It was in
the first days after our Slave-Trade treaty, while the Reigning House,
which was still the House of Virginia, had still a sort of
sentimentalism about the suppression of the horrors of the Middle
Passage, and something was sometimes done that way. We were in the South
Atlantic on that business. From the time I joined, I believe I thought
Nolan was a sort of lay chaplain--a chaplain with a blue coat. I never
asked about him. Everything in the ship was strange to me. I knew it was
green to ask questions, and I suppose I thought there was a
"Plain-Buttons" on every ship. We had him to dine in our mess once a
week, and the caution was given that on that day nothing was to be said
about home. But if they had told us not to say anything about the planet
Mars or the Book of Deuteronomy, I should not have asked why; there
were, a great many things which seemed to me to have as little reason. I
first came to understand anything about "the man without a country" one
day when we overhauled a dirty little schooner which had slaves on
board. An officer was sent to take charge of her, and, after a few
minutes, he sent back his boat to ask that some one might be sent him
who could speak Portuguese.
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