VOYAGE TO AFRICA

(Continued)

Though I desired your instructions as to the manner and extent of these memoirs, I had already begun to write. When I began the eight letters I intended to say no more of myself than might be necessary to illustrate the wonders of divine providence and grace in my life, but I account your judgment a sufficient warrant for enlarging my plan.

Among others things, you desired a more explicit account of my courtship. This was the point in which I thought it especially became me to be very brief, but I submit to you. This seems a proper place to tell you how it stood at the time of my leaving England.

When my inclinations were first discovered, both were so young that no one but myself considered it in a serious view. It served for tea table talk among our friends, and nothing further was expected from it. But when my affection seemed to have abiding effects, so that in two years it was not at all abated, and especially as it occasioned me to act without any regard to prudence or interest, or my father’s designs, and as there was a coolness between him and the family, her parents began to consider it as a matter of consequence. When I took my last leave of them, her mother, expressing the most tender affections for me, as if I had been her own child, told me that she had no objections that at a maturer age there should be a probability of our engaging upon a prudent prospect. Yet as things then stood, she thought herself obliged to interfere. She therefore desired I would no more think of returning to their house, unless her daughter was away from home, till such time as I could either entirely give up my pretensions or could assure her that I had my father’s express consent to go on.

It was all difficult; but though she was young, gay, and quite unpracticed in such matters, she was directed to a happy medium. A positive encouragement or an absolute refusal would have been attended with equal, though different, disadvantages. But without much studying about it I found her always upon her guard. She had penetration to see her absolute power over me, and prudence to make proper use of it. She would neither understand my hints nor give me room to come to a direct explanation. She said since that from the first discovery of my regard, and long before the thought was agreeable to her, she had often an unaccountable impression that sooner or later she should be mine. Upon these terms we parted.

NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE HIS EYES

I return to my voyage. During our passage to Madeira I was a prey to the most gloomy thoughts. Though I had well deserved all I met with, and the captain might have been justified if he had carried his resentment still further, yet my pride at that time suggested that I had been grossly injured. This so wrought upon my wicked heart that I actually formed designs against his life; this was one reason that made me willing to prolong my own. I was sometimes divided between the two, not thinking it practicable to effect both.

The Lord had now to all appearances given me up to judicial hardness; I was capable of anything. I had not the least fear of God before my eyes nor, so far as I remember, the least sensibility of conscience. I was possessed of so strong a spirit of delusion that I believed my own lie, and was firmly persuaded that after death I should cease to be. Yet the Lord preserved me! Some intervals of sober reflection would at times take place. When I had chosen death rather than life, a ray of hope would come in, though there was little probability for a hope that I should yet see better days, and that I might again return to England and have my wishes crowned, if I did not willfully throw myself away.

My love was now the only restraint I had left. Though I neither feared God nor regarded men, I could not bear that she should think meanly of me when I was dead. As in the outward concerns of life the weakest means are often employed by divine providence to produce great effects beyond their common influence, for instance a disease removed by a fright, so I found it then. This single thought, which had not restrained me from a thousand smaller evils, proved my only and effectual barrier against the greatest and most fatal temptations. How long I could have supported this conflict, or what, humanly speaking, would have been the consequences of my continuing in that situation, I cannot say. The Lord, whom I little thought of, knew my danger and was providing for my deliverance.

DISCHARGED FROM H.M.S. HARWICH

Two things I had determined when at Plymouth: that I would not go to India, and that I would go to Guinea. Such indeed was the Lord’s will concerning me; but they were to be accomplished in His way, not in mine.

We had been at Madeira some time. The business of the fleet was completed, and we were to sail the following day. On that memorable morning I was late in bed. I would have slept longer, but one of the midshipmen, an old companion, came down, and between jest and earnest bade me rise. As I did not immediately comply he cut down the hammock in which I lay, which forced me to dress myself. I was very angry, but dared not resent it. I was little aware how much his caprice affected me! This person, who had no design in what he did, was the messenger of God’s providence. I said little, but went upon deck, where I that moment saw a man putting his clothes into a boat, who told me he was going to leave us. Upon inquiring, I was informed that two men from a Guinea ship, which lay near us, had entered on board the Harwich, and that the commodore, Sir George Pocock, had ordered that captain to send two others in their room.

