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The French ship Le Rodeur, with a crew of twenty-two men, and with one hundred and sixty negro slaves, sailed from Bonny in Africa, April, 1819. On approaching the line, a terrible malady broke out-an obstinate disease of the eyes-contagious, and altogether beyond the resources of medicine. It was aggravated by the scarcity of water among the slaves, (only half a wine glass per day being allowed to an individual,) and by the extreme impurity of the air in which they breathed. By the advice of the physician, they were brought upon deck occasionally; but some of the poor wretches, locking themselves in each other's arms, leaped overboard, in the hope, which so universally prevails among them, of being swiftly transported to their own homes in Africa. To check this, the captain ordered several, who were stopped in the attempt, to be shot, or hanged, before their companions. The disease extended to the crew; and one after another was smitten with it, until only one remained unaffected. Yet even this dreadful condition did not preclude calculation: to save the expense of supporting slaves rendered unsaleable. and to obtain grounds for a claim against the underwriters, thirty-six of the negroes, having become blind, were thrown into the sea and drowned!

In the midst of their dreadful fears lest the solitary individual, whose sight remained unaffected, should also be seized with the malady, a sail was discovered. It was the Spanish slaver, Leon. The same disease had been there; and, horrible to tell, all the crew had become blind! Unable to assist each other, the vessels parted. The Spanish ship has never since been heard of. The Rodeur reached Guadaloupe on the 21st of June; the only man who had escaped the disease, and had thus been enabled to steer the slaver into port, caught it in three days after its arrival-Speech of M. Benjamin Constant, in the French Chamber of Deputies, June 17, 1820.

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Hark from the ship's dark bosom,

The very sounds of hell!

The ringing clank of iron

The maniac's short, sharp yell !— The hoarse, low curse, throat-stifledThe starving infant's moanThe horror of a breaking heart

Pour'd through a mother's groan!

Up from that loathsome prison

The stricken blind ones came : Below, had all been darkness

Above, was still the same. Yet the holy breath of Heaven

Was sweetly breathing there, And the heated brow of fever Cool'd in the soft sea air.

"Overboard with them, shipmates!" Cutlass and dirk were plied; Fetter'd and blind, one after one,

Plunged down the vessel's side. The sabre smote above

Beneath, the lean shark lay, Waiting with wide and bloody jaw His quick and human prey.

God of the earth! what cries

Rang upward unto Thee? Voices of agony and blood,

From ship-deck and from sea. The last dull plunge was heardThe last wave caught its stain— And the unsated shark look'd up For human hearts in vain.

Red glow'd the Western watersThe setting sun was there, Scattering alike on wave and cloud His fiery mesh of hair.

Amidst a group in blindness,

A solitary eye

Gazed, from the burden'd slaver's deck,

Into that burning sky.

"A storm," spoke out the gazer,
"Is gathering and at hand-
Curse on 't-I'd give my other eye
For one firm rood of land."
And then he laugh'd-but only
His echo'd langh replied-
For the blinded and the suffering
Alone were at his side.

Night settled on the waters,

And on a stormy heaven, While fiercely on that lone ship's track The thunder-gust was driven.

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"THE ONE IDEA."

EY SARAH JANE CLARKE.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Our glorious one Idea!

From the source of life it came, And it shineth far and mounteth high, An ever living flame.

Then let it burn! what mortal hand Its fiery wing shall bind?

For it hath reached the moral wastes, The prairies of the mind!

It sweepeth off the wild, rank growth Of prejudice and wrong,

As, fanned by mighty viewless wings,
It rolls and leaps along!

Our men are men of "One Idea !"
Ah, thou must elsewhere turn
For gloomy and unsocial churls,
Ascetics hard and stern

For pilgrims toiling on to pay

Their cold reluctant vows-
For prophets, in woe's sackcloth clad,
And dust upon their brows.

Thus come our band-impassioned zeal
Lights their uncowering eyes,
And on their brows a cheerful faith
Like Heaven's own sunshine lies!

