The Slave Ship (26 page)

A second informer, seaman John Sadler, said that while working in the boat at Shebar, he had heard, at a distance, several sailors, including Swain and John Forrester, talking about the plot. One of them said that “somebody should pay for it, and the other that he was sure all the ship’s company would [back?] him if he spoke the word.” On another occasion Sadler heard Forrester say “in plain terms” that he “would kill Mr Welsh the doctor, or at least leave [him] only just alive.” Sadler ended with his most damning evidence: a few days earlier, when he was on shore with the yawl, “Swain endeavoured to perswade him and the rest to go off with her.”

Newton was saved, he thought, by illness: “I have reason to think this sickness we have had on board within these three days [beginning November 12] has prevented a black design when it was almost ripe for execution, and the unexpected stay of the boat brought it to light.” Forrester and another seaman involved in the plot, Peter Mackdonald, fell ill, delaying the execution of the conspiracy, as did Swain’s late return in the yawl, by which time Cooney had told Newton of the conspiracy. As soon as Swain returned, the captain clapped him into double irons. Forrester, once his health was restored, soon followed.

Mackdonald, who was “delirious & raving during his whole sickness,” would have joined them, but he died.
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Newton was unsure how to punish the mutineers and reestablish his authority with the crew as a whole. He apparently decided not to whip Swain and Forrester, partly, it seems, because he worried about inflaming discontentment among their still-unidentified supporters on board the ship. He resolved not to treat the mutineers harshly, “but yet I do not think myself at liberty to dismiss the affair in silence lest encouragement should be thereby given to such attempts.” So he now set about getting the leading mutineers off the ship. He appealed to Captain Daniel Thomson of the
Earl of Halifax,
who had “a large and clear ship” (i.e., no slaves), to take Swain and Forrester and to deliver them to the first man-of-war he should see. Thomson was not keen on the idea, but Newton finally persuaded him to take them.
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Newton concluded that he was saved by “a visible interposition of Divine Providence” and decided that he must “reflect upon my deliverance.” He thanked God, indeed said a special prayer, for preserving him from this “mischeif of the blackest sort.” The apocalypse had threatened, as he noted when he had finally gotten the situation in hand. Once he had removed Swain and Forrester, he wrote, “I am very glad to have them out of the ship, for tho I must say they behaved quietly in their confinement, I could not but be in constant alarms, as such a mark of division amongst us was a great encouragement to the slaves to be troublesome, and for ought I know, had it ever come to extremity, they might have joyned hands.” One “black design” might lead to another or, worse yet, to a design that was both black and white.
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Not long after Swain and Forrester had been removed from the
African,
Newton found that his fears were warranted. Newton himself apparently went belowdecks and “Surprized 2 of them [slaves] attempting to get off their irons.” He quickly organized a search of the men’s room and an interrogation of several of the “boys” who had free range of the ship. He found among the men “some knives, stones, shot, etc., and a cold chissel.” Newton then undertook a full investigation.

He suspected that several boys had passed the instruments to the men, so he clapped them in irons and began to torture them, “to urge them to a full confession.” He put them in the thumbscrews and applied pressure “slightly.” He finally identified eight men as the heart of the conspiracy and four boys who had supplied them with the “instruments.” The following day he “examined” the men slaves, probably with the thumbscrews and rather more than “slightly.” He punished six of them, probably with the cat, and “put 4 of them in collars,” iron contraptions that made it difficult to move and almost impossible to rest. Worried now about being “weak-handed,” with only twenty crew members, several of them young apprentices, to guard an increasing cargo of slaves that included many men, Newton decided to send the black ringleaders after the white ones—on board
Earl of Halifax.

“Divine Providence” had interceded once again, and Newton offered thanks in a prayer he recorded in his spiritual diary:

 
His prayer acknowledged the omnipresence of death in the slave trade. He did not ask God to change it, for it was in the nature of the business, but rather to help him be ready to meet it. Such was Newton’s spiritual exercise in the aftermath of slave insurrection.

