Part 13

"The vessel now called at a dock a distance below, where the families of the crew came on board.

"When off Fort Sumter, the sentry on the ramparts hailed the boat, and Small sounded the countersign with the whistle--three shrill sounds and one hissing sound. The vessel being known to the officers of the day, no objection was raised, the sentry only singing out, 'Blow the d----d Yankees to hell, or bring one of them in.' 'Ay, ay,' was the answer, and every possible effort was made to get below.

"Hardly was the vessel out of range, when Small ran up a white flag, and went to the United States fleet, where he surrendered the vessel. She had on board seven heavy guns for Fort Ripley, a fort now building in Charleston harbor, which were to be taken thither the next morning.

"Small, with the crew and their families,--sixteen persons,--were sent to the flagship at Port Royal, and an officer placed on board the Planter, who took her also to Commodore Dupont's vessel. Small is a middle-aged negro, and his features betray nothing of the firmness of character he displayed. He is said to be one of the most skilful pilots of Charleston, and to have a thorough knowledge of all the ports and inlets on the coast of South Carolina."

We give below the official account of the taking and surrender of the boat to the naval authorities.

U. S. STEAMSHIP AUGUSTA, } OFF CHARLESTON, May 13, 1862. }

SIR: I have the honor to inform you that the rebel armed steamer Planter was brought out to us this morning from Charleston by eight contrabands, and delivered up to the squadron. Five colored women and three children are also on board. She carried one 32-pounder and one 24-pounder howitzer, and has also on board four large guns, which she was engaged in transporting. I send her to Port Royal at once, in order to take advantage of the present good weather. I send Charleston papers of the 12th, and the very intelligent contraband who was in charge will give you the information which he has brought off. I have the honor to request that you will send back, as soon as convenient, the officer and crew sent on board.

Commander Dupont, in forwarding the despatch, says, in relation to the steamer Planter,--

She was the armed despatch and transportation steamer attached to the engineer department at Charleston, under Brigadier General Ripley, whose bark, a short time since, was brought to the blockading fleet by several contrabands. The bringing out of this steamer, under all the circumstances, would have done credit to any one. At four in the morning, in the absence of the captain, who was on shore, she left her wharf close to the government office and headquarters, with the Palmetto and "Confederate" flags flying, and passed the successive forts, saluting, as usual, by blowing the steam whistle. After getting beyond the range of the last gun, they hauled down the rebel flags, and hoisted a white one. The Onward was the inside ship of the blockading squadron in the main channel, and was preparing to fire when her commander made out the white flag. The armament of the steamer is a 32-pounder, or pivot, and a fine 24-pound howitzer. She has besides, on her deck, four other guns, one seven inch rifled, which were to be taken, on the morning of the escape, to the new fort on the middle ground. One of the four belonged to Fort Sumter, and had been struck, in the rebel attack, on the muzzle. Robert Small, the intelligent slave, and pilot of the boat, who performed this bold feat so skilfully, informed me of this fact, presuming it would be a matter of interest to us to have possession of this gun. This man, Robert Small, is superior to any who have come into our lines, intelligent as many of them have been. His information has been most interesting, and portions of it of the utmost importance. The steamer is quite a valuable acquisition to the squadron by her good machinery and very light draught. The officer in charge brought her through St. Helena Sound, and by the inland passage down Beaufort River, arriving here at ten last night. On board the steamer, when she left Charleston, were eight men, five women, and three children. I shall continue to employ Small as pilot on board the Planter, for inland waters, with which he appears to be very familiar.

I do not know whether, in the view of the government, the vessel will be considered a prize; but if so, I respectfully submit to the Department the claims of the man Small and his associates.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, S. F. DUPONT, _Flag Officer, Commanding, &c._

A bill was at once introduced in Congress to consider the Planter a prize, and to award the prize-money to her crew. The _New York Tribune_ had the following editorial on the subject:--

"The House of Representatives at Washington, it is to be hoped, will be more just to their own sense of right, and to their more generous impulses, than to put aside again the Senate bill giving the prize-money they have so well earned to the pilot and crew of the steamer Planter. Neither House would have done an act unworthy of their dignity had they promptly passed a vote of thanks to Robert Small and his fellows for the cool courage with which they planned and executed their escape from rebel bondage, and the unswerving loyalty which prompted them, at the same time, to bring away such spoils from the enemy as would make a welcome addition to the blockading squadron.

