, have deprived themselves, by special statute, of the power of emancipation, and have thus artfully and industriously closed up the last loop-hole, through which Hope might look in upon their victims!
And thou my child! — These are the mercies to which thy youth is delivered over! Perhaps already the spirit of manhood is extinguished within thee; already perhaps the frost of servitude has nipped thy budding soul, and left it blasted, — worthless.
No! — oh no! — It ought not, must not, cannot, shall not be so! Child! thou hast yet a father; — one who has not forgotten, and who will not forsake thee. Thy need is great — and great shall be his efforts; — that love is little worth which disappointment tires, or danger daunts.
Yes; — I have resolved it. I will revisit America, and through the length and the breadth of the land, I will search out my child. I will snatch him from the oppressor's grasp, or perish in the attempt. Should I be recognized and seized? — It is not in vain that I have read the history of the Romans; I know a way to disappoint the tyrants; the guilt be on their heads! I cannot be a slave the second time.