"Well, Skipper, I pray for a happy deliverance," said the mate, "but if we make Charleston with her, it'll be a luck that man nor mermaid ever thought of. I hearn a good deal o' tell about Charleston, and the Keys. That isn't one of the places our stewards are so 'fraid of, and where owners don't like to send their ships when they can find freight in other ports?"
"I expect it is, sir; but I apprehend no such trouble with any of my crew," answered the Captain promptly. "I sail under the faith of my nation's honor and prowess, the same as the Americans do under theirs. We're both respected wherever we go, and if one little State in the Union violates the responsibility of a great nation like that, I'm mistaken. Certainly, no nation in Christendom could be found, that wouldn't open their hearts to a shipwrecked sailor. I have too much faith in what I have heard of the hospitality of Southerners, to believe any thing of that kind."
"Talk's all very well, Skipper," said the mate; "but my word for it, I know'd several ships lying in the Mersey, about three years ago, bound to Southern ports for cotton. White stewards worth any thing couldn't be had for love nor money, and the colored ones wouldn't ship for ports in Slaves States. The Thebis got a colored man, but the owners had to pay him an enormous advance, and this, too, with the knowledge of his being locked up the whole time he was in port; thus having to incur the very useless expense of supplying his place, or find boarding-house accommodations for the officers and crew. If it be true, what I've hearn 'em say in the Mersey, the man doesn't only suffer in his feelings by some sort of confinement they have, but the owners suffer in pocket. But it may be, Skipper, and I'm inclined to think with you, our case is certainly deplorable enough to command pity instead of imprisonment. The government must be found cutting a dirty figure on the national picture, that would ill-treat sailors who had suffered as much as our boys have. I would hate to see Manuel shut up or ill-used. He's as brave a fellow as ever buckled at a handspike or rode a jib-boom. Last night, while in the worst of the gale, he volunteered to take Higgins's place, and, mounting the jib-boom, was several times buried in the sea; yet he held on like a bravo, and succeeded in cutting away the wreck. I thought he was gone once or twice, and I own I never saw more peril at sea; but if he hadn't effected it, the foot of the bowsprit would have strained her open in the eyes, and we'd all been sharks'-bait before this. The fellow was nearly exhausted when he came on board; says I, its gone day with you, old fellow; but he come to in a little while, and went cheerily to work again," continued Mr. Mate, who though pleased with the Captain's determination to make the nearest port, seemed to dread that all would not be right in Charleston--that the bar was a very intricate one--water very shoal in the ship-channel, and though marked with three distinctive buoys, numbered according to their range, impossible to crops without a skilful pilot. The mate plead a preference for Savannah, asserting, according to his own knowlege, that a ship of any draft could cross that bar at any time of tide, and that it was a better port for the transaction of business.