"If we must still remember with humiliation that the Confederate flag yet waves where our national colors were first struck, we should be all the more prompt to recognize the merit that has put into our possession the first trophy from Fort Sumter. And the country should feel doubly humbled if there is not magnanimity enough to acknowledge a gallant action, because it was the head of a black man that conceived, and the hand of a black man that executed it. It would better, indeed, become us to remember that no small share of the naval glory of the war belongs to the race which we have forbidden to fight for us; that one negro has recaptured a vessel from a southern privateer, and another has brought away from under the very guns of the enemy, where no fleet of ours has yet dared to venture, a prize whose possession a commodore thinks worthy to be announced in a special despatch."

The bill was taken up and passed, and the brave Small and his companions received justice at the hands of the government.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

The career of the distinguished individual whose name heads this page is more widely known than that of any other living colored man, except, perhaps, Alexandre Dumas. The narrative of his life, published in 1845, gave a new impetus to the black man's literature. All other stories of fugitive slaves faded away before the beautifully written, highly descriptive, and thrilling memoir of Frederick Douglass. Other narratives had only brought before the public a few heart-rending scenes connected with the person described. But Mr. Douglass, in his book, brought not only his old master's farm and its occupants before the reader, but the entire country around him, including Baltimore and its ship yard. The manner in which he obtained his education, and especially his learning to write, has been read and re-read by thousands in both hemispheres. His escape from slavery is too well understood to need a recapitulation here. He took up his residence in New Bedford, where he still continued the assiduous student--mastering the different branches of education which the accursed institution had deprived him of in early life.

His advent as a lecturer was a remarkable one. White men and black men had talked against slavery, but none had ever spoken like Frederick Douglass. Throughout the north the newspapers were filled with the sayings of the "eloquent fugitive." He often travelled with others, but they were all lost sight of in the eagerness to hear Douglass. His travelling companions would sometimes get angry, and would speak first at the meetings; then they would take the last turn; but it was all the same--the fugitive's impression was the one left upon the mind. He made more persons angry, and pleased more, than any other man. He was praised, and he was censured. He made them laugh, he made them weep, and he made them swear. His "Slaveholder's Sermon" was always a trump card. He awakened an interest in the hearts of thousands who before were dead to the slave and his condition. Many kept away from his lectures, fearing lest they should be converted against their will. Young men and women, in those days of pro-slavery hatred, would return to their fathers' roofs filled with admiration for the "runaway slave," and would be rebuked by hearing the old ones grumble out, "You'd better stay at home and study your lessons, and not be running after the nigger meetings."

In 1841, he was induced to accept an agency as a lecturer for the Anti-slavery Society, and at once became one of the most valuable of its advocates. He visited England in 1845. There he was kindly received, and heartily welcomed; and after going through the length and breadth of the land, and addressing public meetings out of number on behalf of his countrymen in chains, with a power of eloquence which captivated his auditors, and brought the cause which he pleaded home to their hearts, he returned home and commenced the publication of the _North Star_, a weekly newspaper devoted to the advocacy of the cause of freedom.

Mr. Douglass is tall and well made. His vast and fully-developed forehead shows at once that he is a superior man intellectually. He is polished in his language, and gentlemanly in his manners. His voice is full and sonorous. His attitude is dignified, and his gesticulation is full of noble simplicity. He is a man of lofty reason; natural, and without pretension; always master of himself; brilliant in the art of exposing and abstracting. Few persons can handle a subject, with which they are familiar, better than he. There is a kind of eloquence issuing from the depth of the soul as from a spring, rolling along its copious floods, sweeping all before it, overwhelming by its very force, carrying, upsetting, ingulfing its adversaries, and more dazzling and more thundering than the bolt which leaps from crag to crag. This is the eloquence of Frederick Douglass. One of the best mimics of the age, and possessing great dramatic powers, had he taken up the sock and buskin, instead of becoming a lecturer, he would have made as fine a Coriolanus as ever trod the stage.

In his splendidly conceived comparison of Mr. Douglass to S. R. Ward, written for the "Autographs for Freedom," Professor William J. Wilson says of the former, "In his very look, his gesture, his whole manner, there is so much of genuine, earnest eloquence, that they leave no time for reflection. Now you are reminded of one rushing down some fearful steep, bidding you follow; now on some delightful stream, still beckoning you onward. In either case, no matter what your prepossessions or oppositions, you, for the moment at least, forget the justness or unjustness of his cause, and obey the summons, and loath, if at all, you return to your former post. Not always, however, is he successful in retaining you. Giddy as you may be with the descent you have made, delighted as you are with the pleasure afforded, with the Elysium to which he has wafted you, you return too often dissatisfied with his and your own impetuosity and want of firmness. You feel that you had only a dream, a pastime,--not a reality.