My heart instantly burned like fire. I begged the boat might be detained a few minutes: I ran to the lieutenant and entreated him to intercede with the captain that I might be dismissed. Though I had been formerly upon ill terms with these officers, and had disobliged them all in their turns, yet they had pitied my case and were ready to serve me now. The captain, who, when we were at Plymouth, had refused to exchange me at the request of Admiral Medley, was now easily prevailed on. In little more than half an hour from my being asleep in bed I saw myself discharged, and safe on board another ship.

This was one of the many critical turns of my life in which the Lord was pleased to display His providence and care by causing many unexpected circumstances to concur in almost an instant of time. These sudden opportunities were several times repeated; each of them brought me into an entirely new scene of action, and they were usualy delayed to almost the last moment in which they could have taken place.

SINNING WITH A HIGH HAND

The ship on which I went on board was bound for Sierra Leone and the adjacent parts of what is called the Windward Coast of Africa. The commander, I found, was acquainted with my father. He received me very kindly and made fair profession of assistance. I believe he would have been my friend, but without making the least advantage of former mistakes and troubles, I pursued the same course. If possible I acted much worse.

On board the Harwich, though my principles were totally corrupted, at first I was in some degree staid and serious. The remembrance of this made me ashamed of breaking out in that notorious manner I could otherwise have indulged. But now, entering among strangers, I could appear without disguise. I well remember that while I was passing from the one ship to the other, this was one reason why I rejoiced in the exchange. One reflection I made upon the occasion was “that I now might be as abandoned as I please, without any control.” From this time I was exceedingly vile indeed, little if anything short of that animated description of an almost irrecoverable state which we have in II Peter 2:14.

I not only sinned with a high hand myself, but made it my study to tempt and seduce others upon every occasion. I eagerly sought occasion, sometimes to my own hazard and hurt. One natural consequence of this was a loss of favor with my new captain. Not that he was at all religious, or disliked my wickedness more than it affected his interest, but I became careless and disobedient. I did not please him because I did not intend it, and as he was a man of an odd temper likewise we the more easily disagreed. Besides, I had a little of that unlucky wit which can multiply troubles and enemies to its possessor. Upon some imagined affront, I made a song in which I ridiculed his ship, his designs, and his person, and soon taught it to the whole ship’s company. Such was the ungrateful return I made for his offers of friendship and protection. I had mentioned no names, but the allusion was plain and he was no stranger either to the intention or the author. I shall say no more of this part of my story; let it be buried in eternal silence.

But let me not fail to praise that grace which could pardon, that blood which could expiate such sins as mine. Yea, “the Ethiopian may change his skin, and the leopard his spots.” I, who was the willing slave of every evil, possessed with a legion of unclean pirits, have been spared, and saved, and changed, to stand as a monument of His almighty power for ever.

Thus I went on for about six months, by which time the ship was preparing to leave the coast. A few days before she sailed the captain died. I was not upon much better terms with his mate who now succeeded to the command, and had upon some occasion treated me ill. I had no doubt that if I went with him to the West Indies he would put me on board a man-of-war, and this, from what I had known already, was more dreadful to me than death. To avoid it I determined to remain in Africa and amused myself with many golden dreams that here I should find an opportunity of improving my fortune.

ENTERS THE SLAVE TRADE

There are still upon that part of the coast a few white men settled. There were many more at the time I was first there whose business it was to purchase slaves in the rivers and country adjacent and sell them to the ships at an advanced price.

One of these who at first landed in my indigent circumstances had acquired considerable wealth. He had lately been in England and was returning to the vessel I was in, of which he owned a quarter part. His example impressed me with the hopes of the same success, and upon condition of entering into his service I obtained my discharge. I had not the precaution to make my terms, but trusted to his generosity. I received no compensation for my time on board the ship, but a bill upon the owners in England. This was never paid, for they failed before my return. The day the vessel sailed I landed upon the island of Benanoes with little more than the clothes upon my back, as if I had escaped shipwreck.

(To be continued)

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