THE SLAVE CAPTAIN;

A LEGEND OF LIVERPOOL.

CHAPTER I.

Lives there a savage ruder than the slave?
Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave,
False as the winds that round his vessel blow,
Remorseless as the gulf that yawns below;
Is he who toils upon the wafting flood,
A Christian broker in the trade of blood;
Boisterous in speech, in action prompt and bold,
He buys, he sells,-he steals, he kills for gold.

MONTGOMERY.

THE latter part of the eighteenth century presented some of the strangest and mightiest events in the history of the world. It was a time of startling transition in the onward progress of society. The American colonies, after a fierce struggle with the Parent State, had set up business on their own account. France, also, had severed her connexion with monarchy, and had consummated the divorce by decapitating her king. The genius of the great Corsican, which taxed the energies of England, and held her so long at bay, was just shadowing forth

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