"This great power of momentary captivation consists in his eloquence of manners, his just appreciation of words. In listening to him, your whole soul is fired, every nerve strung, every passion inflated, and every faculty you possess ready to perform at a moment's bidding. You stop not to ask why or wherefore. 'Tis a unison of mighty yet harmonious sounds that play upon your imagination; and you give yourself up, for a time, to their irresistible charm. At last, the _cataract_ which roared around you is hushed, the _tornado_ is passed, and you find yourself sitting upon a bank, (at whose base roll but tranquil waters,) quietly asking yourself why, amid such a display of power, no greater effect had really been produced. After all, it must be admitted there is a power in Mr. Douglass rarely to be found in any other man."

As a speaker, Frederick Douglass has had more imitators than almost any other American, save, perhaps, Wendell Phillips. Unlike most great speakers, he is a superior writer also. Some of his articles, in point of ability, will rank with any thing ever written for the American press. He has taken lessons from the best of teachers, amid the homeliest realities of life; hence the perpetual freshness of his delineations, which are never over-colored, never strained, never aiming at difficult or impossible effects, but which always read like living transcripts of experience. The following from his pen, on "What shall be done with the slaves, if emancipated?" is characteristic of his style.

"What shall be done with the four million slaves, if they are emancipated? This question has been answered, and can be answered in many ways. Primarily, it is a question less for man than for God--less for human intellect than for the laws of nature to solve. It assumes that nature has erred; that the law of liberty is a mistake; that freedom, though a natural want of the human soul, can only be enjoyed at the expense of human welfare, and that men are better off in slavery than they would or could be in freedom; that slavery is the natural order of human relations, and that liberty is an experiment. What shall be done with them?

"Our answer is, Do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs. Your _doing_ with them is their greatest misfortune. They have been undone by your doings, and all they now ask, and really have need of at your hands, is just to let them alone. They suffer by every interference, and succeed best by being let alone. The negro should have been let alone in Africa--let alone when the pirates and robbers offered him for sale in our Christian slave markets (more cruel and inhuman than the Mohammedan slave markets)--let alone by courts, judges, politicians, legislators, and slave-drivers--let alone altogether, and assured that they were thus to be let alone forever, and that they must now make their own way in the world, just the same as any and every other variety of the human family. As colored men, we only ask to be allowed to _do_ with ourselves, subject only to the same great laws for the welfare of human society which apply to other men--Jews, Gentiles, Barbarian, Scythian. Let us stand upon our own legs, work with our own hands, and eat bread in the sweat of our own brows. When you, our white fellow-countrymen, have attempted to do any thing for us, it has generally been to deprive us of some right, power, or privilege, which you yourselves would die before you would submit to have taken from you. When the planters of the West Indies used to attempt to puzzle the pure-minded Wilberforce with the question, 'How shall we get rid of slavery?' his simple answer was, 'Quit stealing.' In like manner we answer those who are perpetually puzzling their brains with questions as to what shall be done with the negro, 'Let him alone, and mind your own business.' If you see him ploughing in the open field, levelling the forest, at work with a spade, a rake, a hoe, a pickaxe, or a bill--let him alone; he has a right to work. If you see him on his way to school, with spelling-book, geography, and arithmetic in his hands--let him alone. Don't shut the door in his face, nor bolt your gates against him; he has a right to learn--let him alone. Don't pass laws to degrade him. If he has a ballot in his hand, and is on his way to the ballot-box to deposit his vote for the man who, he thinks, will most justly and wisely administer the government which has the power of life and death over him, as well as others--let him ALONE; his right of choice as much deserves respect and protection as your own. If you see him on his way to church, exercising religious liberty in accordance with this or that religious persuasion--let him alone. Don't meddle with him, nor trouble yourselves with any questions as to what shall be done with him.

"What shall be done with the negro, if emancipated? Deal justly with him. He is a human being, capable of judging between good and evil, right and wrong, liberty and slavery, and is as much a subject of law as any other man; therefore, deal justly with him. He is, like other men, sensible of the motives of reward and punishment. Give him wages for his work, and let hunger pinch him if he don't work. He knows the difference between fulness and famine, plenty and scarcity. 'But will he work?' Why should he not? He is used to it, and is not afraid of it. His hands are already hardened by toil, and he has no dreams of ever getting a living by any other means than by hard work. 'But would you turn them all loose?' Certainly! We are no better than our Creator. He has turned them loose, and why should not we? But would you let them all stay here?' Why not? What better is _here_ than _there_? Will they occupy more room as freemen than as slaves? Is the presence of a black freeman less agreeable than that of a black slave? Is an object of your injustice and cruelty a more ungrateful sight than one of your justice and benevolence? You have borne the one more than two hundred years--can't you bear the other long enough to try the experiment?"

CHARLES L. REASON.

