protest with the blood of his captors. Cinguez, with unintelligible utterance in African dialect with emphatic gesture, his liberty loving soul on fire, while burning words strove for expression, described his action on the memorable night of his emancipation, with such vividness, power, and pathos that the audience seemed to see every act of the drama and feel the pulsation of his great heart. Through an interpreter he afterwards narrated his manner of taking the vessel, and how it happened to reach American shores. How, after taking the ship, he stood by the tiller with drawn weapon and commanded the mate to steer back to Africa. During the day he complied, but at night took the opposite course. After sometime of circuitous wandering the vessel ran into Long Island Sound and was taken possession of by the United States authorities. Cinguez, as hero and patriot, ennobled African character.

[Pg 30]

When majority and the threshold of man's estate is attained, the transition from advanced youth to the entry of manhood is liable to casualties; not unlike a bark serenely leaving its home harbor to enter unfrequented waters, the crew exhilarated by fresh and invigorating breezes, charmed by a genial sky, it moves on "like a thing of beauty" with the hope[Pg 31] of "joy forever." The chart and log of many predecessors may unheeded lie at hand, but the glorious present, cloudless and fascinating, rich in expectation, it sails on, fortunate if it escapes the rocks and shoals that ever lie in wait. It is unreasonable to expect a proper conception, and the happiest performance of life's duties at such a period, especially from those with easy and favorable environments, or who have been heedless of parental restraint, for even at an advanced stage in life, there have been many to exclaim with a poet:

[Pg 31]

"Ne'er tell me of evening serenely adorning

The close of a life richly mellowed by time,

Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of morning

Her smiles and her tears are worth evening's best light."

Twenty-one years of age found me the possessor of a trade, an attainment, and a capital invaluable for a poor young man beginning the race of life. For whether seen smutted by the soot of the blacksmith shop, or whitened by the lime of the plasterer or bricklayer; whether bending beneath tool box of the carpenter or ensconced on the bench of the shoemaker, he has a moral strength, a 

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