'' He knew how neither to read nor to write. He
had been to sea from a boy, had seen all kinds of service, and
been in all sorts of vessels,-- merchantmen, men-of-war,
privateers, and slavers; and from what I could gather from his
accounts of himself, and from what he once told me, in confidence,
after we had become better acquainted, he had been in even worse
business than slave-trading. He was once tried for his life in
Charleston, South Carolina, and, though acquitted, was so
frightened that he never would show himself in the United States
again. I was not able to persuade him that he could not be tried a
second time for the same offence. He said he had got safe off from
the breakers, and was too good a sailor to risk his timbers again.
Though I knew what his life had been, yet I never had the
slightest fear of him. We always got along very well together,
and, though so much older, stronger, and larger than I, he showed
a marked respect for me, on account of my education, and of what
he had heard of my situation before coming to sea, such as may be
expected from a European of the humble class. ``I'll be good
friends with you,'' he used to say, ``for by and by you'll come
out here captain, and then you'll haze me well!'' By holding
together, we kept the officer in good order, for he was evidently
afraid of Nicholas, and never interfered with us, except when
employed upon the hides.
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