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Thus it appears evident, that great numbers of these people are brought every year to an untimely end; many of them being persons who never injured us.

Where the innocent suffer under hard

doubt but that the sighs and the tears extorted from them by the iron hand of oppression, are noticed by that gracious and impartial Being, who made of one blood all the families of the earth, and who declares himself to be the refuge of the poor, the refuge of the needy in his distress.

Since the enactment of laws for the abolishment of the foreign slave trade and declaring it piracy, it has claimed but a small share of the public attention, and the idea seems to have obtained considerable currency, that it had nearly ceased. But the truth is, that not only the extent of the traffic is greatly increased, but the horrors and cruelties attendant on its prosecution are dreadfully aggravated. The trade being contraband, the vessels employed in it are constructed for fast sailing, in order to elude the vigilance of the cruisers who are watching them. This mode of construction diminishes the space allowed the poor slaves and increases their sufferings to a frightful degree, while the laws which regulated the number of slaves taken on board, in proportion to the tonnage of the vessel, and made some other humane provisions to lessen their sufferings, are of course all inoperative. Thus the wretched victims of this abominable traffic are wholly at the mercy of a class of men, who seem actuated only by cupidity and the worst passions which degrade the human species.

hearted men, even unto death, and the channels of equity are so obstructed, that the cause of the sufferers is not judged in righteousness, "the land is polluted with blood."

Where blood hath been shed unrighteously,

We have already said that many of the slaves were prisoners of war:

These wars are not the consequence of a disposition naturally quarrelsome, but are the immediate offspring of cupidity, sharpened up and roused to action by the arrival of a slave ship. Others of these wretched beings are the innocent victims of a corrupt system of jurisprudence, which owes its existence to the same fruitful source of human misery. This unjust system places the poor natives wholly at the mercy of the petty despots who rule the country. He who has enriched himself by his industry, or who has a numerous family of fine children, the sale of which would produce a handsome sum, seldom escapes the notice of his chieftain. Crimes are invented and promoted, and accusations multiplied, solely with the hope of procuring condemnations, the punishment annexed to which is, 'Sale to the Slave Merchant.' Many are the victims of a system of avowed rapine and plunder-peacefully pursuing their agricultural or mechanical occupations, they are seized by ruffians who had concealed themselves in ambush, are gagged, bound, and borne away to the slave ship. All these are the effects of the strong temptations held out by the white men who visit their shores, to procure cargoes of slaves; for the natives, when unprovoked by their artifices, evince mild and pacific dispositions; but no sooner does a ship drop The following statements founded mainly on anchor, than avarice, hatred, revenge, and all the official documents, will give some idea of the pre-malevolent passions which agitate the human sent state of the foreign slave-trade. breast, seem at once roused into action. It appears that after making ample allowance Upon the authority of Mungo Parke, an eye for all doubtful cases, not less than one hundred witness of the facts, and whose interesting travels and fifty thousand slaves are annually imported in Africa are before the public, we state the folfrom Africa into Cuba, Brazil and Porto Rico, be-lowing facts:-Those who are captured or stolen sides a large number, (not less than fifty thousand in the vicinity of the sea coast, suffer comparamore) who are carried every year to Texas, the tively but little from the fatigue of travelling; but United States and other countries. such as are brought from the interior of the counAs these slaves are chiefly the victims of rapine, try endure the most grievous sufferings during a or prisoners taken in predatory warfare, the num-journey of several moons, over rugged rocks and ber who are killed in procuring them is great, not less probably than those who are captured. During the long forced marches to the sea coast, over burning sands, destitute of food and of water, and subjected to great cruelties, vast numbers perish; and while waiting for a market at the places of deposit on the sea-board, contagious diseases and sickness occasioned by grief, confinement and starvation, occasion great mortality.

