Battle Fleet (2007) by Paul Dowswell

on the quarterdeck while I was taking a turn at the wheel. Lizzie absently asked him which ship he had sailed on before the
Orion
and he smugly told her he had been First Lieutenant on a slaver – the
Salamander
. ‘We prided ourselves on only losing a quarter of our cargo,’ he swaggered. ‘The British slavers are the most humane in the world.’
    Lizzie looked disgusted and Hossack bristled with righteous indignation. ‘Come now, girlie,’ he blustered, ‘these Sambos are fair game. They’re prisoners from their own little wars. The chieftains and princelings who trade in them would kill them if we did not take them.’
    Lizzie was trying hard to rein in her indignation. ‘And is it true that each of these poor men and women is chained for the whole voyage and that they have so little space in the hold that some are forced to lie upon each other?’
    ‘They are hardly men and women like us, Miss Borrow,’ said Hossack. ‘Barely more than animals. If you saw them, you’d no doubt agree.’
    ‘I have to say, Mr Hossack, that I am a great supporter of Mr Wilberforce and his abolitionists.’
    Hossack’s mask slipped. Perhaps it was the heat which made him so intemperate. ‘Mr Wilberforce is an interfering do-gooder. Slavery is a blessing. The African is incapable of living as a free man. I’m sure you will knowyour Bible, Miss Borrow, and I can tell you that slavery is sanctioned from Genesis to Revelation. “
Cursed be Canaan. The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.
” It’s there in Genesis. Plain as daylight. Ye’ll know good Christians believe that Canaan settled in Africa.’
    ‘Mr Hossack,’ said Lizzie sternly, ‘I am unshakeable in my belief that slavery is contrary to the laws of God and the rights of man.’
    Hossack’s blood was up. ‘Rights of man! Are ye referring to that subversive document by the traitor Tom Paine?’
    Lizzie sighed. ‘Mr Hossack. Perhaps we should restrict our conversation to lighter matters in future, such as the clemency of the weather and the progress of the
Orion
. We still have a long journey ahead of us. It would be so disagreeable to spend the rest of it in perpetual enmity.’
    There at the wheel I was trying so hard not to snigger I nearly burst a blood vessel. I couldn’t wait to tell Richard. It brought him a little glee and happiness when the rest of us were at our lowest ebb.
    By late August of 1803 we could sense the days were getting shorter and colder. The journey had taken much longer than we had hoped but now at least we were back again at a latitude that chimed with our childhood memories of summers and winters.
    Lizzie and Bel remained our good friends and I knew I would miss them when the voyage was over. Richard told me he had half a mind to ask Lizzie if she wanted to come back to Boston with him. ‘It’s the perfect time,’ he said. ‘If she says no, then I’ll never see her again!’ I knew she wouldn’t go, but I didn’t know whether she would be touched by his proposal or amused by his audacity.
    Lizzie was the first of the passengers to spot the English coast. ‘We’re home! We’re home!’ She ran shrieking down the deck to drag Bel out of their cabin. There it was – Lizard Point – on the southern tip of Cornwall. Here were people who looked like us (but not as weather-beaten), and talked like us (though not as coarse nor spouting those sailors’ words that were double Dutch to landlubbers), and more than likely thought like us too.
    I had such a lump in my throat when I saw the first of England, I wanted to cry with joy. But there was a rage there too, at the injustice of our transportation, which had not entirely gone away. I shook those thoughts from my mind. There was so much I had seen and done on this extraordinary voyage. Wasn’t that what I had wanted from a life at sea?
    My thoughts turned to my home village of Wroxham. I had been so keen to escape that little piece of Norfolk that I had chosen the most