Professor C. L. Reason has for many years been connected with the educational institutions of New York and Philadelphia. In 1849, he was called to the professorship of Mathematics and Belles Lettres in New York Central College. This situation he held during his own pleasure, with honor to himself and benefit to the students. A man of fine education, superior intelligence, gentlemanly in every sense of the term, of excellent discrimination, one of the best of students, Professor Reason holds a power over those under him seldom attained by men of his profession. Were I a sculptor, and looking for a model of a perfect man in personal appearance, my selection would be Charles L. Reason. As a writer of both prose and poetry he need not be ashamed of his ability. Extremely diffident, he seldom furnishes any thing for the public eye. In a well-written essay on the propriety of establishing an industrial college, and the probable influence of the free colored people upon the emancipated blacks, he says, "Whenever emancipation shall take place, immediate though it be, the subjects of it, like many who now make up the so-called free population, will be, in what geologists call, the 'transition state.' The prejudice now felt against them for bearing on their persons the brand of slaves, cannot die out immediately. Severe trials will still be their portion: the curse of a 'taunted race,' must be expiated by almost miraculous proofs of advancement; and some of these miracles must be antecedent to the great day of jubilee. To fight the battle upon the bare ground of abstract principles will fail to give us complete victory. The subterfuges of pro-slavery selfishness must _now_ be dragged to light, and the last weak argument, that the negro can never contribute any thing to advance the national character, 'nailed to the counter as base coin.' To the conquering of the difficulties heaped up in the path of his industry, the free colored man of the north has pledged himself. Already he sees, springing into growth, from out his foster _work-school_, intelligent young laborers, competent to enrich the world with necessary products; industrious citizens, contributing their proportion to aid on the advancing civilization of the country; self-providing artisans, vindicating their people from the never-ceasing charge of fitness for servile positions." In the "Autographs for Freedom," from which the above extract is taken, Professor Reason has a beautiful poem, entitled "Hope and Confidence," which, in point of originality and nicety of composition, will give it a place with the best productions of Wordsworth.

A poem signifies design, method, harmony, and therefore consistency of parts. A man may be gifted with the most vividly ideal nature; he may shoot from his brain some blazing poetic thought or imagery, which may arouse wonder and admiration, as a comet does; and yet he may have no constructiveness, without which the materials of poetry are only so many glittering fractions. A poem can never be tested by its length or brevity, but by the adaptation of its parts. A complete poem is the architecture of thought and language. It requires artistic skill to chisel rough blocks of marble into as many individual forms of beauty; but not only skill, but genius, is needed to arrange and harmonize those forms into the completeness of a Parthenon. A grave popular error, and one destructive of personal usefulness, and obstructive to literary progress, is the free-and-easy belief that because a man has the faculty of investing common things with uncommon ideas, therefore he can write a poem.

The idea of poetry is to give pleasurable emotions, and the world listens to a poet's voice as it listens to the singing of a summer bird; that which is the most suggestive of freedom and eloquence being the most admired. Professor Reason has both the genius and the artistic skill. We regret that we are able to give only the last two verses of "Hope and Confidence."

"There's nothing so lovely and bright below, As the shapes of the purified mind; Nought surer to which the weak heart can grow, On which it can rest as it onward doth go, Than that Truth which its own tendrils bind.

"Yes, Truth opes within a pure sun-tide of bliss, And shows in its ever calm flood A transcript of regions where no darkness is, Where Hope its conceptions may realize, And Confidence sleep in the good."

CHARLOTTE L. FORTEN.

In the autumn of 1854, a young colored lady of seventeen summers, unable to obtain admission into the schools of her native city (Philadelphia) on account of her complexion, removed to Salem, Massachusetts, where she at once entered the Higginson Grammar School. Here she soon secured the respect and esteem of the teachers and her fellow-pupils. Near the end of the last term, the principal of the establishment invited the scholars to write a poem each, to be sung at the last day's examination, and at the same time expressing the desire that the authors should conceal their names. As might have been expected, this drew out all the poetical genius of the young aspirants. Fifty or more manuscripts were sent in, and one selected, printed on a neat sheet, and circulated through the vast audience who were present. The following is the piece:--

A PARTING HYMN.

When Winter's royal robes of white From hill and vale are gone, And the glad voices of the spring Upon the air are borne, Friends, who have met with us before, Within these walls shall meet no more.

Forth to a noble work they go: O, may their hearts keep pure, And hopeful zeal and strength be theirs To labor and endure, That they an earnest faith may prove By words of truth and deeds of love.

May those, whose holy task it is To guide impulsive youth, Fail not to cherish in their souls A reverence for truth; For teachings which the lips impart Must have their source within the heart.