As more slaves were thrown overboard, he remembered John Newton. Like many in Liverpool, William knew of Newton, the ex-captain of a slave ship who converted to Christianity and turned from poacher to gamekeeper by advocating the end of the slave trade. The influence of John Newton and others managed to persuade Wilberforce to lead their anti-slavery group in Parliament. In the past eighteen years Wilberforce had become famous as the public leader for the movement. William wished the advocates of slavery were here now to see the result of their desire for profit.
‘Heave to, damn you,’ shouted William as he came within a few yards of the slaver. ‘Anyone speak Spanish?’ he asked of his crew. More than one language amongst the older hands was common in the Navy. Perhaps not the sort of language one would use in polite society, but at least he could make himself understood to a slaver.
‘I think they understood what we wanted when we ran our guns out, Sir,’ commented the master.
‘I think you’re right, Mr Hargrove. He’s at least taking in his sails. The stink is unbelievable. Bosun, lower a boat and I’ll go across and speak to her captain. Ten fully armed, experienced men are to come with me.
‘Mr Hargrove, you are in command until my return, and if the Spaniard tries anything, blow him out of the water and we will take our chances. He must not be allowed to escape.’
William and his men dropped from the deck of the Nancy in to the larger of the ship’s boats.
‘Shove off!’ called William as the last man scrambled aboard. ‘Oars out, pick up the stroke.’ He pushed the tiller down and headed towards the Spaniard a short distance away.
The Nancy’s boat skimmed across the short distance to the slaver and William, followed by nine of his men, boarded. One crewmember was left to secure the boat.
‘Round everyone up and make sure that any slaves are secure. I don’t want them to attack us because they think we are Dagos.’
A tall, thin man, dark-haired, dressed in a creased uniform jacket and a pair of dirty white duck trousers, stepped forward. In halting English he demanded why they, a friendly power, had fired on a Spanish vessel.
‘Where have you been, Captain? What is your cargo?’
‘I loaded slaves from Benin for His Catholic Majesty’s possessions in Cuba. It is a legal trade and you have no right to stop me.’
‘It is a legal trade, Captain, even in my country, and slaves are classed as cargo according to both your country and mine. Your vessel is now my prize.’
‘Prize? What do you mean, prize? You are a pirate stopping an innocent vessel on the high seas and boarding her. I will complain to the Spanish government when I return.’
‘When were you last in Spain, Captain?’
‘November last year, why?’ The last word said very quietly. It was as if the captain already knew the answer to his question.
‘I regret to inform you, Captain, that Spain declared war on England in early December. This ship and her cargo are now my prize.’
‘But, Captain, this is all I have. This ship is all that my family has. If you take my ship, my family will starve.’ Tears began to roll down his cheeks.
Johnson, the senior hand of Nancy’s crew, knuckled his forehead. ‘Crew secure, Sir. Fifteen mustered on deck and we’ve used their own swivel gun to guard them. They fixed the swivel gun to guard against a slave breakout from the hold, now they can sit and watch it.’ His gap-toothed grin brought a smile to William’s face.
‘Put the captain with the crew. I’ll go below to see what I can find.’
Johnson grabbed the Spanish captain by the arm and pushed him towards his crew at the base of the mast.
The humidity, heavy with the smell of humanity and filth, greeted William as he made his way below. He tried to breathe lightly so as not to suck in too much of the fetid air. The captain’s cabin was small and it did not take long for him to go through the few papers, and to investigate the chart. If the marks on the chart were correct, it appeared that the captain had told the truth. William didn’t have a reason to disbelieve the chart; the captain hadn’t had time to produce a dummy one, even if he’d wished to hide anything.
William understood enough Spanish to read the ship’s manifest, which informed him that the Spaniard had bought two hundred and twelve slaves. They were a mixture of men, boys and a few girls. The girls would be for house servants and the men and boys for fieldwork. He glanced up as he heard the low moans of the slaves locked in the hold.
There was nothing more of interest in the papers. Closing the door of the cabin behind him, he stepped into the entrance area and noted that there were three doors. One was a weather door leading to the deck, the second was the door he had just closed and the third was a door to a second cabin.
He opened the door to the second cabin as Johnson shouted down that the boat had picked up just one survivor from the water. Sharks following the slaver had made short work of the remainder. William turned to hear Johnson so didn’t notice that he had company. The flash of light was all he saw before the knife sliced across his cheek and down his body. His shoulder felt like he’d been stabbed with a hot iron. The knife glanced off his collarbone and opened the flesh on the upper left side of his chest. He grabbed the attacker’s wrist as it drew back for a second strike. The wrist was small like a child’s, the black fingers bloody where they gripped the sharp edges of a large piece of glass.
William fell against a spitting, screaming woman still attempting to bite and stab him. He forced her back with his elbow and twisted the hand in which she held the weapon. The cabin was too small for him to use his sword so he had to grapple with her hand to hand. He brought up his other arm and hit her across the face. The woman screamed and fell to the deck. He felt blood run down his face and his chest throb with pain. Still gripping her blood-covered weapon, the woman began to rise. William kicked her in the stomach. She gasped and opened her fingers, allowing the glass dagger to drop to the deck, where it broke into three pieces. William stepped on them to make sure they could not be used again. The broken window over the small bunk told him how she had obtained her weapon.