Their father's glory, as an Ark,

Moving in light before them-
The promises of Freedom's God,

As rainbows bending o'er them!
Their foes, like pirates half o'ercome,
Stand fierce and stern at bay,
Or like a sullen convict gang,

Go scowling on their way;

But as to some high festival,
Our glad band sweeps along-
And now rings out a joyous laugh,
And now peels out a song!

Their steeps keep time to freedom's march,
Sounding within the soul,

And high, and broad, and startling truths
Their daring hands unroll,

And rear with bold, exulting shouts,
Aloft in freedom's air,

Till they float before a gazing world
As glorious banners, there!

Our wives, our girls, of « One Idea!"
In each devoted mind

It dwells in beauty and in power,
Like a deity enshrined.

They are no slavish devotees,

Cloistered in gloom and night, Their life is like a morn in May,

Flowers, dew, and warm sunlight:
The flowers of good and modest deeds,
The dew of generous love,

The sunlight of that perfect peace
Which cometh from above.

They have that strong, brave, soaring hope
Which true-soul freedom brings,
That earnest, fearless, fervent faith,
In all good, blessed things!
That beautiful, impassioned love,

That worship of the truth,
That flings around their fleeting years,
Immortal bloom and youth.

So far beneath their lofty gaze

Rank's vain distinctions lie,

They could stand before a crowned queen And look her in the eye,

Then turn, and smile on honest worth, Though Monarchs on it frownedAnd bow to royal intellect,

Though by the world uncrowned.

And yet no stern Zenobias,

No maids of Orleans they,
Ye seek in vain their gentle forms
Amid the stormy fray;

But once name Freedom's holy war
A crusade mad and vain,

And dare to sneer at human rights,
As phantoms of the brain-

Then cringe beneath each lightning glance
Their proud eyes on thee fling,

As in their souls the "One Idea"
Unfurls its flashing wing!

Now blessed Father of us all,
God of the bond and free!
Regard in mercy still our foes,
The foes of liberty!

Lead them from error's labyrinth,

To tread the paths of rightPour on their poor benighted minds, Truth's clear and perfect light!

Oh! break upon the sleep of death

That wraps their moral powersBreathe in them as a living soul, This One Idea" of ours!

MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.

Written on reading an account of the proceedings of the citizens of Norfolk, (Va.) in reference to GEORCE I ATIMER, the alleged fugitive slave, the result of whose case in Massachusetts will probably be similar to that of the negro SOMERSET in England, in 1772.

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

The blast from Freedom's northern hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Virginia, from Massachusetts Bay:

No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,

Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horseman's steel.

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go

Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;

And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far,

A thousand sails of Commerce swell, but none are spread for War.

We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and high
Swell harshly on the Southern winds which melt along our sky;
Yet, not one brown, hard hand forgoes its honest labor here;
No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in fear.

Wild are the waves which lash the reefs along St. George's bank,
Cold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies white and dank;

Through storm, and wave, and blinding mist, stout are the hearts which man
The fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape-Ann.

The cold North light, and wintry sun glare on their icy forms,
Bent grimly o'er their straining lines or wrestling with the storms;
Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves they roam,
They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against their rocky home.

What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day.
When o'er her conquered valleys swept the Briton's steel array?
How side by side, with sons of hers, the Massachusetts men
Encountered Tarleton's charge of fire, and stout Cornwallis, then?

Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call

Of her old House of Burgesses, spoke out from Faneuil Hall?
When, echoing back her Henry's cry, came pulsing on each breath
Of Northern winds, the thrilling sounds of "LIBERTY OR DEATH!"

What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved
False to their father's memory-false to the faith they loved,
If she can scoff at Freedom, and its Great Charter spurn,
Must we of Massachusetts from Truth and Duty turn?

We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's hateful hell—
Our voices, at your bidding, take up the blood-hounds' yell-
We gather, at your summons, above our father's graves,
From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves!

Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow,

The spirit of her early time is with her even now;

Dream not because her pilgrim blood moves slow, and calm, and cool,
She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool!

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