burning sands, and through inhospitable and dangerous deserts. They are secured by locking the right leg of one and the left leg of another in the same pair of fetters, which they must support by a string in order to enable them to walk without very great torture. Every four slaves are tied together by a rope of strong twisted thongs, passed round their necks, and at night an additional pair of fetters is put upon their hands. The scorching heat of the sun and sand, the weight of their irons, added to the burdens which they are compelled to carry, weary and oppress them to so dreadful a degree as to induce sickness, vomiting, and frequently fainting; but regardless of their sufferings, they are goaded and spurred along by the cruel Thus we are warranted in the conclusion, that application of the lacerating lash, till many actually at a moderate estimate, for the two hundred thou- expire under their complicated miseries. sand slaves annually taken from Africa, three In an investigation into the character and hundred thousand are sacrificed, and that the con-effects of the slave-trade, which took place before tinent is thus despoiled of half a million of its in- a committee of the British Parliament, numerous witnesses who were examined under the solemn 55

On the passage across the Atlantic, it is well ascertained, that the deaths are fully twenty-five per cent. of the whole number shipped; and of those who are landed at the places of destination, twenty per cent. die in the seasoning and from other causes.

habitants every year.

VOL. IV.-No. 11.

and remains unatoned for, the cry thereof is be enabled, that which lieth heavy on my very piercing. mind.

Under the humbling dispensations of Divine Providence, this cry hath deeply affected my heart, and I feel a concern to open, as I may

When "the iniquity of the house of Israel and of Judah was exceedingly great, when the land was defiled with blood, and the

through the little crevices of the gratings, has been compared by some of the witnesses, to that which issues from the mouth of a furnace. Many of them fainting from the heat, stench and corrupted air, have been brought upon deck in a dying state, while others have actually expired of suffocation, who but a few hours before were in apparent health. Horrible as this description may appear, many circumstances are omitted which would greatly aggravate it. We can refer to the most credible testimony for cases, where they have been afflicted with contagious diseases, especially the flux, when, says one of the witnesses, the floor of their prison was covered with blood and mucus like that of a slaughter-house.-See the Evidence before the Committee of Parliament before refer

obligation of an oath or affirmation, agree in stating
that when on board the vessels, the slaves appear
melancholy and dejected, that many continue so
during the whole of the voyage, and that their
dejection evidently arises from the anguish of
their feelings on being separated forever from
their country, their homes, their beloved families
and friends. From the same respectable and au-
thentic source we draw the following information:
The men are chained together in pairs-the right
leg of one is fettered to the left leg of another, in
which situation they are stowed into the hold of
the vessel-the women and children, however, are
not chained and ironed like the men. When the
weather is fair, they are brought up out of their
prisons for the benefit of a pure air, and to take
their meals. For this purpose the men are dis-red to.
tributed on the deck in long rows, two by two,
from head to stern, but to prevent their rising, and
to secure them from jumping overboard, which
they often attempt, a long chain is passed through
the irons of each couple and locked down to the
deck at both ends.

It is not surprising that these poor creatures, groaning under the horrors of such complicated misery should seek that relief in death, which they have no reason to hope for from any other source, and hence it is that opportunities for destroying themselves are anxiously watched for and seized with an avidity almost beyond belief. The most common method of effecting this, is by throwing themselves into the sea, although every avenue of escape by such means is carefully guarded. The men are not only locked to the deck as before mentioned, but strong nettings are fastened around the ship which reach from the deck to a considerable height in the rigging. But notwithstanding these precautions, and the terrible example of shooting some who attempt to leap overboard, the instances where they thus destroy themselves are numerous, and where they are frustrated in the attempt this way, they resort to other means to ob

When the vessel is full, their condition is wretched indeed. In the best regulated ships, a full grown man has no more space allowed him to lie upon than sixteen inches, which is less than he would have in a coffin-while the height of the apartment is about thirty-two inches. There are few vessels, however, in which even this limited space is allowed them. In many they are so closely stowed that the poor creatures are compelled to lie upon their sides, while the top of the hold in which they are crammed is so very low as wholly to prevent their sitting upright. Beside all these evils, they are entirely naked, and lie upon the bare boards, in which situation the con-tain their object. The keenest foresight on the part stant motion of the vessel bruises and excoriates different parts of their bodies-the rubbing of their irons lacerates and inflames their legs, occasioning constant torture, from which they can seldom procure even the smallest intermission.

