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Updated: May 6, 2025
The idea may have originated in consequence of the lethargic attitude of the officials whose duty it was to see that they were captured. At this time lawlessness was rampant in those parts, and it would have been beyond the capacity of even a more alert and energetic officialism to subdue its ferocious and determined attacks.
It is possible too, that they might permit our whaling vessels to refresh in Brazil, or give some other indulgences in America. The lethargic character of their ambassador here, gives a very unhopeful aspect to a treaty on this ground. I lately spoke with him on the subject, and he has promised to interest himself in obtaining an answer from his court.
"My life," said he, as he sat alone in his apartment, eying the falling embers of his still and lethargic fire, "may soon approach its termination; it is, indeed, out of the chances of things that I can long escape the doom of my condition; and when, as a last hope to raise myself from my desperate state into respectability and reform, I came hither, and meditated purchasing independence by marriage, I was blind to the cursed rascality of the action!
Meanwhile my ears, and at cautious intervals my eyes, kept me informed of the movements of our guards. For a considerable time the two ruffians, lethargic after an enormous breakfast, lay about idly in the shade and smoked. As I listened to their lazy, fragmentary conversation vast gulfs of mental vacuity seemed to open before me.
There sprawls man, by nature lethargic and torpid as a cod, prone to inactivity, content to lie in comfort swallowing all that comes, with wide-open mouth, big enough to gulp himself down, if that could be.
Thus I lived a thronged and busy life, a secret life, full of terror, triumph, wonder, frantic enterprise, a noble and gallant figure among my peers, while to my parents, brothers and sisters I was an incalculable, fitful creature, often lethargic and often in the sulks. They saw me mooning in idleness and were revolted; or I walked dully the way I was bid and they despaired of my parts.
The latter, however, were pretty generally banished to the hold during the eastward voyage. When the ship's bows were turned towards home, and there was no longer any press of space, the guns were remounted. A considerable portion of the riches they had won as easily as at the gaming table, was soon spent by the crew; when matters again returned to their usual lethargic state.
The nervous and apprehensive lines had somehow vanished from the countenance, and with them, oddly enough, that lethargic, heavy expression which had been their complement. He was all vigour, readiness, confidence, now.
The child, with the exception of a slight but painful burn on her ankle, was unhurt, but my left arm and shoulder and bosom were fearfully burned, and for some days my life hung on a thread. Months passed before I was able to leave my own chamber, and the blow to my health was so severe as to induce a return of those lethargic attacks from which I had been entirely free for the last two years.
Yet even the former comparatively low mortality, of which the counsel speaks with so much satisfaction, as a proof of the kind and compassionate treatment of the slaves, even this indolent and lethargic destruction gives to the march of death seventeen times its usual speed.
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