“From the smell. Just wait for the wind to blow this way again. Want a look-see?” Dirck handed the spyglass to Heinrich.
Heinrich adjusted the focus; he was near-sighted. “You think they’re here to sell slaves?”
“That’s one possibility.”
“Hey, that’s a Spanish flag they’re flying. That means we should shoot at them, doesn’t it? Since the Netherlands, the USE and Sweden are all at war with Spain.”
“The international law on the subject is a bit complicated. The Spanish supply slaves to all the Caribbean plantations, and so they probably have papers granting them immunity from privateers and warships of any country. At least, those that buy slaves, like the Dutch, the English, and the French. I am not so sure that Sweden would honor the papers, and the USE certainly would not.”
On Dirck’s command, Fort Lincoln fired a signal shot, warning the visitor to keep its distance, and alerting the settlement upstream that company had come knocking. The schooner prudently anchored several miles away, in two fathoms of water. Soon thereafter, it lowered a longboat.
Dirck walked out to the beach to meet them; he didn’t want the Spaniards getting a closer look at his guns.
The longboat crew was led by the first officer of the Tritón. Their ship, an eighty-tonner carrying two hundred slaves, had left El Mina several months ago. It had misjudged its position, gotten caught in the doldrums and run out of water. Crew and cargo alike were in desperate straits.
“And so, Senhor, we beg of you that as a good Christian, you tell us where we may find drinkable water, that we may refill our casks and be on our way. We are willing to pay, of course, for the privilege. And naturally, if you wish to buy any of our merchandise, we can give you a special price.”
Dirck told him that he would have to get permission from the governor of the colony, at the main settlement, and promised that he would relay the Spanish requests at once, but warned that they must stay where they were until a decision was reached.
* * *
Carsten Claus, the acting governor of Gustavus, and a Committee of Correspondence leader, was in favor of attacking the ship and freeing the slaves. Maria, who had recently returned from Kykoveral, agreed, and Heyndrick, though less enthusiastic, admitted that their up-time support would evaporate if they did anything else.
But it wasn’t as though Carsten had a company of Marines he could order into battle. What he had instead was the crew of the Eikhoorn, some additional recuperating sailors, and the settlers themselves. Some of these had served in village militias, and a smaller number were ex-mercenaries, but it was hardly a professional force. Carsten decided that he would have to persuade the colonists to take action. So he called a meeting of the town council.
“What’s the problem?” asked Denys Zager. “Make them pay through the nose for the privilege, and send them on their way. It’s all profit and no risk.”
“If you are worried about risk, why did you come to the New World?” complained Michael Krueger. “You’re Dutch, aren’t you? Here you have a heaven-sent opportunity to combine patriotism with profit. Capture the ship, and then sail it to a neutral port—Saint Kitts’ perhaps—to ransom off the crew and sell the slaves.”
“Do you remember our journey here?” asked Heinrich Bender. “How, as we passed the Canaries, we feared that every ship on the horizon was a Turkish slaver? If it be wrong for them to make you a slave, though you be their enemy, how can it be right for you to take as a slave an African who has done you no harm? Who has not consented to serve you? Can that be Christian?”
“Of course it is Christian,” said Krueger. “Did not Abraham own slaves?”
“In the time of the up-timers, all of the great nations made slavery unlawful,” Maria added. “Every religion condemned it as sinful. History judged us, and found us wanting. Now, through God’s grace, we have the opportunity to choose a more righteous path.”
“Have any of you brave souls considered that these slavers are heavily armed, in order to keep the slaves in line, and stand off pirates?”
“I have,” said Heinrich. “What of it? Captain Adrienszoon says there probably aren’t more than twenty to thirty of them. We outnumber them perhaps ten to one. And we have more and bigger cannon than they do.”
“Wearing a militia badge on your hat doesn’t make you an experienced fighter,” Zager warned. “They may be more trouble than you think.”
Krueger was unimpressed. “They have been dying of thirst for days, maybe weeks. I doubt they’ll put up much of a fight. And we have our own ‘sea beggars,’ the crew of the Eikhoorn, and the men the other ships left behind. As well as the town militia. The profit from capturing the ship, and the cargo, is worth the risk.”