United States or Turks and Caicos Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This was a peril that moved even the callous captains and their crews, for scurvy or yellow-jack developing in the hold was apt to sweep the decks clear as well. A most gruesome story appears in all the books on the slave trade, of the experience of the French slaver, "Rodeur."
But she is not entirely deserted, for a faint shout comes across the narrowing strip of sea and is answered from the "Rodeur." The two vessels draw near. There can be no launching of boats by blind men, but the story of the stranger is soon told. She, too, is a slaver, a Spaniard, the "Leon," and on her, too, every soul is blind from opthalmia originating among the slaves.
One morning, when he had been out all night, and did not return until almost breakfast-time, he was sitting on my knee, making his toilette, while I argued the matter with him. Amélie was dusting. I reproached him with becoming a rôdeur, and I told him that I should be happier about him if I knew where he was every night, and what he did.
The ship Le Rodeur, Captain B., of 200 tons burthen, left Havre on the 24th of January, 1819, for the coast of Africa, and reached her destination on the 14th of March following, anchoring at Bonny, on the river Calabar. The crew, consisting of twenty-two men, enjoyed good health during the outward voyage and during their stay at Bonny, where they continued till the 6th of April.
The 12th, she breakfasted in the ship Le Rodeur, and a recently constructed merchant vessel was launched in her presence. She departed the 14th, promising to return the following year. Accordingly, Madame left Paris for Dieppe the 7th of August, 1826. The morrow of her arrival, she assisted at the inauguration of a new playhouse that had been built within six months.
The extract I am about to read is from the journal of a youth named Romaine, on board the 'Rodeur, a vessel of 200 tons, which cleared out of Havre for Guadaloupe, on the 15th January, 1819. The boy writes to his mother, while the vessel lay at Bony in the river Calabar, on the coast of Africa: 'Since we have been at this place, I have become more accustomed to the howling of these negroes.
Not even a steersman has the "Leon." All light has gone out from her, and the "Rodeur" sheers away, leaving her to an unknown fate, for never again is she heard from.
This calamity had actually befallen the Leon, a Spanish vessel which the Rodeur met on her passage, and the whole of whose crew, having become blind, were under the necessity of altogether abandoning the direction of their ship.
These unhappy creatures, as they passed, earnestly entreated the charitable interference of the seamen of the Rodeur; but these, under their own affliction, could neither quit their vessel to go on board the Leon, nor receive the crew of the latter into the Rodeur, where, on account of the cargo of negroes, there was scarcely room for themselves.
The vessels therefore soon parted company, and the Leon was never seen nor heard of again, so far as could be traced at the publication of this narrative. In all probability, then, it was lost. On the fate of THIS vessel the poem is founded. The Rodeur reached Guadaloupe on the 21st of June, 1819, her crew being in a most deplorable condition.
Word Of The Day