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SAMBOE; OR, THE AFRICAN BOY.

And man, where Freedom's beams and fountains rise, Springs from the dust, and blossoms to the skies. Dead to the joys of light and life, the slave Clings to the clod; his root is in the grave. Bondage is winter, darkness, death, despair; Freedom the sun, the sea, the mountain, and the air!

Montgomery.

London: PRINTED FOR HARVEY AND DARTON, GRACECHURCH-STREET.

TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, Esq. M. P.

THIS SMALL VOLUME, DIFFIDENTLY AIMING TO SERVE THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY IS, BY HIS KIND PERMISSION TO GIVE IT THE SANCTION OF HIS NAME, HUMBLY DEDICATED; WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OF UNFEIGNED VENERATION AND RESPECT FOR HIS EXALTED PATRIOTIC AND PRIVATE VIRTUES,

And grateful acknowledgment OF HIS CONDESCENSION, IN HONOURING WITH HIS ATTENTION THE HUMBLE EFFORTS OF

ADVERTISEMENT.

It has been justly remarked, "that all who read may become enlightened;" for readers, insensibly imbibing the sentiments of others, and having their own latent sensibilities called forth, contract, progressively, virtuous inclinations and habits; and thereby become fitted to unite with their fellow-beings, in the removal or amelioration of any of the evils of life. With a full conviction of this, I have attempted, and now offer to my young readers, the present little work. To the rising generation, I am told, the great question of the slave-trade is little known; the abolition of it, by our legislature, having taken place either before many of them existed, or at too early a period of their lives to excite any interest. Present circumstances, however, in reference to the subject, ensure for it an intense interest, in every heart feeling the blessing of freedom and all the sweet charities of home; blessings which it is our care to dispose the youthful heart duly to appreciate, and hence to feel for those, deprived, by violence and crime, of these high privileges of man.

It is true, England has achieved the triumph of humanity, in effacing from her Christian character so dark a stain as a traffic in human beings; a commerce, "the history of which is written throughout in characters of blood." Yet there are but too strong evidences that it is yet pursued to great and fearful extent by other nations, notwithstanding the solemn obligations they have entered into to suppress it; obligations "imposed on every Christian state, no less by the religion it professes, than by a regard to its national honour;" and notwithstanding it has been branded with infamy, at a solemn congress of the great Christian powers, as a crime of the deepest dye. Of this there has long been most abundant melancholy proof; yet, under its present contraband character, it has been attended by, if possible, unprecedented enormities and misery, as well as involving the base and cruel agents of it in the further crime of deliberate perjury, in order to conceal their nefarious employment.

Surely, then, no age can scarcely be too immature, in which to sow the seeds of abhorrence in the young breast, against this blood-stained, demoralizing commerce! Surely, no means, however trivial, should be neglected, to arouse the spirit of youth against it! It would be tedious, and, indeed, inconsistent with the brevity of this little work, to name the number of the great and the good who have protested against, and sacrificed their time and their treasure to abolish it. Suffice it to say, that an apparently trifling incident first aroused the virtuous energies of the ardent, persevering Clarkson, in the great cause;--that a view of the produce of Africa, and proofs of the ingenuity of Africans, kindled the fire of enthusiasm in the noble and comprehensive mind of a Pitt. Nor did the flame quiver or become dim while he was the pilot of the state, though he was not decreed to see the success of perseverance in the cause of justice and humanity.

Let me, therefore, be acquitted of presumption, when I express a hope, that, trifling as is the present work, yet, as the leading events it records are not the creations of fancy, but realities that have passed; that they have not been collected for effect, or uselessly to awaken the feelings; but having been actually presented in the pursuit of a disgraceful and cruel commerce, are now offered to the view of my young readers, in order to confirm the great truths, that cruelty and oppression encouraged, soon brutalize the nature of man; divesting him of every distinguishing trait which unites him with superior intelligences, and sinking him in the scale of being far below the ravening wolf and insatiate tiger; and that the slave-trade, more especially, never fails effectually to destroy all the sympathies of humanity, and so far to barbarize those who are concerned in it, as assuredly to cause civilized man to resume the ferocity of the savage whom he presumes to despise.

The Author.

"Offspring of love divine, Humanity!

Come thou, and weep with me substantial ills, And execrate the wrongs that Afric's sons, Torn from their native shore, and doom'd to bear The yoke of servitude in foreign climes, Sustain. Nor vainly let our sorrows flow, Nor let the strong emotion rise in vain. But may the kind contagion widely spread, Till, in its flame, the unrelenting heart Of avarice melt in softest sympathy, And one bright ray of universal love, Of grateful incense, rises up to heaven!"

