Page:The American Slave Trade (Spears).djvu/66

 were used thereafter. One kind included slender schooners built for speed; the other kind included large ships,a few only of which were swift. The large ones were fitted out by men who meant to get rich at a single stroke. The small ones were used by men who found the trade congenial. These last would have been sneak-thieves in a criminal career ashore; the others, highwaymen.

We have definite figures regarding some of the vessels provided for the sneaking slavers, because some of them were captured and accurate measurements were made. In 1847 the Felicidade, of sixty-seven tons; the Maria, of thirty tons, and the Rio Bango, of ten tons, were captured, all loaded with slaves in a manner to be described further on; though it may be said here that the Maria, a vessel, say, fifty feet long and sixteen wide, had two hundred and thirty-seven on board when taken. Some New York oyster sloops are larger than she was.

The smaller vessels were built, in some cases, in such fashion that the crew could take down the masts and use oars. This gave them every advantage in escaping from the cruisers that must show sails above the horizon when ten miles or more away.

Even the ten-ton schooner was not the limit. Open row-boats no more than twenty-four feet long by seven wide landed as many as thirty-five children in Brazil out of, say, fifty with which the voyage began.

The finest ship of the large class was the Venus, a vessel of four hundred and sixty tons, built at Baltimore, at a cost of $30,000. So swift was this vessel that when chased on the coast of Africa her captain actually shortened sail in order to play with the