Peter Carter Quotes

“Four thousand miles away; a January dusk falling on sodden Northampton fields, January rain failing in sodden Northampton cows. John Spencer, fifteen years old and orphaned just six weeks, locked in stiff mourning clothes, peered through a streaming window but kept a sharp ear cocked to the muffled voices in the next room.”

“The last rays of the sun catching the topsails of Sentinel. In London the gas-lights on, dinner over, the theatres filling, the dosshouses full, the city clocks striking nine.”

In England, John Spencer’s parents are dead, and his uncle sends him off to the Royal Navy as a “Gentleman Volunteer” on a ship, the HMS Sentinel, on anti-slavery patrol.

At the same time, in West Africa, a young farmer, Lyapo, is captured and sold into slavery.

“The two men laughed together creakily, almost affectionately. They had been together on the ship for ten years and, as they controlled the highly saleable stores on the ship, between them they had swindled the Admiralty and the British public out of some thousands of pounds.”

“Murray lowered his hand and place it on the silver pommel of his sword. ‘I am charging you with piracy on the high seas. You will be tried in London. When you are found guilty you will be hanged at Execution Dock, and I doubt if even your government will raise any objection.‘”

“A sickly dawn light on the mouth of the English Channel, and a bitter north wind. HMS Sentinel, ice in her masts, bucking and heaving as the long Atlantic rollers met the tide pouring down from the North Sea.”

“The black rocks of Ushant far astern, the ragged coast of Spain to port; off Corunna, Sentinel’s bows swinging south, to faraway lands and the sun.”

“Lyapo’s captors were stragglers from a Dahomey warband which had struck east, slave-hunting. For a day or so they wandered aimlessly through the countryside looking for more slaves but all they found were ruined, smoking villages.”

“A dozen canoes left the island the next morning, some of them enormous vessels capable of carrying a hundred people. All the canoes had slaves on board. Lyapo tried to count them, hiding his hands between his knees as the ticked off the numbers.”