Roscoe's Wrongs of Africa.

"E'en from my pen some heartfelt truths may fall; For outrag'd nature claims the care of all."

SAMBOE; OR, THE AFRICAN BOY.

"Slaves of gold! whose sordid dealings Tarnish all your boasted powers, Prove that ye have human feelings, Ere ye proudly question ours."

"Encourage the chiefs to go to war, that they may obtain slaves; for as on many accounts we require a large number, we desire you to exert yourself, and not stand out for a price." Such was the direction, and such the order, of the slave-merchants at Cape Coast Castle, to one of their factors in the interior, for the collection and purchase of slaves; who, dreadful as was his occupation, yet at all times faithfully endeavoured to obey the orders of his employers.

This person had, by studying the character, peculiarities, prejudices, and language of the natives, obtained a great influence over the chiefs of a country, peculiarly blessed by Providence, with all that can enchant the eye, or gratify the wants of man. It is a well-known, but melancholy truth, that, by the introduction of spirituous liquors, and other desirable articles to an uncivilized people, the Europeans have greatly augmented and cherished the dreadful traffic in human beings: the African kings and chiefs being induced, by these temptations, to barter their subjects and captives, for commodities they estimate so highly; frequently even fomenting quarrels, and making war with each other, at the instigation of the slave-factors, for the sole purpose of obtaining captives, in order to exchange them for European articles, with which the factors, who visit their country for the dreadful purpose, are well furnished; to tempt the appetites, and provoke the wild passions, of the wretched beings they intend to make the instruments of their inhuman thirst of gain.

"The natural bond Of brotherhood is sever'd as the flax That falls asunder at the touch of fire-- And having pow'r T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause, Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey."

Mr. Irving, the factor whom we have named as having received the peremptory and unlimited order from the merchants of Cape Coast Castle, had won their confidence, by the remarkable success which had attended his negociations with the king and principal grandees of Whid?h, in which delightful part of Africa he had resided for some years. Nothing, perhaps, more strongly proves the indurating power of the love of gain upon the heart, and the baneful influence of the habitual view of oppression on the better feelings of the soul, than the change which generally takes place in the characters of the young men whose official duty places them in situations like that filled by Mr. Irving. It has, indeed, been most justly and impressively observed, that it is impossible for any one to be accustomed to carry away miserable beings, by force, from their country and endearing ties, to keep them in chains, to see their tears, to hear their mournful lamentations, to behold the dead and the dying mingled together, to keep up a system of severity towards them in their deep affliction, to be constant witnesses of the misery of exile, bondage, cruelty, and oppression, which, together, form the malignant character of this nefarious traffic, without losing all those better feelings it should be the study of man to cherish; or without contracting those habits of moroseness and ferocity which brutalize the nature.

Irving, like many other youths, had been induced by an ardent curiosity, and an enterprising spirit, to engage as a writer to the Royal African Company , at a time when the traffic in slaves was legally pursued, as one source of riches to a great commercial nation. Yet it may with candour be presumed, that he, and many a youth entering upon the same path, with the same laudable impulses, had they anticipated the peril to which they exposed their humane principles, by engaging themselves in a trade so repugnant to nature, religion, and justice, would rather have undergone personal hazard and difficulty in their native land, so that they might have fostered that divine principle, which is the noble and distinguishing characteristic of man--of free-born man.

That Irving possessed a native humanity and right feeling, would appear from his letters to his friends in England, written on his arrival in Africa; and as he describes the country as it first met his admiring and youthful eye, it may be not unamusing to my young readers, to extract a few passages from his letters to his sister, before we pursue the detail of subsequent events, in which he was an actor. "Well, my dear Sophy," he observes, "are you reconciled to your brother becoming a dealer in slaves? I assure you I have had some compunctious visitings of conscience upon the subject during the voyage; the calmness and monotony of which, gave me ample opportunity of reflecting upon the kind-hearted arguments of my good little sister, against a commerce, which, I believe she says true when she asserts, 'is founded in injustice and crime, and a compound of all that is wicked and cruel.' But, Sophy, what will you call your wild brother, when I tell you, that the first glance I had of this enchanting country, put you, your arguments, the unhappy and abused natives, from my mind, in an instant; and I could only bless my stars that I was to become an inhabitant of a region which seemed to offer so many delights--so many interesting studies for my pencil. I can anticipate all you would say upon this subject, as to the cruelty of tearing the miserable natives from scenes which 'breathe of Paradise,' so as to have raised the enthusiasm of even the thoughtless heart of Charles Irving. But I have no time for argument, Sophy, scarcely that for brief description. Imagine then, my dear sister, the most boundless luxuriancy of landscape, continually clothed with all the beauties and riches of spring, summer, and harvest; lofty mountains covered with wood, chiefly fruit-trees; fine streams, romantic and fertile valleys. Such is the general appearance:aracter, and of canonical things in certain pages, I am not without hopes that your Eminence will pardon my writing of a loving Abb?, for which extravagance let my youth excuse me.

