good, you are thief, man.  Eh!  English captain, no will; he no will.  You also told me your countrymen would do this (taking off his cap, and flourishing it in circles over his head,) and cry hurra! hurra! on receiving me on board their vessel; you promised my wife a necklace, and my father, four bars.  But eh!  English captain, no will! he tell me he no will:  yes, I will satisfy your hunger with plenty more of my fish and yams, and your thirst I will quench with rum and palm wine.  Eh! you thief man, you are no good, English captain, no will!’ He then stamped on the ground, and gnashing at me with his teeth like a dog, he cursed me again and again.

“It is true I did not feel perfectly easy at this severe rebuke, and under such taunting reproaches; but I refrained from giving utterance to a single thought till after he had concluded his abuse and anathematizing.  Had a spirited person been in my situation, he might have knocked him down, and might have had his head taken off for his pains, but as for me, all such kind of spirit is gone out of me entirely.  Besides we had, though unintentionally, deceived King Boy, and I also bore in mind the kindness which he had done us, in ransoming us from a state of slavery.  Most of what he had asserted was most unquestionably true, and in some measure, I was deserving his severest reprehension and displeasure.

“The fury of Boy having been somewhat appeased by my silence and submission, as well as by his own extraordinary and violent agitation, I ventured mildly to assure him, on the strength of my brother’s letter, that his suspicions were entirely groundless, that Mr. Lake had certainly a will or inclination to enter into arrangements with him for the payment of his just demands, and that when he should convey our people and myself to the Thomas, every thing would be settled to his complete satisfaction.  He half believed, half mistrusted my words, and shortly afterwards quitted the apartment, threatening, however, that we should not leave Brass till it suited his own pleasure and convenience.

“It is really a most humiliating reflection, that we are reduced to the most contemptible subterfuges of deceit and falsehood, in order to carry a point which might have been easily gained by straightforward integrity.  But the conduct of Lake has left us no alternative, and whatever my opinion of that individual may be, he surely must be destitute of all those manly characteristics of a British seaman, as well as of the more generous feelings of our common nature, to be guilty, on a sick bed, of an action which might, for aught he knew or cared, produce the most serious consequences to his unfortunate countrymen in a savage land, by exposing them to the wretchedness of want, and the miseries of slavery, to mockery, ill-usage, contempt, and scorn, and even to death itself.

“November 20th.  King Boy has not visited us to-day, though we have received the customary allowance of four yams from his women.  In addition to which, Adizzetta made us a present of half a dozen this morning, as an acknowledgment for the benefit she had derived from a dose of laudanum, which I gave her last night, for the purpose of removing pain from the lower regions of the stomach, a complaint by which she says she is occasionally visited.