of their oppressors cannot always prevent them. When ropes have been left about the deck, some have seized the opportunity and strangled themselves-when small instruments, or even pieces of iron have come within their reach, others have been discovered to have made mortal wounds with them upon their bodies, and many to whom all these means have failed, resolutely refuse to take any sustenance, when after pining in great misery for several days, the welcome hand of death has at last terminated their sufferings. Numerous are the instances of females of very delicate temperament of body and mind, whose feelings are more tender, and who have a more acute sense of their situation, but possess less resolution, where a continually increasing melancholy has terminated in madness, in which pitiable condition they have re

But horrible beyond all description, are the agonies which they endure, when it blows a heavy gale, and the hatches and gratings are of necessity shut down. No language can possibly portray even a faint picture of their deplorable condition. In the extremity of anguish they are often heard to cry out in the language of their country, "We are dying! We are dying!" Imagine to yourselves several hundreds of human beings shut up close in the hold of a vessel in a warm climate, the circulation of air wholly excluded, while the heat, the excretions of their bodies, and the filth of the boards they lie upon, are emitting the most noi-mained for the short remnant of their days. Such some effluvia-add to this, the dreadful effects of the increased motion of the vessel, the shrieks of the swooning, and the groans of the dying, and your imagination may present some idea of what these miserable beings are compelled to suffer in a voyage to our country. The steam which comes at this time from their bodies, and which ascends

are the melancholy scenes which are continually passing on board the slave ships from the period of leaving the coast of Africa, until they arrive at the place of destination, during which time a considerable mortality occurs. From the evidence before quoted, it appears that out of seven thousand nine hundred and four slaves who sailed with

city full of perverseness; some were found they become general, that people growing sighing and crying for the abominations of bold through the example one of another, the times." And those who live under a right have often been unmoved at the most serious feeling of our condition as a nation, I trust warnings. will be sensible that the Lord at this day doth call to mourning, though many are ignorant of it. So powerful are bad customs when

the witnesses at different times, two thousand and fifty-three perished in the short space of six or eight weeks, though all of them were young and healthy when brought on board—the oldest slave seldom being more than twenty-five years of age. What a murderous, what a cruel devastation of the human race is hereby occasioned! What an impious rebellion against the will and the designs of a beneficent Providence!

Our blessed Saviour speaking of the people of the old world, said, "They eat, they drank, they married and were given in marriage,

She left Havre for the coast of Africa, where she arrived and anchored before Bonny, in the river Calabar, and took in a cargo of slaves, contrary to the French law for the abolition of the trade. She soon after sailed with them for Gaudaloupe. In about a fortnight, when the vessel had nearly reached the Equator, a dreadful ophthalmia, sore eyes, broke out among the negroes, and spread with alarming rapidity. By the advice of the surIt is impossible that men can frequently partici-geon to the ship, the negroes, who till then had pate in such scenes as those we have been endeav-been confined to the hold, were successively ouring to describe, without becoming hardened in brought upon deck, in order that they might cruelty and in wickedness. There is no doubt that breathe a purer air; but it soon became necessary many when they first commence this diabolical to abandon this salutary measure, for many of employ, find it necessary to suppress and stifle the them leaped into the sea, embracing each other, feelings of humanity; but every suppression of undaunted by the severity of the captain, who benevolent feeling does violence to the tenderness made a terrible example by shooting some and of the human heart; it steels and blunts its virtu- hanging others who attempted it. The danger of ous sensibility, and prepares it for the commission the disease, and probably the cause of the contaof acts of greater atrocity. Such is precisely thegion were increased, by a violent dysentery, which case of slave traders. By degrees they are brought to view with indifference, and then to perpetrate acts of the most shocking barbarity-acts, the bare recital of which would cause a feeling mind to shudder with abhorrence.-They are taught by repeated cruelties, to regard the cries, the tears, and the sufferings of a fellow-creature whom they have purchased, no more than they would the drowning of a fly! To the truth of our assertions let the following facts testify:

now broke out among them. The disorder increased daily, as well as the number of those who became blind; and it spread with such alarming rapidity among the crew, that in a little time there was only one man left who could steer the ship. At this period a large ship approached the Rodeur, which appeared to be totally at the mercy of the winds and waves. She was the Spanish slave ship St. Leon. Her crew, hearing the voices of the Rodeur's men, cried out most vehemently for help. They told the melancholy tale as they passed along, that the contagion had seized the eyes of all on board, and that there was not one individual left, either sailor or slave, who could see! But alas-this pitiable tale of woe was utterly in vain-no help could be given them-the St. Leon passed on and was never heard of more!