Then I must crave your forgiveness for addressing you in a language other than the Roman, but my small freedom in Latinity forbids me to wander beyond the idiom of my vernacular. I would not for the world that your delicate Southern ear should be offended by a barbarous assault of rude and Gothic words; but methinks no language is rude that can boast polite writers, and not a few such have flourished in this country in times past, bringing our common speech to very great perfection. In the present age, alas! our pens are ravished by unlettered authors and unmannered critics, that make a havoc rather than a building, a wilderness rather than a garden. But, alack! what boots it to drop tears upon the preterit?

It is not of our own shortcomings though, but of your own great merits that I should speak, else I should be forgetful of the duties I have drawn upon myself in electing to address you in a dedication. It is of your noble virtues , your taste and wit, your care for letters, and very real regard for the arts that I must be the proclaimer.

Though it be true that all men have sufficient wit to pass a judgment on this or that, and not a few sufficient impudence to print the same , I have ever held that the critical faculty is more rare than the inventive. It is a faculty your Eminence possesses in so great a degree that your praise or blame is something oracular, your utterance infallible as great genius or as a beautiful woman. Your mind, I know, rejoicing in fine distinctions and subtle procedures of thought, beautifully discursive rather than hastily conclusive, has found in criticism its happiest exercise. It is a pity that so perfect a Mecaenas should have no Horace to befriend, no Georgies to accept; for the offices and function of patron or critic must of necessity be lessened in an age of little men and little work. In times past it was nothing derogatory for great princes and men of State to extend their loves and favour to poets, for thereby they received as much honour as they conferred. Did not Prince Festus with pride take the masterwork of Julian into his protection, and was not the AEneis a pretty thing to offer Caesar?

Learning without appreciation is a thing of naught, but I know not which is greatest in you--your love of the arts, or your knowledge of 'em. What wonder then that I am studious to please you, and desirous of your protection. How deeply thankful I am for your past affections you know well, your great kindness and liberality having far outgone my slight merits and small accomplishment that seemed scarce to warrant any favour. Alas I 'tis a slight offering I make you now, but if after glancing into its pages you should deem it worthy of the remotest place in your princely library, the knowledge that it rested there would be reward sufficient for my labours, and a crowning happiness to my pleasure in the writing of this slender book.

The humble and obedient servant of your Eminence,

AUBREY BEARDSLEY.

UNDER THE HILL

A ROMANTIC NOVEL

The Abb? Fanfreluche, having lighted off his horse, stood doubtfully for a moment beneath the ombre gateway of the mysterious Hill, troubled with an exquisite fear lest a day's travel should have too cruelly undone the laboured niceness of his dress. His hand, slim and gracious as La Marquise du Deffand's in the drawing by Carmontelle, played nervously about the gold hair that fell upon his shoulders like a finely-curled peruke, and from point to point of a precise toilet the fingers wandered, quelling the little mutinies of cravat and ruffle.

It was taper-time; when the tired earth puts on its cloak of mists and shadows, when the enchanted woods are stirred with light footfalls and slender voices of the fairies, when all the air is full of delicate influences, and even the beaux, seated at their dressing-tables, dream a little.

A delicious moment, thought Fanfreluche, to slip into exile.

"A pretty portal," murmured the Abb?, correcting his sash.

As he spoke, a faint sound of singing was breathed out from the mountain, faint music as strange and distant as sea-legends that are heard in shells.

"The Vespers of Helen, I take it," said Fanfreluche, and struck a few chords of accompaniment, ever so lightly, upon his little lute. Softly across the spell-bound threshold the song floated and wreathed itself about the subtle columns, till the moths were touched with passion and moved quaintly in their sleep. One of them was awakened by the intenser notes of the Abb?'s lute-strings, and fluttered into the cave. Fanfreluche felt it was his cue for entry.

"Adieu," he exclaimed with an inclusive gesture, and "good-bye, Madonna," as the cold circle of the moon began to show, beautiful and full of enchantments. There was a shadow of sentiment in his voice as he spoke the words.

"Would to heaven," he sighed, "I might receive the assurance of a looking-glass before I make my debut! However, as she is a Goddess, I doubt not her eyes are a little sated with perfection, and may not be displeased to see it crowned with a tiny fault."

