beat them with; they at the same time, having both legs in irons, an iron collar about their necks, and a chain; and when on the coast of Guinea, if not released before their arrival there from their confinement, they were put into the boats, and made to row backwards and forwards, either with the captain from ship to ship, or on any other duty, still both legs in irons, an iron collar about their necks, with a chain locked to the boat, and taken out when no other duty was required of them at night, and locked fast upon the open deck, exposed to the heavy rains and dews, without any thing to lie upon, or any thing to cover them. This was a practice on board the Peggy.

He says, also, that similar treatment prevailed on board the Sally, another ship in which he sailed. One of the seamen had both legs in irons, and a collar about his neck, and was chained to the boat for three months, and very often inhumanly beaten for complaining of his situation, both by the captain and other officers. At last he became so weak that he could not sit upon the thwart or seat of the boat to row, or do anything else. They then put him out of the boat, and made him pick oakum on board the ship, with only three pounds of bread a week, and half a pound of salt beef per day. He remained in that situation, with both his legs in irons, but the latter part of the time without a collar. One evening he came aft, during the middle passage, to beg something to eat, or he should die. The captain on this inhumanly beat him, and used a great number of reproaches, and ordered him to go forward, and die and be damned. The man died in the night. The ill treatment on board the Sally was general.

As another particular instance, a landsman, one Edw. Hilton, was in the boat watering, and complained of his being long in the boat without meat or drink. The boatswain, being the officer, beat him with the boat's tiller, having nothing else, and cut his head in several places, so that when he came on board he was all over blood. Mr. Towne asked him the reason of it. Hilton began to tell

him, but before he could properly tell the story, the mate came forward, (by order of the captain) the surgeon and the boatswain, and all of them together fell to beating him with their canes. The surgeon struck him on the side of his eye, so that it afterwards mortified, and was lost. He immediately had both his legs put in irons, after he had been so beat that he could not stand. The next morning he was put into the boat on the same duty as before, still remaining with both legs in irons, and locked with a chain to the boat, until such time as he became so weak that he was not able to remain any longer there. He was then put on board the ship, and laid forwards, still in irons, very ill. His allowance was immediately stopped, as it was the surgeon's opinion it was the only method of curing any one of them who complained of illness. He remained in that situation, after being taken out of the boat, for some weeks after. During this time, Mr. Towne was obliged to go to Junk River, and on his return he inquired for Hilton, and was told that he was lying before the foremast, almost dead. He went and spoke to him, but Hilton seemed insensible. The same day Mr. Towne received his orders to go a second time in the shallop to Junk River. After he had gotten under weigh, the commander

of the shallop was ordered to bring to, and take Hilton in, and leave him on shore any where. He lived that evening and night out, and died early the next morning, and was thrown overboard off Cape Mesurado.

. Mr. Falconbridge, being called upon also to speak to the ill usage of seamen, said that on board the Alexander, Captain M'Taggart, he has seen them tied up and flogged with the cat frequently. He remembers also an instance of an old man, who was boatswain of the Alexander, having one night some words with the mate, when the boatswain was severely beaten, and had one or two of his teeth knocked out. The boatswain said he would jump overboard; upon which he was tied to the rail of the quarter-deck, and a pump-bolt put into his mouth by way of gagging him. He was then untied, put under the half-deck, and a sentinel put over him all night-in the morning he was released. Mr. Falconbridge always considered him as a quiet, inoffensive man. In the same voyage a black boy was beaten every day, and one day, after he was so beaten, he jumped through one of the gun-ports of the cabin into the river. A canoe was lying alongside, which dropped astern and picked him up. Mr. Falconbridge gave him one of his own shirts to put on, and asked him if he did not expect to be devoured by the sharks. The boy said he did, and that it would be much better for him to be killed at once, than to be daily treated with so much cruelty.