By the end of the year, Newton had reestablished shipboard order and confidence in his own command. On December 31 he noted in his spiritual journal his gratitude for good health and a “Chearful mind.” Taking stock of the past on New Year’s Day, he remembered his offenses against God, which were too many to be listed, and his blessings—health, friends, the goodwill of his employer, and his wife. Finally he recounted his deliverances. He “was particularly preserv’d from unseen evil, by the timely discovery of the plot my people were engag’d in, & afterwards of another amongst the Slaves.” He wanted not only to note these but to have them “imprinted in my heart.” That way “they may be always ready to excite my gratitude in times of safety, & to keep up my spirits & dependence when other dangers seem to threaten.” He had “an easy and contented mind,” but he knew it would not last. The dangers surrounding him were too great.
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On the afternoon of January 31, William Cooney, the informer against his fellow sailors, “seduced a slave down into the room and lay with her brutelike in view of the whole quarter deck.” The woman who was raped, known only as Number 83, was pregnant. Newton put Cooney in irons, noting in his journal, “I hope this has been the first affair of the kind on board and I am determined to keep them quiet if possible.” It is not clear what he meant by “keep them quiet.” Did he mean that he wanted to keep these kinds of events quiet? Did he mean that he wanted to keep predatory seamen like Cooney quiet? Or did he mean that he anticipated loud protest from the enslaved once they learned what had happened? Newton’s concluding conversation suggested his concern for property: “If anything happens to the woman I shall impute it to him, for she was big with child.”

Soon after this event, Newton had a strange and disturbing dream. He was stung by a scorpion and was then given “oyl” by a stranger to ease the pain. The unknown person told him that the dream was “predictive of something that would happen shortly” but that Newton should not be afraid, as he would suffer no harm. What did the dream mean? Who was the scorpion, what was the sting, and who was the helpful healer? Was it the sailors, the mutiny, and the informer William Cooney? Was it the slaves, the plotted insurrection, and the boys who snitched? The captain decided that the sting came from a wealthy black slave trader named Bryan who had accused Newton of “laying with one of his women when he was on shoar.” Newton now feared going ashore to conduct business, as he would find himself “amongst a mercenary enraged crew and who have poyson always in readiness where they dare not use more open methods of revenge.” Newton drew up a declaration of his innocence in the presence of another captain, his mate, and his surgeon, and sent it to the trader on shore. He then sold his longboat for four tons of rice and sailed away.

Newton had spent a protracted eight and a half months on the coast gathering a human cargo. He had been plagued once again by sickness, though he was not as assiduous as on the first voyage about recording deaths. Perhaps he was getting used to them, or perhaps he did not want to leave a written record of mortality that his employer might inspect. In any case he felt he had done better trading than most captains who were then on the coast, and his fortunes improved with the health and mood of the enslaved men. Having for months been “continually alarmed with their almost desperate attempts to make insurrections upon us,” and knowing that “when most quiet they were always watching for opportunity,” Newton noticed that their disposition, even their “tempers,” seemed to change. They began to behave “more like children in one family, than slaves in irons and chains and are really upon all accounts more observant, obliging and considerate than our white people.” Newton was pleased, but not enough to alter his vigilant routine. He and his crew continued to guard them “as custom and prudence suggest,” and he quoted the Bible to stress his own vulnerability: “except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” This was true for any ship, he suggested, “and it is more observably true of a Guineaman.”

As the
African
neared St. Kitts, Newton had the sailors prepare the human commodities for sale: they “shaved the slaves’ fore heads.” He feared that the market would be bad and that another passage, perhaps to Jamaica or Virginia, would be required. Noting his long stay on the coast and the longer-than-normal Middle Passage, he wrote on June 3, “we have had the men slaves so long on board that their patience is just worn out, and I am certain they would drop fast had we another passage to make.” As it happened, his worries were misplaced since he sold his entire cargo of 167 men, women, and children at St. Kitts. After a routine homeward passage, Newton arrived in Liverpool on August 29, 1752.

