The Mutineers and Slavers 359 



to suppress the slave-trade. For whales were to 

 be found on that coast; moreover it was the cus- 

 tom to keep water in such barrels as were set up 

 so that they would not shrink apart. The temp- 

 tation to enter the trade was enormous. Thus 

 while a whale-ship averaged, as noted, $16,000 a 

 year income, in 1854 the average profit on a cargo 

 of slaves delivered in Cuba or Brazil was about 

 $250 a head. If well handled, a whaler might 

 deliver from 600 to 800 slaves, and so clear from 

 $150,000 to $200,000 on a single trip. While a 

 captain averaged $900 a year in the whale fishery, 

 he might receive $9000 or more for a single voyage 

 on a slaver; what he might make by running away 

 with a ship shall appear. 



In the meantime the public, especially the New 

 York ship-owning public, looked upon the laws 

 against the slave-trade as the Wall Street financiers 

 of 1906 regarded the laws forbidding railroads 

 giving rebates to favored shippers. Lawyers 

 were found to declare the anti-slave-trade laws 

 unconstitutional, just as lawyers in 1906 declared 

 laws pertaining to railroads unconstitutional. 



The slaver captains and mates used to live in 