Mr. Falconbridge remembers also, on board the same ship, that the black cook one day broke a plate. For this he had a fish-gig darted at him, which would certainly have destroyed him if he had not stooped or dropped down. At another time also, the carpenter's mate had let his pitch-pot catch fire.. He and the cook were accordingly both tied up, stripped and flogged, but the cook with the greatest severity. After that the cook had salt water and cayenne pepper rubbed upon his back. A man also came on board at Bonny, belonging to a little ship, (Mr. Falconbridge believes the captain's name was Dodson, of Liverpool,) which had been overset at New Calabar. This man, when he came on board, was in a convalescent state. He was severely beaten one night, but for what cause Mr. Falconbridge knows not, upon which he came to Mr. Falconbridge for something to rub his back with. Mr. Falconbridge was told by the captain not to give him any thing, and the man was desired to go forward. He went accordingly, and lay under the forecastle. Mr. Falconbridge visited him very often, at which times he complained of his bruises. He died in about three weeks from the time he was beaten. The last words he ever spoke were, after shedding tears, "I cannot punish him," meaning the captain, "but God will." These are the most remarkable instances which Mr. Falconbridge recollects. He says, however, that the ill treatment was so general, that only three in this ship escaped being beaten out of fifty persons.

To these instances, which fell under the eyes of the witnesses now cited, we may add the observations of a gentleman who, though never in the slave-trade, had yet great opportunities of obtaining information upon this subject. Sir George Young remarks, that those seamen whom he saw in the slave-trade,

while on the coast in a man-of-war, complained of their ill treatment, bad feeding, and cruel usage. They all wanted to enter on board his ship. It was likewise the custom for the seamen of every ship he saw at a distance, to come on board him with their boats; most of them quite naked, and threatening to turn pirates if he did not take them. This they told him openly. He is persuaded, if he had given them encouragement, and had had a ship-of-the-line to have manned, he could have done it in a very short time, for they would all have left their ships. He has also received several seamen on board his ship from the woods, where they had no subsistence, but to which they had fled for refuge from their respective vessels.

That the above are not the only instances of barbarity contained in the evidence, and that this barbarous usage was peculiar to, or springing out of the very nature of the trade in slaves, may be insisted on the following accounts:

Captain Thompson concludes from the many complaints he received from seamen, while on the coast, that they are far from being well treated on board the slave-ships. One Bowden swam from the Fisher, of Liverpool, Captain Kendal, to the Nautilus, amidst a number of sharks, to claim his protection. Kendal wrote for the man, who refused to return, saying his life would be endangered. He therefore kept him in the Nautilus till she was paid off, and found him a diligent, willing, active seaman. Several of the crew, he thinks, of the Brothers, of Liverpool, Captain Clark, swam towards the Nautilus, when passing by. Two only reached her. The rest, he believes, regained their own ship. The majority of the crew had the day before come on board the Nautilus, in a boat, to complain of ill usage, but he had returned them with an officer to inquire into and redress their complaints. He received many letters from seamen in slave-ships, complaining of ill usage, and desiring him to protect them, or take them on board. He is inclined to think that ships trading in the produce of Africa, are not so ill used as those in the slave-ships. Several of his own officers gave him the best accounts of the treatment in the Iris, a vessel trading for wood, gums, and ivory, near which the Nautilus lay for some weeks.

Lieutenant Simpson says that on his first voyage, when lying at Fort Appo-. lonia, the Fly Guineaman was in the roads. On the return of the Adventure's boat from the fort, they were hailed by some seamen belonging to the Fly, requesting that they might be taken from on board the Guineaman, and put on board the man-of-war, for that their treatment was such as to make their lives miserable. The boat, by the direction of Captain Parry, was sent to the Fly, and one or two men were brought on board him. In his second voyage, he recollects that on first seeing the Albion Guineaman, she carried a press of sail, seemingly to avoid them, but finding it impracticable, she spoke them; the day after which the captain of the Albion brought a seaman on board the Adventure, whom he wished to be left there, complaining that he was a very riotous and disorderly man. The man, on the contrary, proved very peaceable and well-behaved, nor was there one single instance of his conduct from which he could suppose he merited the character given him. He seemed to rejoice at

quitting the Albion, and informed Mr. Simpson that he was cruelly beaten both by the captain and surgeon; that he was half starved; and that the surgeon neglected the sick seamen, alleging that he was only paid for attending the slaves. He also informed Mr. Simpson that their allowance of provisions was, increased, and their treatment somewhat better when a man-of-war was on the coast. He recollects another instance of a seaman, with a leg shockingly ulcerated, requesting a passage in the Adventure to England; alleging that he was left behind from a Guineaman. He alleged various instances of ill treatment he had received, and coufirmed the account of the sailor of the Albion, that their allowonce of provisions was increased, and treatment better, when a man-of-war was on the coast. During Mr. Simpson's stay at Cape Coast Castle, the Adventure's boat was sent to Annamaboe to the Spy Guineaman; on her return, three men were concealed under her sails, who had left the slaveship; they complained that their treatment was so bad that their lives were miserable on board-beaten and half starved. There were various other instances which escaped his memory. Mr. Simpson says, however, that he has never heard any complaints from West Indiamen, or other merchant ships; on the contrary, they wished to avoid a man-of-war; whereas, if the captain of the Adventure had listened to all the complaints made to him from sailors of slaveships, and removed them, he must have greatly distressed the African trade.