Once again Newton had not lived up to his owner’s hopes, although he had done better than on the previous voyage. He had taken on board only 207 slaves rather than the 250 he was supposed to take, and his mortality rate was higher than on the first voyage. He lost 40 slaves, 19.3 percent of the total. He did better with the sailors, only one of whom (of twenty-seven) died. But this did not save Mr. Manesty any money. The four who deserted and the three he discharged early did save money, as he did not have to pay their wages back to Liverpool. Once again Newton complained that the slave trade on the Windward Coast was “so overdone.”

After a quick turnaround of only eight weeks, Newton departed Liverpool on October 23, 1753, on his third voyage as captain of a slaver. Mr. Manesty retained him to command the
African,
to sail once again to the Windward Coast and St. Kitts. Newton hired a few more sailors this voyage, thirty in all, as he had done on his first voyage, probably in memory of the sickness and threatened insurrection of the slaves. The division of labor remained the same, with one exception. Newton took on a friend, an old salt named Job Lewis, who, down on his luck, went as “Volunteer and Captain’s Commander.” Four crew members reenlisted from the previous voyage: chief mate Alexander Welsh, second mate James Billinge, and apprentices Robert Cropper and Jonathan Ireland. The first two had incentives, and the second two probably had no choice. It is revealing that none of the common sailors signed on again. Maybe it was the mandatory religious services.
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Once again Newton kept an ordered and methodical schedule, rising early, walking the deck, reading two or three chapters of the Bible, taking his breakfast. On Sundays he held a devotional service for the crew at 11:00 A.M. He took tea at 4:00 P.M., followed by another “scripture lesson” and a walk. In between he attended to business, although his various writings make it clear that he was becoming steadily less interested in worldly affairs, more interested in his godly calling. He wrote more about his spiritual life, less about the daily transactions of the ship. Still, he remained optimistic about business. Early in the voyage, he noted, “we are all in good health and good spirits” and expressed his hope for a quick passage. He arrived on the African coast without a major incident, natural or man-made, on December 3, 1753.

Newton had to dispense discipline to the crew on several occasions, none of them as serious as the near mutiny he suffered on the previous voyage. On December 21 he found himself in a ticklish situation with the carpenter, who on the one hand had behaved mutinously, refused orders from other officers while Newton was off the ship, even “grossly abused” the second mate, but who on the other hand had not yet finished building the utterly necessary barricado. Newton gave him two dozen stripes with the cat but added, “I could not afford to put him in irons.” Two days later he noted, “Carpenter at work on the barricado.” Later in the stay on the coast, Newton had to deal with desertion. A member of his crew named Manuel Antonio, a Portuguese sailor who had shipped out of Liverpool, ran away when the boat on which he was working stopped at Cachugo. He had alleged ill usage, but every officer swore (perhaps less than truthfully) that “he never was struck by any one.” Newton believed he deserted because he had been noticed while “stealing some knives and tobacco out of the boat.”
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Soon after he arrived on the coast, Newton got the local news: the
Racehorse
had been “cut off,” the
Adventure
was “totally lost” to insurrection, and the
Greyhound
had three members of its crew killed at Kittam. Trade was slow, and the “villainy” of the traders was great. Newton quickly grew weary of the “noise, heat, smoke, and business” of the trade. He clashed with Job Lewis, whose profane ways undermined his own hoped-for Christian influence among the crew. He apparently worried about attacks from both within the vessel and without, so he made a practical alliance with Captain Jackson, likely the man with whom he had sailed as mate. Newton also began to worry about “dirty money matters”—whether this voyage would be yet another failure. He wrote to his wife, Mary, to console himself: “Perhaps we may not be rich—no matter. We are rich in Love.” Such reasoning would not impress Mr. Manesty.
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