The System of the World

APOLOGY

Owing to a spell of confusion that hath gripped the mind of Mr. Charles White, and induced him to believe that he owns me, I have lately suspended my former habit, viz. of wandering about the Terraqueous Globe, for a life of dignified repose in the Clink where I am detained ’pon suspicion of having stolen myself. ’Tis a charge difficult to refute; for the Magistrate hath shrewdly asked me whether it was not true, that I was in possession of myself, and I, having always prided myself on being a self-possessed fellow, did answer in the affirmative. Whereupon the magistrate did bang his gavel and order me clapp’d in irons and dragged away to the Clink for the crime of receiving stolen goods.

My stationary habit has not been without benefit to the stationers of this and other Realms. For many of my old friends and relations, who had given up in despair of hitting such a restless target with a well-aim’d letter, have reached me here. Not a day goes by that I do not receive a weather-beaten and worm-eaten note from a far-off land. To-day I have got one that came in a ship lately active in the Assiento trade. This vessel came to London direct from the Slave Coast, bearing a chest laden with Spanish pieces of eight-part of the bounty due H.B.M.’s government, under the late Treaty of Peace, for the commerce between Africa (a great producer of Negroes) and the Caribbean (a ravenous gobbler-up of same). The treasure-chest was removed by Mr. White, who carried it ashore in the company of several fellows, all of them bedizen’d with curious silver-greyhound badges. Later the same company was spied across town in Golden-Square, paying a call upon the Viscount Bolingbroke, who keeps a fine house there; but alas, somewhere along the way, the chest had sprung a leak, and those pieces of eight had dribbled out into the streets of London. Upon Mr. White’s arrival at the Viscount’s house, the chest was observed to be nearly empty. In haste his Messengers re-traced their path through the city, hoping to pick up what had spilt, but alas, the coins had already been plucked up by ordinary Londoners. As most common Englishmen have never laid eyes upon a coin of silver-pounds sterling being as rare in England as plain-spoken Tories-no one recognized them for what they were. But seeing that each one was stamp’d with a face bearing the features of a Bourbon, these patriotic Englishmen took offence and flung the despicable medallions into Fleet Ditch, where they sank presently to the bottom. So the Assiento revenue is gone; though ’tis rumored among the Vault-men that on moonless nights a man resembling the Viscount Bolingbroke may be observed standing on the brink of that noisome arroyo, holding a cloak, and a fine suit of clothes, all embroider’d with Greyhounds, while a naked man splashes about in the flume below, like a pearl-diver in a Tropick lagoon, breaking the surface from time to time with a shiny new Bourbon piece of eight in his teeth. For which the man on the brink presently rewards him by tossing him an ear, much as a hunter doth take all the meat of the game while throwing the bones, gristle, amp;c. to his dogs, who are so foolish as to believe that they are being shown great favor.

Thus the latest shipment of Assiento money. But I am pleased to relate that a satchel of mail, brought to London on the same ship, escaped such a fate. For it was brought ashore by honest men who saw to it that the letters were delivered to their proper destinations-even such humble ones as the Clink.

Thus have I come into possession of a letter from Her Africk Majesty, the Queen of Bonny. It is addressed to Her Britannick Majesty. But since neither Queen Anne nor any of her Ministers is conversant with the tongue spoken by so many of her Caribbean subjects, H.A.M. has sent the letter to me, that I may have the honour of translating it to English. Which I have now done; but efforts to post it onwards to H.B.M. have failed. As many times as I send it, it comes back with a note to the effect that the recipient declined to pay. I see that the late disappearance of revenues, which hath led to such controversy at Westminster, hath been felt at St. James’s. So as a favor to H.B.M. I have decided to publish the English text of the letter from H.A.M. in the form of this Libel or Broadside, in hopes that a gust of wind may loft it into St. James’s, effecting, at no cost to H.B.M.’s Government, a delivery that otherwise were fiscally burdensome.

The letter begins thus:

Mon Cousine,

Such is the Radiance of your Enlightenment that the People of my Country, who formerly were as pale as Orphans in an Irish Work-House, have now been Tann’d quite Black…

[Translator’s note: I here elide much more in the way of such lofty Apologies, Compliments, amp;c., and move directly to the substantive part of H.A.M.’s letter.]

Word hath reached me of late, that certain monies, sent to your Majesty as due profits of the Slave Trade, have not reached your coffers, and an assiduous search hath failed to turn them up. Which news, if true, is most remarkable, for Lapses of a similar nature have been observ’d at the other two Vertices of the Triangular Trade. Viz. to the Caribbean are supposed to be deliver’d a certain number of my subjects. At diverse slave-forts along the Guinea coast, these are packed aboard ship by captains who count ’em with exacting care, and prick ’em down in strict Inventories. Yet the same ships arriving some weeks later at the slave-marts of Jamaica, Barbados, amp;c., are found to be half-empty; and the few living slaves that are discharg’d from their stinking Hulls so wretched that many must be abandoned ’pon the Strand, as no planter is willing to buy ’em. Meanwhile, a failure of a like nature is easily to be observed from where I sit, in my royal palace of Bonny. For it was given us to understand that the Triangle Trade would deliver to our shores Civilization, Christianity, Enlightenment, and other vertues. Instead of Civilization, we are receiving daily ship-loads of white Sauvages who pillage our shore like so many Vikings having their way in a Nunnery. Instead of Christianity, we are the recipients of a Pagan mentality which holds Slavery to be good, because ’twas practiced by the Romans. And instead of Enlightenment, we are Benighted by the fell effects of the sins and outrages I have mentioned.

In consideration of the fact, which I have now prov’d beyond question, that no part of the Triangular Trade works as it is supposed to-viz. Civilization not reaching Africa, Slaves not reaching America, and Assiento money not reaching Your Britannick Majesty’s coffers-I propose we denominate it a fail’d Adventure, and bring it to an End immediately.

I have the honour to be,

Your Britannick Majesty’s Humble Servant,

though not [yet anyway] her obedient Slave,