Free Rebecca Wentworth's Distraction by Robert J. Begiebing

the Piscataqua
    There are likewise many who will allow that among the sinful nations of the times, pride and luxury are the great promoters of trade, but they refuse to own the necessity there is, that in a more virtuous age (such as one should be free of pride) trade would in great measure decay.
    â€”Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees

Chapter 10
    T HAT SPRING, when Daniel Sanborn had lived and worked successfully in Portsmouth for nearly a year, he called upon Jeremy Weeks in his room by the customs house to invite him for a bowl of punch.
    He had conversed with Weeks two or three times since first meeting him in the waterfront tavern shortly after his arrival in the city. He had come to respect him as a man who was particularly informed about the timber and fish trades, and about the merchants and captains who orchestrated such trade, at times illegally, to their conspicuous advantage. And he indicated now, during convivial conversation, a knowledge of the slave trade as well. He announced rather theatrically behind his hand a current scheme.
    â€œVinegar, sir,” he said with a knowing wink.
    â€œVinegar?” Sanborn looked at him somewhat amused.
    â€œBetter than seawater alone for washing out decks during the passage. Greater cleansing, so fewer deaths. Black ivory.”
    â€œI see. Still, speed is the essence, I understand.” He tipped the punch bowl, drank, and handed it over to Weeks. “You’ve shipped yourself then, I take it, Mr. Weeks.”
    â€œOn diverse occasions. Not anymore. Usually out of Newport or Providence, aboard a forty-tonner built for speed. Rough but profitable duty it was, but such days are behind me.”
    â€œSo, vinegar it is, now.”
    â€œSell it to the slavers, for the Guinea Coast and the West Indies–New England trade as well.”
    â€œI had once thought of shipping for Africa,” Sanborn said wistfully. “A country worthy of a painter, to record its strange beauties and barbarisms.”
    â€œAye, but you’re better off having not done so. It’s a brutal place for a man of your kidney. A sea without harbors, a world of sandbars and shipwrecks and sharks. And murderous climate, sir. Murderous.” He shook his head and looked down. “Sudden mists that chill the very center of your bones. And heats that drain men of life or drive them mad. Calabar, Piccaninny, Goree, St. Paul de Loango, The Bight of Benin and of Biafra. A journey to hell, sir, but profitable—more so than any other journey—for those who’ve the constitution for it. And a good shake of blind luck.”
    â€œThat’s what turned me away—rumors of the coast, the trade. And the much greater market for portraits than for land and seascapes.”
    â€œDeath rides your shoulder every minute.”
    The two men were silent for a moment, as if contemplating an alien world, one from rumor, one from experience. Sanborn rose to go to the bar.
    â€œThe adventure of your life, sir, nonetheless,” Sanborn said upon returning and placing another bowl before them.
    â€œIt was always that, aye. It’s a world you can’t imagine, even for all your tales of voyagers, unless you’ve seen it, braved the dangers yourself. A whole fever coast dotted with the slave compounds of the English, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and French. All fortified against rival traders and native tribes. They’re a bloody lot, the tribesmen. If amidst the slaughter of their enemies, the chieftains spare some few men, women, and children from the hideous tortures and deaths of their wars and raids, they demonstrate their power.” He drank of the punch. “But once they saw how profitable in rum and cloth every slave could be, they turned their ancient enmities to the production of slaves for the European trade. A hundred gallons of rum—some ten or a dozen pound’s worth—for a good Negro, sir.”
    â€œBut three times that