"At length by a concurrence of very favourable circumstances, and the skill and perseverance of one man, who only preserved his sight unimpaired, the Rodeur reached Gaudaloupe. By this time thirty-nine of the slaves had become blind, twelve had lost one eye and fourteen were affected with blemishes. Out of the crew consisting of twentytwo, twelve had lost their sight, among whom was the surgeon, five had become blind of one eye, and

"On board a foreign ship called the Zong, many of the slaves had died, and the mortality was spreading so rapidly that the captain began to fear he should lose them all. He therefore came to the diabolical resolution of selecting those who were the most sickly and throwing them into the sea, conceiving that if he could plead a necessity for the deed, the loss of the slaves would fall upon the underwriters. The plea which he proposed to set up, was want of water, though neither the crew nor the slaves had been put upon allowance. He selected accordingly one hundred and thirty-two of the most sickly, fifty-four of whom were immediately thrown overboard, and forty-two on the succeeding day. But here the wretch was left without the shadow of an excuse, for a shower of rain came on, which lasted for three days. Notwith-four others were partially injured. standing this, the remaining twenty-six were "Now what will the reader suppose was the brought on deck to share the same fate. The first first act of this captain and crew when they sixteen submitted to be thrown into the sea, but found themselves safely entering the port of Gauthe remainder would not permit any of the crew daloupe? Doubtless he will imagine they were to touch them, but leaped in after their compan-employed in returning unfeigned thanks to God ions. These circumstances were all fully proved for so signal and so unmerited a deliverance. But before a court of justice, held at Guildhall, in London, in the prosecution of a suit brought to recover their value from the insurers-the result of which however, was, that the loss was adjudged to fall upon the owners.

"The case of the Rodeur, captain B, a French vessel of two hundred tons burden, is remarkable.

he will mistake if he thinks so. They possessed neither gratitude to God nor humanity towards his creatures. Destitute of every virtuous and tender feeling, they evinced their impious ingratitude by absolutely throwing into the sea all those slaves, to the number of thirty-nine, who were incurably blind. This they did upon the wicked plea that if

until the day that Noah went into the ark," This was the sin of Sodom, pride, fulness and the flood came and destroyed them all." of bread, and abundance of idleness was The like he spoke concerning the people of found in her, and in her daughters; neither Sodom, who are also represented by the pro- did she strengthen the hands of the poor and phet, as haughty, luxurious and oppressive; needy."

they carried them on shore nobody would purchase them, and they would of course be at the expense of their maintenance; and further, by feigning an act of necessity, they might claim their value from the underwriters."

slaves in casks and thrown them into the sea; an
apprehension which is corroborated by the reflec-
tion, that had he thrown them overboard without
some such covering, their bodies would in all pro-
bability have met the view of the officers and crew
of the Tartar, and disclosed the horrid catastrophe.
But alas! it was now too late to attempt any plan
for rescuing them. The chase had carried them
many leagues to the windward of the casks, and
should they even fall in with them, which was
scarcely possible, there was not the smallest pro-
bability of finding any of the wretched negroes
alive, for the casks being tight they must have
perished from suffocation. See Papers laid on the
table of the House of Commons-Report of Sir
George Collier-Speech of Duc de Boglie-Re-
port of African Institution, vol. 16.
The schooner Don Morales, master, ar-

The number of slaves on board being greatly disproportioned to the stowage of the schooner, he was obliged from the first to issue short rations of water and rice, in consequence of which some of the slaves evinced some signs of discontent. Morales, deaf to their wants, kept them all below for three days without food of any kind, and with a barbarity unparalleled except among slave traders, discharged all the fire arms in his vessel among the wretched beings, bound down and chained to gether as they were. Some of the sailors presumed to interfere, but the barbarian silenced their complaints by killing the foremost of them with his sabre. He then made sail again for the Rio Pongos, where, with the assistance of the slave factors, he got every thing put to rights, took in slaves to supply the number he had killed, and bore away for Havanna.

