I could bear no more.  My first impulse was to wrest the cowskin from the negro’s hand, and revenge the poor bleeding child as she lay motionless on the ground; but a moment’s reflection convinced me that such a step would only have brought down a double weight of punishment on the victims when I was gone; so, catching up my hat, I turned away with disgust, and walked slowly towards the town and bay of Port Praya, reflecting as I went along what pleasant ideas the poor creatures must entertain of religion, when the name of God and of the cowskin were invariably associated in their minds.  I began to parody one of Watts’s hymns—­

  “Lord! how delightful ’tis to see
  A whole assembly worship thee.”

The indignation I felt against this barbarous and ignorant negro was not unmingled with some painful recollections of my own younger days, when, in a Christian and protestant country, the bible and prayer-book had been made objects of terror to my mind; tasks, greater than my capacity could compass, and floggings in proportion were not calculated to forward the cause of religious instruction in the mind of an obstinate boy.

Reaching the water-side, I embarked on board of my slaver; and the next day sailed for England.  We had a favourable passage until we reached the chops of the channel, when a gale of wind from the north-east caught us, and drove us down so far to the southward that the prize master found himself under the necessity of putting into Bordeaux to refit, and to replenish his water.

I was not sorry for this, as I was tired of the company of this officer, who was both illiterate and ill-natured, neither a sailor nor a gentleman.  Like many others in the service, who are most loud in their complaints for want of promotion, I considered that even in his present rank he was what we called a king’s hard bargain—­that is, not worth his salt; and promoting men of his stamp would only have been picking the pocket of the country.  As soon, therefore, as we had anchored in the Gironde, off the city of Bordeaux, and had been visited by the proper authorities, I quitted the vessel and her captain, and went on shore.

Taking up my abode at the Hotel d’Angleterre, my first care was to order a good dinner; and having despatched that, and a bottle of Vin de Beaune (which, by the by, I strongly recommend to all travellers, if they can get it, for I am no bad judge), I asked my valet de place how I was to dispose of myself for the remainder of the evening?

“Mais, monsieur,” said he, “il faut aller au spectacle?”

“Allons,” said I, and in a few minutes I was seated in the stage-box of the handsomest theatre in the world.

What strange events—­what unexpected meetings and sudden separations are sailors liable to—­what sudden transitions from grief to joy, from joy to grief, from want to affluence, from affluence to want!  All this the history of my life, for the last six months, will fully illustrate.