Captain Hall, of the navy, speaking on the same subject, asserts that as to peculiar modes of punishment adopted in Guineamen, he once saw a man chained by the neck in the main top of a slave-ship, when passing under the stern of His Majesty's ship Crescent, in Kingston-Bay, St. Vincent's; and was told by part of the crew, taken out of the ship, at their own request, that the man had been there one hundred and twenty days. He says he has great reason to believe that in no trade are seamen so badly treated as in the slavetrade, from their always flying to men-of-war for redress, and whenever they came within reach; whereas men from West Indian or other trades seldom ap-* ply to a ship-of-war.

The last witness it will be necessary to cite is the Rev. Mr. Newton. This gentleman agrees in the ill usage of the seamen alluded to, and believes that the slave-trade itself is a great cause of it, for he thinks that the real or supposed necessity of treating the negroes with rigor gradually brings a numbness upon the heart, and renders most of those who are engaged in it too indifferent to the sufferings of their fellow-creatures. If it should be asked how it happened that seamen entered for slave-vessels, when such general ill usage there could hardly fail of being known, the reply must be taken from the evidence, "that whereas some of them enter voluntarily, the greater part of them are trepanned, for that it is the business of certain landlords to make them intoxicated, and get them into debt, after which their only alternative is a Guineaman or a gaol."

CHAPTER XI.

SLAVERY IN THE WEST INDIES, 1750 To 1790.

Abstract of Evidence continued.-Slavery in the West Indies from 1750 to 1790.-General estimation and treatment of the Slaves.-Labor of Plantation Slaves-their days of rest, food, clothing, property.-Ordinary punishment by the whip and cowskin.Frequency and severity of these Punishments.-Extraordinary Punishments of various kinds, for nominal offenses.-Capital offenses and Punishments.-Slaves turned off to steal, beg, or starve, when incapable of labor.-Slaves had little or no redress against ill usage.

THE natives of Africa, when bought by European colonists, are generally

esteemed, says Dr. Jackson, a species of inferior beings, whom the right of purchase gives the owner a power of using at his will. Consistently with this definition, we find the evidence asserting, with one voice, that they "have no legal protection against their masters," and of course, that "their treatment varies according to the disposition of their masters." If their masters be good men, says the Dean of Middleham, they are well off, but if not, they suffer. The general treatment, however, is described to be very severe. Some speak more moderately than others upon it, but all concur in the general usage as being bad. Mr. Woolrich, examined on this point, says that he never knew the best master in the West Indies use his slaves so well as the worst master his servants in England; that their state is inconceivable; that it cannot be described to the full understanding of those who have never seen it, and that a sight of some gangs would convince more than all words. Others, again, make use of the words, "used with great cruelty,-like beasts, or worse;" and the Dean of Middleham, after balancing in his mind all his knowledge upon this subject, cannot say, (setting aside on one hand particular instances of great severity, and on the other hand particular instances of great humanity,) that treatment altogether humane and proper was the lot of such as he had either observed or heard of.

To come to a more particular description of their treatment, it will be proper to divide them into different classes. The first may be said to consist of those who are bought for the plantation use. These are artificers of various descriptions, and the field slaves. The second consists of what may be termed in-or-out-door slaves. The former are domestics, both in town and country, and the latter, porters, fishermen, boatmen, and the like.

The field-slaves, whose case is the first to be considered, are called out by day-light to their work. For this purpose the shell blows, and they hurry into the field. If they are not there in time, they are flogged. When put to their work, they perform it in rows, and, without exception, under the whip of drivers, a certain number of whom are allotted to each gang. By these means, the weak are made to keep up with the strong. Mr. Fitzmaurice is sorry to say, that from this cause many of them are hurried to the grave; as the able, even if placed with the weakly to bring them up, will leave them behind, and then the weakly are generally flogged up by the driver. This, however, is the