Sir George Collier of the Tartar frigate, gave chase to a vessel supposed to be a slave ship. In the course of the chase several casks were observed to be floating in the sea, which the Tartar passed. After a long pursuit they boarded her, and she proved to be the La Jeune Estelle, of Martinique, Olympia Sanguines, master. The captain declared that he had no slaves on board, having been plundered of them by a Spanish pirate. The agitation and alarm which marked every countenance on board the vessel, excited strong suspicions in the mind of the chief officer of the Tartar, and he ordered the hold to be searched. During the examination one of the sailors hap-rived in the Rio Pongos, where she took on board pened to strike a cask which was tightly closed two hundred slaves. Our informant states, that up, when he heard a faint sound issue from it like Morales while trading for the cargo, exhibited the voice of some creature expiring. The cask many instances of savage ferocity toward the was immediately opened, when two slave girls, slaves, but after leaving the river, his cruelty about twelve or fourteen years of age, in the last seems to have had full scope. stage of suffocation were found packed up in it. They were carried on board the Tartar, revived by the fresh air, and were thus saved from a miserable death. These girls, when brought on the deck of the Tartar, were recognised by a person who had seen them in their own country, and who had been taken from another slave ship, as being the property of captain Richards, of the schooner Swift, of New York. An investigation afterwards took place, in the course of which, it appeared in evidence that captain Richards had died at Trade town on the coast of Africa, leaving behind him fourteen slaves of whom these girls were a part; and that after his death, captain Sanguines had landed his men armed with swords and pistols, and carried off the whole fourteen slaves on board the Jeune Estelle. Sir George Collier conceiving that the other twelve might possibly be concealed in the vessel, ordered her re-searched. The result was Captain Hayes, R. N., mentions the case of a that a negro man, not however of the twelve, was slaver, having a large cargo of human beings rescued from death. A platform of loose boards chained together: The master of the vessel, had been raised upon the water casks of the ves- with more humanity than his fellows, permitted sel, forming a between-decks of about twenty-some of them to come on deck, but still chained three inches in height, which was the intended receptacle of the cargo of human beings which captain Sanguines designed to procure. Beneath this platform, with one of the boards resting upon his body, jammed into the crevice between two water casks, was found this wretched negro, in a situation so extremely distressing, that it was matter of great astonishment to find him alive. The scarch for the other twelve proving fruitless, the officers and crew of the Tartar recollected with feelings of horror the casks which they had seen floating on the ocean; the painful conviction now forced itself upon their minds that the captain, fearing lest he should be captured by the Tartar and detained, had during the chase, packed up his

together, for the benefit of the air, when they immediately commenced jumping overboard, hand in hand, and drowning in couples.' He explains the cause of this circumstance by saying, they were just brought from a situation between decks, and to which they knew they must return, where the scalding perspiration was running from one to the other, covered also with their own filth, and where it is no uncommon occurrence for women to be bringing forth children, and men dying by their side, with, full in their view, living and dead bodies chained together, and the living, in addition to all their other torments, labouring under the most famishing thirst, being in very few instances allowed more than a pint of water a day.' He

In a revolt so deep as this, when much love the heart is enlarged towards mankind blood has been shed unrighteously, in carry-universally, and prepared to sympathize with ing on the slave trade, and in supporting the strangers, though in the lowest stations in life. practice of keeping slaves, which at this day is unatoned for, and crieth from the earth and from the seas against the oppressor; while this practice is continued, and under a great load of guilt there is more unrighteousness committed, the state of things is very moving.

There is a love which stands in nature, and a parent beholding his child in misery hath a feeling of the affliction; but in Divine

goes on to say, "I have now an officer on board the Dryad,' who, on examining one of these slavevessels, found not only living men chained to dead bodies, but the latter in a putrid state; and we have now a case which, if true, is too horrible and disgusting to be described."

