Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
While thinking which of them to select for his purpose, he chanced to observe
a sailor seated on the deck engaged in tarring the strap of a large block, a circle of
blacks squatted round him inquisitively eying the process.
The mean employment of the man was in contrast with something superior in
his gure. His hand, black with continually thrusting it into the tar-pot held for
him by a negro, seemed not naturally allied to his face, a face which would have
been a very ne one but for its haggardness. Whether this haggardness had aught
to do with criminality, could not be determined; since, as intense heat and cold,
though unlike, produce like sensations, so innocence and guilt, when, through
casual association with mental pain, stamping any visible impress, use one seal—a
hacked one.
Not again that this reection occurred to Captain Delano at the time, charitable
man as he was. Rather another idea. Because observing so singular a haggardness
combined with a dark eye, averted as in trouble and shame, and then again recalling
Don Benito’s confessed ill opinion of his crew, insensibly he was operated upon
by certain general notions which, while disconnecting pain and abashment from
virtue, invariably link them with vice.
If, indeed, there be any wickedness on board this ship, thought Captain Delano,
be sure that man there has fouled his hand in it, even as now he fouls it in the
pitch. I don’t like to accost him. I will speak to this other, this old Jack here on the
windlass.
He advanced to an old Barcelona tar, in ragged red breeches and dirty nightcap,
cheeks trenched and bronzed, whiskers dense as thorn hedges. Seated between
two sleepy-looking Africans, this mariner, like his younger shipmate, was employed
upon some rigging—splicing a cable—the sleepy-looking blacks performing the
inferior function of holding the outer parts of the ropes for him.
Upon Captain Delano’s approach, the man at once hung his head below its
previous level; the one necessary for business. It appeared as if he desired to be
thought absorbed, with more than common delity, in his task. Being addressed,
he glanced up, but with what seemed a furtive, dident air, which sat strangely
enough on his weather-beaten visage, much as if a grizzly bear, instead of growling
and biting, should simper and cast sheep’s eyes. He was asked several questions
concerning the voyage—questions purposely referring to several particulars
in Don Benito’s narrative, not previously corroborated by those impulsive cries
greeting the visitor on rst coming on board. The questions were briey answered,
conrming all that remained to be conrmed of the story. The negroes about the
windlass joined in with the old sailor; but, as they became talkative, he by degrees
became mute, and at length quite glum, seemed morosely unwilling to answer
more questions, and yet, all the while, this ursine air was somehow mixed with his
sheepish one.
Despairing of getting into unembarrassed talk with such a centaur, Captain
Delano, after glancing round for a more promising countenance, but seeing none,
spoke pleasantly to the blacks to make way for him; and so, amid various grins and
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