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Show 52 PERSONAL ADVENTURES thorough volunteer, and, though I had respectfully received my orders, to follow the example of my cotnpanions, and please my own inclination about obeying them. When I state that n1y two comrades were 0'Reil1y and Judson, no surprise will be manifested at my forming so wise a resolution. We landed in high spirits, and \vere soon, as O'Reilly expressed it, " throwing our eyes about us." I was greatly delighted with the town, on account of the varied scenes it presented; but as we turned the corn8r of one of the streets, my thoughts \vere suddenly diverted into a very different channel by our stumbling all at once upon several African slaves, more of whom we subsequently n1et in alruost every second thoroughfare. They were unmanacled it is true, but the biand of owner· ship had left its indelible statnp upon their flesh, in all the horrible variety that the fancy or caprice of their taskmasters could devise. Rows of hideous lumps on the cheek, indentations seared into the forehead, ugly scars on the neck, and in numerous instances IN CALIFORNIA. 53 clipped and otherwise disfigured ears, attested a refinement of torture characteristic of but one portion of this accursed system. " With such marks upon them, how can these poor creatures ever be free?" thought I. The chains and the manacles are not there, it is true; from these they may escape. But from the brand of the red-hot iron, which has once marked their bodies as the property of their fellow-men, not even the abolition of human bondage, and the emancipation of the race, can ever enable them to flee. ,( I may here mention, incidentally to this subject, that one dark night one of our crew was caught in the act of putting off in the waterboat to a slaver that lay snugly to in a remote corner of the harbour. He confessed that the captain of the slaver-who, I well remember, had been on board our vessel a few days previously- had made him tetnpting offers to induce hirn to join his ship on the next cruise. He yielded, hut, as I have observed, was apprehended in the act of desertion. The same captain had tampered with the other |