board. On being discovered by Mr. Millar, he begged for mercy, entreating that he might not be delivered up to the people of New Town. He was brought on the quarter-deck, where were some of the New Town people, who would have killed him, had they not been prevented. The man was then ironed, and conducted into the room of the men slaves.

Soon after this transaction, the captain returned, and brought with him a New Town trader, named Willy. Honesty. On coming on board, he was informed of what had happened in his absence, and Mr. Millar believes, in the hearing of Willy Honesty, who immediately exclaimed, "Captain, if you will give me that man, to cut off his head, I will give you the best man in my canoe, and you shall be slaved the first ship." The captain upon this looked into Willy Honesty's canoe, picked his man, and delivered the other in his stead, when his head was immediately struck off in Mr. Millar's sight.

Mr. Millar believes that some other cruelties, besides this particular act, were done, because he saw blood on the starboard side of the mizzen-mast, though he does not recollect seeing any bodies from whence the blood might come; and others in other ships, because he heard several muskets or pistols fired from them at the same time. This affair might last ten minutes. He remembers a four-pounder fired at a canoe, but knows not whether any damage was done.

As to other acts of injustice on the part of the Europeans, some consider frands (says Mr. Newton) as a necessary branch of the slave-trade. They put false heads into powder casks; cut off two or three yards from the middle of a piece of cloth; adulterate their spirits, and steal back articles given. Besides these, there are others who pay in bottles, which contain but half the contents of the samples shown; use false steelyards and weights, and sell such guns as burst on firing, so that many of the natives of the Windward Coast are without their fingers and thumbs on this account.

CHAPTER X.

AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, CONTINUED.—THE MIDDLE PASSAGE.

Abstract of Evidence before House of Commons, continued.-The enslaved Africans on board the Ships-their dejection.-Methods of confining, airing, feeding and exercising them.-Mode of stowing them, and its horrible consequences.-Incidents of the terrible Middle Passage-shackles, chains, whips, filth, foul air, disease, suffocation.— Suicides by drowning, by starvation, by wounds, by strangling.-Insanity and Death. -Manner of selling them when arrived at their destination.-Deplorable situation of the refuse or sickly Slaves.-Mortality among Seamen engaged in the Slave Trade. Their miserable condition and sufferings from disease, and cruel treatment.

THE

HE natives of Africa having been made slaves in the modes described in the former chapter, are brought down for sale to the European ships. On

being brought on board, says Dr. Trotter, they show signs of extreme distress and despair, from a feeling of their situation, and regret at being torn from their friends and connections; many retain those impressions for a long time; in proof of which, the slaves on board his ship being often heard in the night making a howling melancholy noise, expressive of extreme anguish, he repeatedly ordered the woman who had been his interpreter to inquire into the cause. She discovered it to be owing to their having dreamed they were in their own country again, and finding themselves, when awake, in the hold of a slave-ship. This exquisite sensibility was particularly observable among the women, many of whom, on such occasions, he found in hysteric fits.

The foregoing description, as far as relates to their dejection, when brought on board, and the cause of it, is confirmed by Hall, Wilson, Claxton, Ellison, Towne, and Falconbridge, the latter of whom relates an instance of a young woman who cried and pined away after being brought on board, who recovered when put on shore, and who hung herself when informed she was to be sent again to the ship.

Captain Hall says, after the first eight or ten of them come on board, the men are put into irons. They are linked two and two together by the hands and feet, in which situation they continue till they arrive in the West Indies, except such as may be sick, whose irons are then taken off. The women, however, he says, are not ironed. On being brought up in a morning, says Surgeon Wilson, an additional mode of securing them takes place, for to the shackles of each pair of them there is a ring, through which is reeved a large chain, which locks them all in a body to ring-bolts fastened to the deck. The time of their coming up in the morning, if fair, is described by Mr. Towne to be between eight and nine, and the time of their remaining there to be till four in the afternoon, when they are again put below till the next morning. In the interval of being upon deck they are fed twice. They have also a pint of water allowed to each of them a day, which being divided is served out to them at two different times, namely, after their meals. These meals, says Mr. Falconbridge, consist of rice, yams, and horse-beans, with now and then a little beef and bread. After meals they are made to jump in their irons. This is called dancing by the slave-dealers. In every ship he has been desired to flog such as would not jump. He had generally a cat-of-nine-tails in his hand among the women, and the chief mate, he believes, another among the men. The parts, says Mr. Claxton, (to continue the account,) on which their shackles are fastened, are often excoriated by the violent exercise they are thus forced to take, of which they made many grievous complaints to him. In his ship even those who had the flux, scurvy, and such oedematous swellings in their legs as made it painful to them to move at all, were compelled to dance by the cat. He says, also, that on board his ship they sometimes sung, but not for their amusement. The captain ordered them to sing, and they sung songs of sorrow. The subject of these songs were their wretched situation, and the idea of never returning home. He recollects their very words upon these occasions.

The above account of shackling, messing, dancing,* and singing the slaves, is allowed by all the witnesses, as far as they speak to the same points, except by Mr. Falconbridge, in whose ships the slaves had a pint and a half of water per day.

On the subject of the stowage and its consequences, Dr. Trotter says that the slaves in the passage are so crowded below, that it is impossible to walk through them, without treading on them. Those who are out of irons are locked spoonways (in the technical phrase) to one another. It is the first mate's duty to see them stowed in this way every morning; those who do not get quickly into their places, are compelled by a cat-of-nine-tails.

When the scuttles are obliged to be shut, the gratings are not sufficient for airing the rooms. He never himself could breathe freely, unless immediately under the hatchway. He has seen the slaves drawing their breath with all those laborious and anxious efforts for life, which are observed in expiring. animals, subjected by experiment to foul air, or in the exhausted receiver of an air pump. He has also seen them, when the tarpaulings have inadvertently been thrown over the gratings, attempting to heave them up, crying out in their own language, "We are dying!" On removing the tarpaulings and gratings, they would fly to the hatchway with all the signs of terror and dread of suffocation. Many of them he has seen in a dying state, but some have recovered by being brought hither, or on the deck; others were irrecoverably lost by suffocation, having had no previous signs of indisposition.

Mr. Falconbridge also states on this head, that when employed in stowing the slaves, he made the most of the room and wedged them in. They had not so much room as a man in his coffin, either in length or breadth. It was impossible for them to turn or shift with any degree of ease. He had often occasion to go from one side of their rooms to the other, in which case he always took off his shoes, but could not avoid pinching them; he has the marks on his feet where they bit and scratched him. In every voyage, when the ship was full, they complained of heat and want of air. Confinement in this situation was so injurious, that he has known them to go down apparently in good health at night, and found dead in the morning. On his last voyage he opened a stout man who so died. He found the contents of the thorax and abdomen healthy, and therefore concludes he died of suffocation in the night. He was never among them for ten minutes below together, but his shirt was as wet as if dipped in water.

One of his ships, the Alexander, coming out of Bonny, got aground on the bar, and was detained there six or seven days, with a great swell and heavy rain. At this time the air ports were obliged to be shut, and part of the gratings on the weather side covered: almost all the men slaves were taken illwith the flux. The last time he went down to see them, it was so hot he took off his shirt. More than twenty of them had then fainted, or were fainting.

*The necessity of exercise for health is the reason given for compellng the slaves to dance in the above manner.