"December 29, 1847.

"From Tattnall I received your model of a scull-not skull. You are right about the Indian paddles. The shape of these paddles, or floats, or sculls, should be of the same shape as Indian paddles, instead of being circular. But you are behind the times, my friend, in this, for in England this kind of paddle has been in use, or rather experimented upon, for five years, on each quarter instead of the bow, as yours is intended.

"Dahlgren is at home on a visit. He is in tall grass now; has full swing, and will make for himself an enviable reputation. He has won golden opinions from the whole eighty-five middies at the school for the manner and course of his instructions."

"April 13, 1848.

"I trust you will have full credit for all your exertions in bringing and keeping the Yard in good order and wholesome discipline, and much is due to you for the excellent state it is in, as all say. You must be a commodore, at least, before the retired list brings you up."

"April 25, 1848.

"Your organization of the fire department is excellent, as almost every thing you do is. The only fault, or rather imperfection in the system, is your too great zeal. When I see you with a project in hand to develop its usefulness, I think of the black stain, and call to mind, or rather it comes instinctively, what the pastor of the parish where I was reared used to say- What is violent can not be lasting.'"*

"August 31, 1848.

"Go on in your course of talking and writing in the cause of temperance and all good things. While doing those good deeds, God will bless the means to restore your eyes to perfect health. Dahlgren is pro

* This reference to "the black stain," which occurs in many of Admiral Smith's letters, is thus explained by him: "The story of the 'black stain' originated in the Cumberland, by Foote's (who was executive officer) scraping the paint off the gun-carriages to the bare oak wood, and applying a black dye or stain. This caused many quaint remarks from officers and sailors, as it did not at first promise success. Characteristic of the man, whose will was indomitable, Foote persisted in his experiment, and by oiling and frequently rubbing, a beautiful black polish was produced, which, after all the jokes which had been employed to dampen the inventor's ardor, was much admired; hence the frequent quotation afterward, 'Like Foote's black stain,' when a doubtful experiment was in question."

Improved Propeller.

65

gressing finely, and will give the Navy some interesting results in ordnance."

"October 31, 1848.

"I trust your Dr. Elliott will effect a perfect cure, and that your eyes, which were always bright and sharp, will not be less effective and useful to you than any other of your faculties. The political horizon looks as if the wind would change and haul around in favor of old 'Rough and Ready.' He heads up for the White House, and if no unfavorable flaw strike, he will fetch the mark."

"June 25, 1849.

6

"I trust the chastisement will be a lesson to you not to carry things to excess, as you, in your zeal to do good and work righteousness, are, or have been, prone to do. I may speak plainly now that you are on your pins again, and say I fear you have been a victim to your water cure.' Bless God for his unbounded mercies. You have a new lease of life, and have much more to see of this wicked world than you have seen, and more good to do than you have done."

In regard to the invention of the bow-propeller, to which reference is made in these extracts, there was a correspondence on the subject in the years 1846 and 1847, between Lieutenant Foote and Commodore Morris, Chief of the Bureau of Construction, which correspondence is recorded in the minutebook of the bureau, but does not seem to have led to an adoption of Foote's invention. As explained by the inventor, the object of placing the propeller in the bow is to produce by its motion a partial vacuum or eddy, throwing the water aside that would otherwise rise in front and around, and offer resistance to the bow of the vessel in proportion to the vessel's velocity; which theory, he maintained, was fully sustained by actual experiment, and one fourth, or at least a fifth more velocity was secured by the bow-propeller over the stern-propeller; as in the first the water which offers such resistance to the bow is thrown aside or broken up, while the stern-propeller takes the water from the stern, where it is needed to buoy the vessel, and causes her to go, as it were, upon an inclined plane.

CRUISE OF THE

CHAPTER VI.

"PERRY" ON THE AFRICAN COAST.

ON September 28, 1849, Lieutenant Foote was assigned to the command of the brig Perry, and ordered to the coast of Africa, for the protection of American commerce and the suppression of the slave-trade. The squadron to which the Perry belonged was under the command of Commodore Gregory, whose flag-ship was the John Adams, and with whom, it will be remembered, he made his first voyage as a midshipman in 1823.

As this was one of the notable periods of his life, and had decisive results upon the infamous slave-trade, it should be treated deliberately; and for this purpose free use will be made of Lieutenant Foote's own papers, log-book; private journal, and especially of his work entitled "Africa and the American Flag."