Blood dripped down his arm as he leaned against the bulkhead to get his breath back.
‘Are you all right, Sir?’ cried Johnson as he rushed into the cabin. He saw the woman on the deck curled into a ball.
‘Thank you, yes,’ whispered William. The pain throbbed across his face and shoulder. ‘If you hadn’t called out to me when you did, she would have stabbed me in my eyes.’
William looked down at his assailant and saw she was naked and black. ‘Now I know why they didn’t heave-to when we fired. The captain was too busy to give the order. He was raping one of the slaves! Take her up top and be careful, she is a vixen.’
‘Aye, aye, Sir. You should get your shoulder and face attended to. She’s cut you badly. In this climate it doesn’t take much for an infected wound to kill a man.’
‘Thank you for your advice. I will bear it in mind.’
On deck, William stripped off his shirt and inspected his wound as best he could. They were clean cuts, but the shoulder wound burned in the hot sun.
‘Johnson, see if you can find some clean cloth to bind this. I think I saw some clothes in the captain’s quarters. Use them if you have to.’
William leaned on the taffrail and called the Spanish captain to him. With his dark, sunburned skin, and blood running down his shoulder, William was a man who would not deal in niceties.
‘Captain, tell me about the slave in your cabin.’
‘I refuse to speak to a pirate.’
‘Be careful, Captain, pirates hang their prisoners, as do the English Navy for anyone who rapes a woman.’
‘She is not a woman! She is a slave!’
‘She is a woman. She was your prisoner and you took advantage of your power.’
‘It happens all the time. We must have some distraction on such a long voyage. All those in the African trade take a woman to help pass the time.’
&
nbsp; ‘So now you admit she is a woman.’
‘No, no, you misunderstood me,’ cried the Spanish captain.
‘And the slaves you threw overboard when you realised my ship was near?’
‘They were dead, and we cannot do anything but put them over the side.’
‘I saw them in the water. They were not dead! You put live men in the water knowing they would drown or be attacked by the sharks that have followed you for days.’
‘No, no, Senor, they were dead! I swear they were all dead!’
‘Then a miracle has occurred, Captain. My ship’s boat has just picked up one of your dead slaves very much alive. You threw them overboard to lighten this ship in an effort to get away from us.’
The captain fell to his knees and clawed at William to implore ‘the gallant English Captain’ not to hang him, but to treat him as a prisoner. As a Spanish gentleman and an officer, he would offer his word not to try and escape. William leaned forward with his hand across his face in an effort to stop his cheek from bleeding. Some of the blood dripped on the Spanish captain.
‘You disgust me!’ shouted William and shoved the Spaniard away with the sole of his shoe.
The captain fell on his back and cursed William and all his family, the speech so fast that William only managed to grasp the outline of the curses.
Midshipman McCall’s boat pulled to the slaver. McCall climbed aboard accompanied by his three crewmen and the rescued slave.
Johnson, with white linen from the captain’s cabin, gently wiped William’s wound and tied clean strips around his shoulder and chest. He made sure the strips were tight enough to hold a wad of linen in place over the long, open wound.
‘Thank you, Johnson, that feels good. Please help me on with my shirt.’
‘Your orders, Sir,’ said McCall, saluting.
‘Midshipman McCall! Take that excuse for a man,’ pointing at the still cursing Spaniard, ‘and put him in irons on the Nancy. I want him and his officers to experience what it is like to be locked away on a small ship at sea.’
The midshipman seized the Spaniard and dragged him to his feet.
‘Johnson, you are now acting petty officer. Check the hold and be careful of the slaves. I want to know how many slaves, and how much water and food there is on this scow. Search the rest of the vessel for arms and anyone else who may be in hiding. Do we have a helmsman amongst us?’
‘Yes, Sir, Jones the Welsh.’
‘Put him on the wheel and steer nor’-nor’-west, and tell Mr Hargrove on the Nancy to do the same.’ His voice faded as his head spun and he felt himself falling into a black hole as he collapsed on the deck.
William was delirious with fever. Wild dreams filled every hour of his existence. His body passed from freezing cold to tropical heat. He felt gentle hands sponge him as he sweated and battled with his demons.
Eventually the wild dreams stopped. He felt his head being held as someone spoon-fed him some broth. It tasted good and it warmed him.
‘How do you feel, Captain?’
‘What’s happened? Where am I?’
‘Don’t fret, Captain. This is Hargrove, the master’
‘The slaves?’
‘Don’t worry, Sir, all is in hand. Mr McCall is in charge of the slaver and is doing a good job. She is still near us, but we have lost some more slaves. With the number thrown overboard by the Dago captain, plus the twelve who died since we captured her, I estimate we have about one hundred and thirty left, if the manifest was correct.’
‘How long have I been here?’
