Aware of this, the sailors, as soon as they arrive, desert, and
are secreted and fed by the crimps, who make their market of them in
the fall of the year by selling them to the captains; procuring for
the men an exorbitant sum for the voyage home, and for themselves a
handsome _douceur_ for their trouble, both from the captain and the
sailor.
We were desired not to take men out of the merchant vessels, but to
search for them in the houses of the crimps. This was to us a source
of great amusement and singular adventure; for the ingenuity in
concealing them was only equalled by the art and cunning exercised in
the discovery of their abodes. Cellars and lofts were stale and out of
use; we found more game in the interior of haystacks, church steeples,
closets under fireplaces where the fire was burning. Some we found
headed up in sugar-hogsheads, and some concealed within bundles of
hoop-staves. Sometimes we found seamen, dressed as gentlemen, drinking
wine and talking with the greatest familiarity with people much
above them in rank, who had used these means to conceal them. Our
information led us to detect these excusable impositions.
I went into the country, about fifteen miles from Quebec, where I had
heard of a crimp's preserve, and after a tedious search, discovered
some good seamen on the rafters of an outhouse intended only to
smoke and cure bacon; and as the fires were lighted, and the smoke
ascending, it was difficult to conceive a human being could exist
there: nor should we have discovered them if one of them had not
coughed; on which he received the execrations of the others, and the
whole party was instantly handed out.
Pages:
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262