He has sold a much nearer relation.  I’m down upon the law, you’ll see, Cap, for I know it plays the dickens with our business, and is a curse to the commerce of the port.  Folks what a’n’t acquainted with shipping troubles, and a shipowner’s interests, think such things are very small affairs.  But it’s the name that affects us, and when an owner stands at every item in the disbursements, and a heavy bill for keeping his steward, and another for filling his place, or boarding-house accommodations, and then be deprived of his services, he makes a wry face, and either begins to think about another port, or making the rate of freight in proportion to the annoyance.  It has an effect that we feel, but don’t say much about.  I’m a secessionist, but I don’t believe in running mad after politics, and letting our commercial interests suffer.”

“But what if I prove my steward a’n’t a colored man?” said the Captain; “they surely won’t give me any trouble then.  It would pain my feelings very much to see Manuel locked up in a cell for no crime; and then to be deprived of his services, is more than I can stand.  If I’d known it before, I’d suffered the torments of thirst, and put for a port farther north.”

“It’ll cost more than it’s worth,” said the pilot.  “Take my plain advice, Cap; never try that; our lawyers are lusty fellows upon fees; and the feller’d rot in that old nuisance of a jail afore you’d get him out.  The process is so slow and entangled, nobody’d know how to bring the case, and ev’ry lawyer’d have an opinion of his own.  But the worst of all is that it’s so unpopular, you can’t get a lawyer worth seven cents to undertake it.  It would be as dangerous as an attempt to extricate a martyr from the burning flames.  Public opinion in Charleston is controlled by politicians; and an attempt to move in a thing so unpopular would be like a man attempting to speak, with pistols and swords pointed to his head.”

“Then it’s folly to ask justice in your city, is it?” asked the Captain.  “But your people are generous, a’n’t they? and treat strangers with a courtesy that marks the character of every high-minded society?”

“Yes!—­but society in South Carolina has nothing to do with the law; our laws are gloriously ancient.  I wish, Cap, I could only open your ideas to the way our folks manage their own affairs.  I’m opposed to this law that imprisons stewards, because it affects commerce, but then our other laws are tip-top.  It was the law that our legislature made to stop free niggers from coming from the abolition States to destroy the affections of our slaves.  Some say, the construction given to it and applied to stewards of foreign vessels a’n’t legal, and wasn’t intended; but now it’s controlled by popular will,—­the stewards a’n’t legislators, and the judges know it wouldn’t be popular, and there’s nobody dare meddle with it, for fear he may be called an abolitionist.  You better take my advice, Cap:  ship the nigger, and save yourself and Consul Mathew the trouble of another fuss,” continued the pilot.