untold agonies of their contraband negroes, that the inhuman monsters on deck thought. No, it was of the dangers that such conditions brought upon them the peril of pestilence, the danger of deaths among the slaves robbing them of their profits. Losses were expected. It was a foregone conclusion that many of the blacks would either succumb or would become so weak and ill that they were unmarketable, and daily, sometimes hourly, the dead, along with the hopelessly ill and dying, were tossed into the sea to the ever waiting sharks that followed like Nemesis in the ship's wake. If onehalf the original cargo was brought safely into port the slave smuggler was well satisfied, and reaped a goodly profit. But storm and calm meant more deaths and greater losses and were almost as much to be feared as corvette or sloop-of-war. In fact of the two evils the slave smuggler rather preferred the latter. His craft was usually swift, there was a chance of outrunning or out-manoeuvering the enemy, and if worst came to worst he stood ready and willing to destroy all tangible evidence of his illicit trade by jettisoning his freight, by tossing the shackled, manacled, weighted slaves into the sea like so many inanimate bags of merchandise. But disease, deaths, storm and calm he could neither outsail nor fight, and he hated as the devil hates holy water to throw his cargo over the rails until necessity compelled him, and by that time it

was usually too late. And even if no such mishaps befell, the slave smuggler was not safe, either on the high seas or when he drew near the American coast or the Caribbean. British, French and

United States war vessels cruised anywhere and everywhere, and unlike our attitude towards the liquor smugglers, we, as well as the others, deemed it perfectly legitimate and within international rights to overhaul a suspected slave runner whereever he was sighted, and if caught red-handed, bring him and his crew in irons to justice. And the penalty for slave running, though not half severe enough for the crime, was enough to induce the smugglers to avoid capture and conviction at any cost. As a result, only the most reckless, daring and utterly unprincipled men turned to this profession as a means of livelihood. But in addition to being daring reckless and the rest, they had to possess other qualifications far harder to find. They were of necessity skilled navigators, experienced ship-masters, good business men and traders, hard-fisted commanders, brutal and calloused, able to handle a ship under any circumstances, and fully acquainted with the fever-ridden African coast and miasmic rivers, as well as every port of the Southern States and tropical America. Only among one class of seamen could all these essential qualities be found. The fishermen might be daring, reckless, splendid sailors, good bargainers, and at times

brutal and unprincipled, but they were no voyagers and knew little or nothing of the high seas or of foreign shores. The merchantmen might know the ports and oceans of the world, they might be the best of navigators and seamen and plenty of them were as hard-fisted and brutal as any one could wish, but they were merchantmen first, last and all the time and would not as a rule stoop to lawless practices. But among the whalemen of New England were just the ones needed for this trade. Fearing neither God, man nor devil, as familiar with the five oceans and the seven seas as with their sleepy home towns on Cape Cod, Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard; equally at home in the tropics or the Arctic; accustomed to every danger and hardship, seamen to the core, the hardest-fisted, most domineering men who ever trod a ship's deck, the shrewdest of tradesmen and measuring life and death, damnation or salvation only in terms of dollars and cents, the whalemen thought no more of running a cargo of human contraband than of going in on a whale or cutting in his blubber.

But do not for a moment imagine that in stating the above I refer to the whalemen as a whole. Many were God fearing, kindly, humane men; tough old birds when it came to manhandling a mutinous or unruly crew to be sure, nasty customers to cross, and absolutely devoid of fear, but far from being

the stuff of which traffickers in human flesh and blood are made. There were hundreds, thousands of whalemen in New England sixty years ago, and only a few score left the chase of whales to turn to the more profitable and risky trade of slave smugglers. But few as they were, they left a smudge of black upon the history of New England, the one ineradicable blot upon the otherwise fair escutcheon of the heroic, gallant Yankee whalemen.

Just how many of the whalemen engaged in the disgraceful traffic will probably never be known, for it was not a trade to boast of nor to make public. Indeed, it is questionable if the most intimate friends or the families of the majority of these smugglers knew the source of the incomes earned on the voyages, for ostensibly they always went whaling.

Of course the members of the crews knew, when well out to sea, but as they were equally guilty, in the eyes of the law, with their captain and officers, it was to their interest and safety to keep still tongues in their heads. Also, as a usual thing, the slave smugglers did do some whaling in addition to their slave running. Possibly this was to partially salve their consciences, but largely it was to hoodwink the authorities and too inquisitive neighbors when the ship returned to her home port. A whaleship returning from a cruise without oil, and with the skipper richer by many thousands of dol

lars than when he set sail, would be sure to excite comment, and most embarrassing questions might be asked. So, having cleaned up on his contraband cargo, the smug-faced skipper,-who in his high "stove-pipe" hat, black stock and long-tailed coat looked far more the deacon than the seaman, and was often a pillar of the church when at home,would cruise about hunting whales and would eventually sail into port with enough oil to give color to his story. At times, however, they didn't even bother about such ruses. Instead, they would come back with a doleful tale of ill luck, loss of cargo or any other excuse, in which case the worthy townsfolk would wink knowingly at one another, put tongues in cheeks and remark with a chuckle that Cap'n so-and-so was "a right smart skipper." Of course the truth, or rumors of the truth, were bound to leak out, and everyone in New Bedford, Nantucket, Mystic and the other whaling ports knew that their ships and their captains were smuggling slaves, and that no such fortunes as the masters and owners were piling up for a rainy day were acquired honestly by whaling. No blame can be attached to the authorities for the deplorable state of affairs. When proof was forthcoming they lost no time in taking action and many a whaling captain was arrested, tried and convicted for slave smuggling, and many a stanch whaleship was seized and condemned by the government.