A wild rose had caught upon the trimmings of his ruff, and in the first flush of displeasure he would have struck it brusquely away, and most severely punished the offending flower. But the ruffled mood lasted only a moment, for there was something so deliciously incongruous in the hardy petal's invasion of so delicate a thing, that Fanfreluche withheld the finger of resentment and vowed that the wild rose should stay where it had clung--a passport, as it were, from the upper to the under world.

"The very excess and violence of the fault," he said, "will be its excuse;" and, undoing a tangle in the tassel of his stick, stepped into the shadowy corridor that ran into the bosom of the wan hill--stepped with the admirable aplomb and unwrinkled suavity of Don John.

Before a toilet that shone like the altar of Notre Dame des Victoires, Helen was seated in a little dressing-gown of black and heliotrope. The coiffeur Cosm? was caring for her scented chevelure, and with tiny silver tongs, warm from the caresses of the flame, made delicious intelligent curls that fell as lightly as a breath about her forehead and over her eyebrows, and clustered like tendrils round her neck. Her three favourite girls, Pappelarde, Blanchemains and Loreyne, waited immediately upon her with perfume and powder in delicate flagons and frail cassolettes, and held in porcelain jars the ravishing paints prepared by Ch?teline for those cheeks and lips that had grown a little pale with anguish of exile. Her three favourite boys, Claud, Clair and Sarrasine, stood amorously about with salver, fan and napkin. Millamant held a slight tray of slippers, Minette some tender gloves, La Popelini?re--mistress of the robes--was ready with a frock of yellow and white, La Zambinella bore the jewels, Florizel some flowers, Amadour a box of various pins, and Vadius a box of sweets. Her doves, ever in attendance, walked about the room that was panelled with the gallant paintings of Jean Baptiste Dorat, and some dwarfs and doubtful creatures sat here and there lolling out their tongues, pinching each other, and behaving oddly enough. Sometimes Helen gave them little smiles.

As the toilet was in progress, Mrs. Marsuple, the fat manicure and fardeuse, strode in and seated herself by the side of the dressing-table, greeting Helen with an intimate nod. She wore a gown of white watered silk with gold lace trimmings, and a velvet necklet of false vermilion. Her hair hung in bandeaux over her ears, passing into a huge chignon at the back of her head, and the hat, wide-brimmed and hung with a vallance of pink muslin, was floral with red roses.

Mrs. Marsuple's voice was full of salacious unction; she had terrible little gestures with the hands, strange movements with the shoulders, a short respiration that made surprising wrinkles in her bodice, a corrupt skin, large horny eyes, a parrot's nose, a small loose mouth, great flaccid cheeks, and chin after chin. She was a wise person, and Helen loved her more than any other of her servants, and had a hundred pet names for her, such as Dear Toad, Pretty Poll, Cock Robin, Dearest Lip, Touchstone, Little Cough Drop, Bijou, Buttons, Dear Heart, Dick-dock, Mrs. Manly, Little Nipper, Cochon-de-lait, Naughty-naughty, Blessed Thing, and Trump. The talk that passed between Mrs. Marsuple and her mistress was of that excellent kind that passes between old friends, a perfect understanding giving to scraps of phrases their full meaning, and to the merest reference a point. Naturally Fanfreluche the newcomer was discussed a little. Helen had not seen him yet, and asked a score of questions on his account that were delightfully to the point.

The report and the coiffing were completed at the same moment.

"Cosm?," said Helen, "you have been quite sweet and quite brilliant, you have surpassed yourself to-night."

"Madam flatters me," replied the antique old thing, with a girlish giggle under his black satin mask. "Gad, Madam; sometimes I believe I have no talent in the world, but tonight I must confess to a touch of the vain mood."

It would pain me horribly to tell you about the painting of her face; suffice it that the sorrowful work was accomplished; frankly, magnificently, and without a shadow of deception.

Helen slipped away the dressing-gown, and rose before the mirror in a flutter of frilled things. She was adorably tall and slender. Her neck and shoulders were wonderfully drawn, and the little malicious breasts were full of the irritation of loveliness that can never be entirely comprehended, or ever enjoyed to the utmost. Her arms and hands were loosely, but delicately articulated, and her legs were divinely long. From the hip to the knee, twenty-two inches; from the knee to the heel, twenty-two inches, as befitted a Goddess. Those who have seen Helen only in the Vatican, in the Louvre, in the Uffizi, or in the British Museum, can have no idea how very beautiful and sweet she looked. Not at all like the lady in "Lempri?re."

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