The Pirate Slaver

The Pirate Slaver, by Harry
Collingwood

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Title: The Pirate Slaver A Story of the West African Coast
Author: Harry Collingwood
Illustrator: W.H. Overend
Release Date: November 15, 2007 [EBook #23498]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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PIRATE SLAVER ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The Pirate Slaver
a Story of the West African Coast

by Harry Collingwood.
CHAPTER ONE.
THE CONGO RIVER.
"Land ho! broad on the port bow!"
The cry arose from the look-out on the forecastle of her Britannic
Majesty's 18-gun brig Barracouta, on a certain morning near the
middle of the month of November, 1840; the vessel then being situated
in about latitude 6 degrees 5 minutes south and about 120 east
longitude. She was heading to the eastward, close-hauled on the port
tack, under every rag that her crew could spread to the light and almost
imperceptible draught of warm, damp air that came creeping out from
the northward. So light was the breeze that it scarcely wrinkled the
glassy smoothness of the long undulations upon which the brig rocked
and swayed heavily while her lofty trucks described wide arcs across
the paling sky overhead, from which the stars were vanishing one after
another before the advance of the pallid dawn. And at every lee roll her
canvas flapped with a rattle as of a volley of musketry to the masts,
sending down a smart shower from the dew-saturated cloths upon the
deck, to fill again with the report of a nine-pounder and a great slatting
of sheets and blocks as the ship recovered herself and rolled to
windward.
The brig was just two months out from England, from whence she had
been dispatched to the West African coast to form a portion of the
slave-squadron and to relieve the old Garnet, which, from her
phenomenal lack of speed, had proved utterly unsuitable for the service
of chasing and capturing the nimble slavers who, despite all our
precautions, were still pursuing their cruel and nefarious vocation with
unparalleled audacity and success. We had relieved the Garnet, and had
looked in at Sierra Leone for the latest news; the result of this visit
being that we were now heading in for the mouth of the Congo, which
river had been strongly commended to our especial attention by the
Governor of the little British colony. Our captain, Commander Henry

Stopford, was by no means a communicative man, it being a theory of
his that it is a mistake on the part of a chief to confide more to his
officers than is absolutely necessary for the efficient and intelligent
performance of their duty; hence he had not seen fit to make public the
exact particulars of the information thus received. But he had of course
made an exception in favour of Mr Young, our popular first luff; and as
I--Henry Dugdale, senior mid of the Barracouta--happened to be
something of a favourite with the latter, I learned from him, in the
course of conversation, some of the circumstances that were actuating
our movements. The intelligence, however, was of a very meagre
character, and simply amounted to this: That large numbers of African
slaves were being continually landed on the Spanish West Indian
islands; that two boats with their crews had mysteriously disappeared in
the Congo while engaged upon a search of that river for slavers; and
that a small felucca named the Wasp--a tender to the British ship-sloop
Lapwing--had also disappeared with all hands, some three months
previously, after having been seen in pursuit of a large brig that had
come out of the river; these circumstances leading to the inference that
the Congo was the haunt of a strong gang of daring slavers whose
capture must be effected at any cost.
It was for this service that the Barracouta had been selected, she being
a brand-new ship especially built for work on the West African coast,
and modelled to sail at a high speed upon a light draught of water. She
was immensely beamy for her length, and very shallow, drawing only
ten feet of water with all her stores and ammunition on board, very
heavily sparred--too heavily, some of us thought--and, as for canvas,
her topsails had the hoist of those of a frigate of twice her tonnage. She
was certainly a beautiful model of a ship--far and away the prettiest that
I had ever seen when I first stepped