The Mutineers and Slavers 361 



slave-trade. . . . And every patriot in our land 

 would blush for our country did he know and see, 

 as I do, how our own citizens sail and sell our 

 flag to the uses and abuses of that accursed traffic, 

 in almost open violation of our laws. We are 

 a byword among the nations, the only people 

 who can fetch and carry any and every thing for 

 the slave-trade, without fear of English cruisers ; 

 and because we are the only people who can, are 

 we to allow our proudest privilege to be perverted, 

 and to pervert our own glorious flag into the 

 pirate's flag ?" 



For more than fifteen years after that letter 

 was written the state of public opinion allowed 

 the free use of the flag to the slaver pirates. With 

 this fact in mind, one is able to appreciate the 

 assertion that, in all the annals of the whale 

 fishery, no statement more to the credit of the 

 American whalemen can be found than this: 

 that of more than 2000 ships which sailed in the 

 fishery between 1808, when the slave-trade be- 

 came unlawful, and the Civil War, when blood 

 and fire purified the public mind in that one 

 respect, only five whale-ships became known to 



