Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/369

 ; iron bars, with the necessary wood-work, for securing slaves to the deck; four hundred spoons for feeding them; between thirty and forty nmskets, and a written agreement between the owner and captain, with the receipt of the owner for two thousand milreis.

There being thirty-live persons on board this prize, many of whom were foreigners, it was deemed necessary to send a force of twenty-five men, with the first and second lieutenants, that the prize might be safely conducted to New York, for which place she took her departure that evening.

Soon after the Martha was discovered, she passed within hailing distance of an American brig, several miles ahead of the Perry, and asked the name of the cruiser astern; on being told, the captain, in despair, threw his trumpet on deck. But on a moment's reflection, as he afterwards stated, he concluded, notwithstanding, that she must be an English cruiser, not only from her appearance, but from the knowledge that the Perry had left for Porto Praya, and could not in the mean time have returned to that part of the coast. Therefore, finding when within gun-shot of the vessel, that he could not escape, and must show his colors, ran up the American ensign, intending under his nationality to avoid search and capture. The boarding-officer was received at the gangway by a Brazilian captain, who strongly insisted that the vessel was Brazilian property. But the officer, agreeably to an order received on leaving the Perry, to hold the ship to the nationality first indicated by her colors, proceeded in the search. In the mean time, the American captain, notwithstanding his guise as a sailor, being identified by another officer, was sent on board the Perry. He claimed that the vessel could not lawfully be subjected to search by an American man-of-war, while under Brazilian colors. But on being informed that he would be seized as a pirate for sailing without papers, even were he not a slaver, he admitted that she was on a slaving voyage; adding, that had he not fallen in with the Perry, he would, during the night, have shipped eighteen hundred slaves, and before daylight in the morning been clear of the coast.

Possession was immediately taken of the Martha, her crew put in irons, and both American and Brazilian captains, together with three or four cabin passengers, (probably slave-agents,) were given to understand that they would be similarly served, in case of the slightest evidence of insubordination. The accounts of the prize crew were transferred, the vessel provisioned, and in twenty-four hours after her capture, the vessels exchanged three cheers, and the Martha bore away for New York.

She was condemned in the U. S. District Court. The captain was admitted to bail for the sum of five thousand dollars, which was afterwards reduced to three thousand: he then escaped justice by its forfeiture. The American mate was sentenced to the penitentiary for the term of two years; and the foreigners, who had been sent to the United States on account of the moral effect, being regarded as beyond our jurisdiction, were discharged.

The writing-desk thrown overboard from the Martha, soon after she was boarded, contained sundry papers, making curious revelations of the agency of