In a letter from captain Wauchope, dated 13th of eighth month, 1838, he says, "In second month, 1836, I was informed by Commander Puget, that the Spanish slaver, Argus, three months before this date, was chased by the Charybdis, Lieutenant Mercer; that during the chase ninety-seven slaves had been thrown overboard, and that a Spanish captain he had captured, declared he would never hesitate to throw the slaves overboard, to prevent being taken."

"Captain Wauchope in the same letter informs, that on the 18th of ninth month, 1836, the Thalia captured the Portuguese brig Felix, five hundred and ninety slaves on board. After capture,' he says, "I went on board, and such a scene of horror it is not easy to describe; the long-boat on the booms, and the deck aft, were crowded with little children, sickly, poor little unhappy things, some of them rather pretty, and some much marked and tattoed; much pains must have been taken by their miserable parents to ornament and beautify them.

"The women lay between decks aft, much crowded, and perfectly naked; they were not barred down, the hatchway, a small one, being off; but the place for the men was too horrible, the wretches, chained two and two, gasping and striving to get at the bars of the hatchways, and such a steam and stench as to make it intolerable even to look down. It requires much caution at first, in allowing them to go on deck, as it is a common practice for them to jump overboard to get quit of their misery.

Of this the prophet appears to have had a feeling, when he said, "Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? Why then do we deal treacherously every man with his brother, in profaning the covenant of our fathers?"

He who of old heard the groans of the children of Israel under the hard task-masters in Egypt, I trust hath looked down from his holy habitation on the miseries of these deep

"The Carolina, captured in 1834, off Wydah. This vessel was only seventy-five tons burden, yet she had three hundred and fifty negroes crammed on board of her, one hundred and eighty of whom were literally so stowed as to have barely sufficient height to hold themselves up, when in a sitting posture. The poor creatures crowded round their deliverers, with their mouths open and their tongues parched for want of water, presenting a perfect spectacle of human misery.

"In a letter from the Cape of Good Hope, of date 20th of first month, 1837, we find it stated that the British brig Dolphin, had lately captured the corvette Incomprehensible; and that on taking possession of her, the scene presented on board was harrowing in the extreme. One hundred had died from sickness, out of the eight hundred embarked; another hundred were lying nearly lifeless on her decks, in wretchedness and misery, and all the agony of despair; the remaining six hundred were so cramped from the close manner in which they were packed, like herrings in a barrel, and the length of time they had been on their voyage, and the cold they had endured in rounding the Cape, in a state of nudity, that it took the utmost exertions of the English sailors, favoured by a hot sun, to straighten them.'

In a letter from Colonel Nicolls, at the Bahamas, of date 1st of eighth month, 1837, it is stated that 'the Esperanza, a Spanish slave schooner, had been wrecked on one of these islands during the preceding month. It was ascertained that this vessel had embarked three hundred and twenty negroes on the coast of Africa; of these only two hundred and twenty were landed at the time of the wreck. It appears that between sixty and seventy murders had been committed during the voyage on the helpless Africans; and in this manner:- -When any of the slaves refused their food or became sick, the boatswain's mate, with a weighty club struck them on the back of the

"The slave-deck was not more than three feet six inches in height, and the human beings stowed, or rather crushed as close as possible; many ap-neck, when they fell, and were thrown overboard." peared very sickly. There was no way of getting into the slave-room but by the hatchway. I was told, when they were all on deck to be counted, that it was impossible for any of our people to go into the slave-room for a single minute, so intolerable was the stench. The colour of these poor creatures was of a dark squalid yellow, so different from the fine glossy black of our liberated Af ricans and Kroomen. I was shown a man much bit and bruised; it was done in a struggle at the gratings of their hatchways, for a mouthful of fresh air.'

Shocking as these details are, the truth of them is indisputable; and while a system exists which inflicts such sufferings upon our innocent fellowcreatures, it cannot be a matter of indifference or unconcern to us. But especially are we called upon deeply to ponder this affecting subject, and to dwell under the weight of it, by the fact that our own country is implicated, in no small degree in the guilt of the traffic, it being well ascertained that American vessels, American capital and American citizens, are employed in its prosecution.

[Editors.

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