Boy Accepted Of Them, And John Lander Then Offered Him His Watch, For Which He Had A Great Regard, As It Was The Gift Of One Of His Earliest And Best Friends.

This was refused with disdain, for Boy knew not its value, and calling one of his men to look

At what, he said, the Landers wished to impose on him in lieu of his bars, both of them, with a significant groan, turned away from the Landers with scorn and indignation, nor would they speak to them or even look at them again. The mortification of the Landers was nearly now complete, but they were helpless, and the fault was not with them.

Boy now ventured to approach Captain Lake, on the quarter deck, and with an anxious petitioning countenance, asked for the goods, which had been promised him. Prepared for the desperate game he was about to play, it was the object of Lake to gain as much time as possible, that he might get his vessel under way, before he came to an open rupture. Therefore, he pretended to be busy in writing, and desired Boy to wait a moment. Becoming impatient with delay, Boy repeated his demand a second and a third time: "Give me my bars." "I NO WILL," said Lake, in a voice of thunder, which could hardly have been expected from a frame so emaciated as his. "I no will, I tell you; I won't give you a - flint. Give me my mate, you black rascal, or I will bring a thousand men of war here in a day or two; they shall come and burn down your towns, and kill every one of you; bring me my mate." Terrified by the demeanor of Lake, and the threats and oaths he made use of, poor King Boy suddenly retreated, and seeing men going aloft to loosen the sails, apprehensive of being carried off to sea, he quickly disappeared from the deck of the brig, and was soon observed making his way on shore in his canoe, with the rest of his people; this was the last they saw of him. In a few minutes from the time Boy had left the vessel, the mate, Mr. Spittle, was sent off in a canoe, so terrified were the Brass people that a man of war would come, and put Lake's threats into execution.

At ten in the morning the vessel was got under way, and they dropped down the river. At noon the breeze died away, and they were obliged to let go an anchor to prevent their drifting on the western breakers, at the mouth of the river. A few minutes more would have been fatal to them, and the vessel was fortunately stopped, although the depth of water where she lay, was only five fathoms. The rollers, as the large high waves are called, which come into the river over the bar, were so high, that they sometimes passed nearly over the bow of the vessel, and caused her to ride very uneasily by her anchor. They had been obliged to anchor immediately abreast of the Pilot's town, and expected every moment that they should be fired at from the battery. Time was of the greatest importance to them; they had made Boy their enemy, and expected before they could get out of the river, he would summon his people and make an attack upon them, whilst their whole party amounted only to twenty men, two thirds of whom were Africans. The pilot also, whom Lake had offended so much, was known to be a bold and treacherous ruffian. He was the same person, who steered the brig Susan among the breakers, by which that vessel narrowly escaped destruction, with the loss of her windlass, and an anchor and cable. The fellow had done this, merely with the hope of obtaining a part of the wreck, as it drifted on shore. Another vessel, a Liverpool oil trader, was actually lost on the bar, by the treachery of the same individual, who having effected his purpose, by placing her in a situation, from which she could not escape, jumped overboard and swam to the canoe, which was at a short distance. The treatment of the survivors of this wreck is shocking to relate; they were actually stripped of their clothes, and allowed to die of hunger. It would be an endless task to enumerate all the misdeeds, that are laid to this fellow's charge, which have no doubt lost nothing by report, but after making all reasonable allowances for exaggeration, his character appears in a most revolting light, and the fact of his running these vessels on the bar, proves him to be a desperate and consummate villain. This same fellow is infinitely more artful and intelligent than any of his countrymen, and is one of the handsomest black men that the Landers had seen.

Not long after they had dropped the anchor, they observed the pilot, with the help of the glass, walking on the beach, and watching them occasionally. A multitude of half-naked, suspicious-looking fellows, were likewise straggling along the shore, while others were seen emerging from a grove of cocoa trees, and the thick bushes near it. These men were all armed, chiefly with muskets, and they subsequently assembled in detached groups to the number of several hundreds, and appeared to be consulting about attacking the vessel. Nothing less than this, and to be fired at from the battery, was now expected by them, and there was no doubt that the strength and loftiness of the brig only deterred them from so doing. The same people were hovering on the beach till very late in the evening, when they dispersed; many of them could be seen even at midnight, so that they were obliged to keep a good look-out till the morning.

During the night, the vessel rode very uneasily, in consequence of the long heavy waves which set in from the bar; these are technically called by sailors ground swell, being different from the waves which are raised while the wind blows; the latter generally break at the top, while the former are quite smooth, and roll with great impetuosity in constant succession, forming a deep furrow between them, which, with the force of the wave, is very dangerous to vessels at anchor.

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