James H. Burch was a slave-trader—buying men, women and children at low prices, and selling them at an advance. He was a speculator in human flesh—a disreputable calling—and so considered at the South. For the present he disappears from the scenes recorded in this narrative, but he will appear again before its close, not in the character of a man-whipping tyrant, but as an arrested, cringing criminal in a court of law, that failed to do him justice.
CHAPTER 5
ARRIVAL AT NORFOLK—FREDERICK AND MARIA—ARTHUR, THE FREEMAN—APPOINTED STEWARD—JIM, CUFFEE, AND JENNY—THE STORM—BAHAMA BANKS—THE CALM—THE CONSPIRACY—THE LONG BOAT—THE SMALL-POX—DEATH OF ROBERT—MANNING, THE SAILOR—THE MEETING IN THE FORECASTLE—THE LETTER—ARRIVAL AT NEW-ORLEANS—ARTHUR'S RESCUE—THEOPHILUS FREEMAN, THE CONSIGNEE—PLATT—FIRST NIGHT IN THE NEW-ORLEANS SLAVE PEN.