When Robert was seven years old, his father had taken him to London, where he had seen the beauty and the horror of his father's world. His father's offices, at the fashionable end of Regent's Street, were ornately decorated and furnished beautifully. Exquisite rugs from Africa and the Empire covered the highly polished floor. A huge gold framed mirror seemed to dominate one wall of the office and the other walls were covered with paintings of ships and exotic looking landscapes.
On the wall directly behind his father's large oak desk was a portrait of his mother which his father told him was painted before Robert was born. THe young boy stared at the image for so long that it became burned into his memory. In thepicture she was sitting on a white, wooden bench in a garden that was bursting with colourful flowers. She was wearing a simple, yet elegant, white dress that came all the way to the ground and around her waist a blue ribbon had been tied. Her long golden hair was tied into a pony tail and fell over her left shoulder. She looked very young in the portarit and even at his tender age he could tell that there were many years age difference between his parents.
Because of his fathers business matters, Robert had been left aalone in the office and as he wondered around looking at all the pictures he heard, through the slightly open window, his fathers distinctive voice. Not, however, the kindly voice he was so familiar with, but a more sinister tone.
"Captain Morgan! To me Sir. Now!" his father's voice sounded full of rage.
Robert moved closer to the window and stood up on a chair so he cold look out into the stone courtyard at the rear of the building. For years later, he wished he had not been so curious.
His father was addressing a man dressed in Merchant Navy attire. Captain Morgan was looking very uncomfortable indeed.
His father continued, "Captain, what are my standing orders regarding the transportation of sick slaves?"
"Sir, I can explain" the captain started.
"I didn't ask you for an explanation Captain Morgan. I asked what my standing orders were. Tell me know Sir."
"That sick slaves are to be seperated from the other livestock and thrown overboard Sir."
"So, you do know the order. I'm curious as to why you disobeyed those orders."
"The boy didn't seem that sick sir and his condition was improving. As a christian, I saw no good reason to murder the boy."
"No reason!" his father erupted with rage. "I shall give you reason Sir. Dysentary Sir. Half the nigger scum on that ship caught it Sir, because youcould not or would not throw one worthless child into the ocean."
Robert could not believe what he was hearing from his own father. He knew that murder was wrong. The vicar, Reverend Wainwright had told him so in his Sunday School classes. Here was his father, talking about throwing a sick child into the ocean to drown. He gazed down into the courtyard again.
"So one boy, who died anyway, cost me money. I will not have an employee make decisions based on his own moral opinions. You Sir, are dismissed."
"Sir, please" the captain began, but before he could protest further, Roberts father brought his cane down onto the sailors chest with such a force that he fell to the ground.
"Do I have to do it agin Captain? his father asked.
The captain just lay there in silent shock.
"I will take that as a no then."
His father turned to an associate who had been standing nearby.
"Get this wretch out of my sight. I shall be in my study"
Robert jumped down from his elevated position by the window. He wanted to hide, to run away, to do anything but see his father in such a rage. He had never seen this side of his father before and he was terrified. He sat down nervously on the chair he had been standing on and realised that he was crying.
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