Vox Meditantis

Wednesday, 28th November 1810

You find me here, at the water’s edge, where timber creaks and the Thames runs dark as old blood. ‘Tis a fitting place for a man to meet his end, I reckon, amongst the crates and the cargo, where all things come and go with the tide. I have not much time left – my breath grows short and there is a coldness in my limbs that no fire shall warm again. But I would speak whilst I am able, for there are truths that ought not die with me, though they shall likely be forgot before the week is out.

I have laboured upon these wharves near thirty years, since I was but a lad scarce able to lift a barrel. I have seen ships come in from every corner of the world – sugar from the Indies, timber from the Baltics, tea from the Orient – and I have watched them go out again, laden with English wool and iron. ‘Tis a great wheel, this commerce of ours, turning endless as the seasons. Men are born, they toil, they die, and still the ships come and go. The tide cares not for any man’s name nor his deeds. It rises and falls as it has done since the Flood, and shall do when we are all dust.

There was a choice I made, some years past, that has weighed upon my conscience ever since. You ask what decision has troubled me most? ‘Twas this: I knew of a cargo – human cargo – bound for the plantations. I knew the hold of that ship carried souls in chains, men and women torn from their homes, and I said naught. I did my work. I fastened the ropes, I checked the manifests, I took my wages. There were others who spoke against it, who risked their livelihoods to cry out for justice, but I held my tongue. I told myself ’twas not my place to question the merchants, that I had a wife and children to feed, that one man’s voice should make no difference. But that is the coward’s reasoning, is it not? I chose my own comfort over another’s suffering, and that sin lies heavy upon me now.

I think on all those souls, forgotten now in foreign soil, their names lost, their stories untold. How many hundreds passed through these very docks, and who remembers them? Who shall remember me, come to that? We are all of us forgot in time. The great wheel turns, and grinds us all to nothing. Yet I cannot help but think – and ’tis a terrible thought for a dying man – that God shall not forget. That the accounting shall come, and I must answer for my silence when I ought to have spoken.

The water laps against the pilings below, steady as a heartbeat. Soon enough my own heart shall cease its labour, and I shall know what waits beyond. I pray for mercy, though I deserve it not. If you who hear these words take aught from them, let it be this: the hardest choice is oft the right one, and a man’s true measure is found not in what he gains, but in what he dares to lose for conscience’ sake. I failed that measure. Do not follow my example.

The light grows dim. The cycle ends. God have mercy on my soul.

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.