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It is well-known that large consignments of arms, ammunition, and military stores have recently been smuggled into the country, yet, strangely enough, so great has been the vacillation of the Government mind that, although they have done their utmost to put a stop to the smuggling, they have finished there; no effort has been made to discover what has become of the smuggled cargoes, and, beyond vaguely and generally suspecting all who have not openly declared themselves in favour of the continuance of Spanish rule, no serious endeavour has been made to discover the identity of the conspirators.
No tax-farmer's slave could keep track of the flow of intangible wealth when the bills for a million sesterces passed to and fro like cards in an Egyptian game. Men richer than the fabled Croesus carried all their wealth in leather wallets in the form of mortgages on gangs of slaves, certificates of ownership of cargoes, promises to pay and contracts for delivery of merchandise.
"She is renewing," Madison wrote in the autumn of 1805, "her depredations on our commerce in the most ruinous shapes, and has kindled a more general indignation among our merchants than was ever before expressed." These depredations were not confined to the seizing and confiscating American ships under the pretense that their cargoes were contraband.
These stops, Durkin had found, would be brief, and the danger would be small, for the Laminian was primarily known as a freighter, carrying out blue-stone and salt fish, and on her return cruise picking up miscellaneous cargoes of fruit.
Every European vessel brought new cargoes of the sect, eager to testify against the oppression which they hoped to share; and when shipmasters were restrained by heavy fines from affording them passage, they made long and circuitous journeys through the Indian country, and appeared in the province as if conveyed by a supernatural power.
"Now then, you jump out first, and give Carrie your hand. That is it." And, having settled with the boatman, Captain O'Halloran followed the others' steps. It was a busy scene. Three ships were discharging their cargoes, and the wharf was covered with boxes and bales, piles of shot and shell, guns, and cases of ammunition.
From this place the boat was dragged up several narrow rocky channels until we came to the Rock Portage where the stream, pent in by a range of small islands, forms several cascades. In ascending the river the boats with their cargoes are carried over one of the islands, but in the descent they are shot down the most shelving of the cascades.
He had a great deal of information, and as the ships came up the river he would point out the flags of the different nations, tell me where they traded from, and what their cargoes probably consisted of. If they had no ensign he would tell by their build and the cut of their sails what nation they belonged to, pointing out to me the differences, which I soon began to perceive.
The King stated that he would fill up their ships with cargoes of the goods they had come in search of, at more favourable prices and in better condition than those they had obtained in Calecut.
One morning came a storm of telegrams and letters stating that cargoes of American fruits had been stopped in the German harbors, under the charge that they contained injurious insects. The German authorities were of course honest in this procedure, though they were doubtless stimulated to it by sundry representatives of the land-owning class.
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