‘Three days, Sir. You collapsed on the slaver and we brought you back to the Nancy. We bled you to bring down the fever and we have fixed the wound on your face. I am afraid you will have a jagged scar, but perhaps the ladies will find it attractive. We had to dig a little for some glass in the shoulder wound. I think we have most of it out but it wasn’t a clean cut. We poured in rum to clean the wound. It looked feverish, so we used maggots to clean out the shoulder wound, because we feared gangrene. The area around it is still hot to touch and puffy.’
‘Help me up.’
‘I would not suggest that, Sir. You are weak and you may tear the stitches. I did my best, but I am not a sail maker.’
‘Help me up, damn your eyes!’
The master placed his arms under William’s good arm and heaved him up to a sitting position. William allowed his legs to fall over the side of the bunk and pushed himself upright. His legs gave way as he placed weight on them. Only because Hargrove held him was he saved from falling to the deck.
‘I appear to be too weak to walk, Mr Hargrove. You were right and I am sorry for my abuse.’
‘We have passed Gibraltar, Sir, and I thought we may have called in to put you ashore, but Mr McCall said we should try for England, and that you would wish us to keep you aboard.’
‘He did right. I stay with my ship. Perhaps in England they can fix the wound.’
‘Lay back, Sir, and let me change the bandages and then I will give you something to help you sleep.’
‘Change the dressing, and then I want to speak to Mr McCall.’
Midshipman McCall sat in the only chair in the captain’s cabin and brought William up-to-date on what had happened since the capture of the Spanish slaver. The two ships had sailed in convoy, Hargrove and Johnson taking turns to take command of the Spanish vessel. McCall ordered the prize crew to be changed frequently as the smell from the confined quarters of the slaves caused friction amongst the Nancy’s crew.
The Spanish crew had been used to clean out the human waste from the hold of the slaver. The process was part punishment for the Spanish sailors, but mostly to keep them busy, and to not allow them time to plot and try to recapture the ship.
The slaves were allowed on deck in small numbers, and the sea-pump rigged to wash them down in an effort to keep them clean. There were two deaths amongst the Spanish crew. The slaves caught and killed them before the Nancy’s crew could come to their aid. Because of the low number of guards, every eventuality had to be planned. The Spanish captain and master were still in irons on the Nancy.
‘It appears, Mr McCall, you have done very well, and I have little to worry about.’ William smiled and then winced as the movement pulled at the wound in his cheek.
‘I could not have done it without the full support of the master and crew, Sir. We have been fortunate. The weather has been kind to us as well, but we are now close to the cooler latitudes and have the Bay of Biscay to contend with, in the next few days.’
‘I will note all you have told me, together with my praise, in my report to the admiral. We must get to England.’
He fell back into his bunk and closed his eyes. He was exhausted. The strain of talking had been too much.
Chapter Four
Proposal
June 1804
A few days after William left for London, his father, George, visited his club, the Athenaeum, a short carriage ride from his home. He wished to consider his company’s future without his son’s involvement.
The club was relatively new, having been built in 1799. He made his way to the reading room, nodding at some other members reading the local newspaper or the days-old London papers. He found his favourite dark-green wing-backed leather armchair. It was near the window from where he could watch the traffic along Hanover Street. A waiter silently approached, eyebrows raised.
‘Brandy,’ whispered George.
Within minutes there was a balloon glass of brandy on the small table alongside George’s chair. He swirled the bowl gently, allowing his hands to warm the contents before he sipped.
Should he send the Margaret Rose back to the Mediterranean and risk losing her to French attacks, or leave her on the Irish run for safety’s sake? The Irish run was not as profitable as it used to be, thanks to other ship owners following his example.
He sipped his drink and watched the people in the street below as they hurried about their business.
A
small movement at the periphery of his vision made him conscious that someone had sat in the chair near his own. He recognised the man by a sudden snort. A person only had to hear that sound once to remember it forever.
‘Morning, King,’ whispered the man, and snorted again.
‘Morning, Nicholson,’ replied George in the same low whisper.
‘Would appreciate some of your time.’
‘Now?’
‘If it is convenient.’
If Donald Nicholson, or Alderman Nicholson, wanted to talk to him, George had best be on guard.
George waved his hand for the waiter to replenish his glass, and held his own glass towards Donald Nicholson in an unspoken offer of the same.
Alderman Donald Nicholson was a legend in Liverpool. He had started with a few pounds and, through trading sugar, built it up to five hundred pounds. In addition to his good fortune in trading, Donald Nicholson, or Lucky Nicholson, as he was also called, had won twenty thousand pounds in a lottery. He had used his winnings to set himself up in business, had married well, became involved in the African trade and made a fortune. To crown his business success, he had been voted on to the Liverpool Council.
Nicholson and a few other slave traders, along with some abolitionists, had founded the Athenaeum Club. It was strange but William Roscoe and James Currie, who hated the African trade, were also founder members. It was odd how the personal requirements of the members for a club such as the Athenaeum overcame their likes or dislikes of the African trade.
George accepted a fresh glass of brandy from the waiter and indicated that another was required for the Alderman.
‘I understand your son has gone and joined the Navy.’
‘News travels.’
‘I also understand the Margaret Rose isn’t making money.’
Triangle Trade Page 4