A good idea of the nature and extent of the cruising-ground of the Perry is given in the following extract from Admiral Foote's book, and this will also serve as a sample of the style and character of that work:

"If a chart of the Atlantic is spread out, and a line drawn from the Cape Verde Islands toward the southeastern coast of Brazil; if we then pass to the Cape of Good Hope, and draw another from that point by the Island of St. Helena, crossing the former north of the equator, the great tracks of commerce will be traced. Vessels outward bound follow the track toward the South American shore, and the homeward bound are found on the other. The vessels often meet in the centre of the Atlantic; and the crossing of these lines off the projecting shores of Central Africa renders the coasts of that region of great naval importance.

"The wide triangular space of sea between the homeward-bound line

Cruising-Ground of the "Perry."

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and the retiring African sea-board around the Gulf of Guinea constituted the area on which the vigilance of the squadron was to be exercised. Here is the region of crime, suffering, cruelty, and death from the slavetrade; and here has been at different ages, when the police of the sea happened to be little cared for, the scene of the worst piracies which have ever disgraced human nature.

"Vessels running out from the African coast fall here and there into these lines traced on the chart, or sometimes across them. No one can tell what they contain from the graceful hull, well-proportioned masts, neatly trimmed yards, and the gallant bearing of the vessel. This deceitful beauty may conceal wrong, violence, and crime-the theft of living men, the foulness and corruption of the steaming slave-deck, and the charnel-house of wretchedness and despair.

"It is difficult in looking over the ship's side to conceive the transparency of the sea. The reflection of the blue sky in these tropic regions colors it like an opaque sapphire, till some fish startles one by suddenly appearing far beneath, seeming to carry daylight down with him. into the depths below. One is then reminded that the vessel is suspended over a transparent abyss. There for ages has sunk the dark-skinned sufferer from the horrors of the middle passage,' carrying that ghastly daylight down with him, to rest until the sea shall give up its dead,' and the slaver and his merchant come up from their places to be confronted with their victim."*

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were the era of the greatest woe in the slave-trade. Then it became cruelly and murderously systematic. The question what nation should be most enriched by the abominable traffic was a subject of diplomacy. England secured the greatest share of the criminality and of the profit, by gaining from her other competitors the right by contract to supply the colonies of Spain with negroes. But our own country entered largely into this business, and in later times chiefly by means of small and ill-found vessels, which, as they were watched by the cruisers, were crowded and packed with negroes, at any risk of loss by death,

"Africa and the American Flag," p. 14-16. The ending of this passage calls to mind Ruskin's powerful description of Turner's still more powerful picture of the "Slave-ship," in his "Modern Painters.

so that a successful voyage might compensate for many captures. In olden times there were vessels fitted expressly for the purpose-large Indiamen or whalers. Lieutenant Foote says:

"If ever there were any thing on earth which, for revolting, filthy, heartless atrocity, might make the devil wonder and hell recognize its own likeness, it was on one of the decks of an old slaver. The sordid cupidity of the older, as it is meaner, was also more callous than the hurried ruffianism of the present age. In fact, a slaver now has but one deck; in the last century they had two or three. Any one of the decks of the larger vessels was rather worse, if it could be, than the single deck of the brigs and schooners now employed in the trade. Then the number of decks rendered the suffocating and pestilential hold a scene of unparalleled wretchedness."*

In bad weather, when the hatches were closed, the death of numbers from suffocation would necessarily occur, and in the efforts of the more athletic to get at the air, the weaker would be strangled. The height between decks was so small that a man of ordinary size could hardly sit upright. The slaves were obliged to lie on their backs, and were shackled by their ankles, the left of one being fettered to the right of the next, so that the whole number, in one line, formed a single living chain. When one died, the body remained-during the night, or in stormy weather for a longer time, and until it was in a putrid state-secured to two living bodies.

We are not, however, to suppose that the horrors of "the middle passage" were essentially diminished in modern times; and the diabolical atrocity of those who, in the middle of this century, dealt in "ebony "-some of them New England captains, from homes where the religion of Christ was taught -was increased tenfold by the light of humanity diffused abroad. Here was the fountain-head of the slave-supply in the Southern States; and it is a cause of gratitude that our hero

"Africa and the American Flag," p. 27.