When they left the vessel, they proposed going to Old Calabar, being determined to perish, rather than return to the ship. All the provisions they took with them was, a bag containing about half a hundred weight of bread, half a small cheese, and a cask of water of about 38 gallons. They made a sail of a hammock, and erected one of the boat’s oars for a mast. Thus slenderly provided, they dropped down the river of Bonny, and kept along the coast; but mistaking one river for another, they were seized by the natives, who stripped them, and marched them across the country, for a considerable distance, to the place to which they themselves intended going. During the march, several were taken ill, and some of them died. Those who survived, were sold to an English ship which lay there. Every one of these deserters, except three, died on the coast, or during their passage to the West-Indies; and one of the remaining three died soon after his arrival there. So that only two out of the whole number, lived to arrive in England, and those in a very infirm state of health.
While I am upon the subject of the desertions among the sailors, I must add, that the captains in this trade generally take out with them tobacco and slops, which they sell at an exorbitant price to the sailors. And in case of their desertion or decease, they have it in their power to charge to the seamens accounts, whatever quantity they please, without contradiction. This proves an additional reason for cruel usage. In case of desertion, the sailors forfeit their wages, by which the expences of the voyage are lessened, and consequently the merchants reap benefit from it.
The relation just given of the barbarities exercised by the officers in the slave trade, upon the seamen under their command, may appear to those who are unacquainted with the method in which this iniquitous branch of commerce is conducted, to be exaggerated. But I can assure them, that every instance is confined within the strictest bounds of truth. Many others may likewise be brought to prove, that those I have recited are by no means singular. Indeed, the reverse of this conduct would be esteemed a singularity. For the common practice of the officers in the Guinea trade, I am sorry to say it, will, with a very few exceptions, justify the assertion, that to harden the feelings, and to inspire a delight in giving torture to a fellow creature, is the natural tendency of this unwarrantable traffick. It is but justice however, that I except from this general censure, one captain with whom I sailed. Upon all occasions I found him to be a humane and considerate man, and ever ready to alleviate the evils attendant on the trade, as far as they were to be lessened.
The annual diminution of British seamen by all the foregoing causes, is what next claims attention, and upon due investigation will be found, I fear, to be much more considerable than it is generally supposed to be. As this is a question of great national importance, and cannot fail to evince the necessity of an abolition of the slave trade; in order to convey to the public some idea of the destructive tendency of it, I will give an account of the statement of the loss of a ship, to which I belonged, during one of her voyages. And though this statement may not be considered as an average of the loss upon each voyage, which I have before estimated, as I would not wish to exceed the mark, at one fourth, and oftentimes one third. I have known instances where it has been greatly exceeded, as I shall presently shew.
The crew of the ship I speak of, upon its departure from England, consisted of forty-six persons, exclusive of the captain, chief mate, and myself. Out of this number, we lost on the coast eleven by desertion (of whom only two, and those in a very infirm state, ever arrived in England) and five by death. Three perished in the middle passage, of whom one was a passenger. In the West-Indies, two died, one of which was a passenger from Bonny. Five were discharged at their own request, having been cruelly treated, and five deserted, exclusive of two who shipped themselves at Bonny; of these ten, several were in a diseased state; and probably, like most of the seamen who are discharged or desert from the Guinea ships in the islands, never returned to their native country. One died in our passage from the West-Indies to England; and one, having been rendered incapable of duty, was sent on board another ship while we lay at Bonny.
Thus, out of the forty-six persons before-mentioned, only fifteen returned home in the ship. And several, out of this small number, so enervated in their constitution, as to be of little service in future; they were, on the contrary, reduced to the mournful necessity of becoming burthensome to themselves and to others. Of the ten that deserted, or were discharged in the West-Indies, little account can be taken; it being extremely improbable that one half, perhaps not a third, ever returned to this country.
From hence it appears, that there was a loss in this voyage of thirty-one sailors and upwards, exclusive of the two sailors who were passengers, and not included in the ship’s crew. I say a loss of thirty-one, for though the whole of this number did not die, yet if it be considered, that several of those who returned to England in the ship, or who might have returned by other ships, are likely to become a burthen, instead of being useful to the community, it will be readily acknowledged, I doubt not, that the foregoing statement does not exceed reality.
How worthy of serious consideration is the diminution here represented, of a body of people so valuable in a commercial state! But how much more alarming will this be, when it appears, as is really the case, that the loss of seamen in the voyage I am speaking of, is not equal to what is experienced even by some other ships trading to Bonny and Calabar; and much less than by those employed in boating on the Windward Coast; where frequently there happens such a mortality among the crew, as not to leave a sufficient number of hands to navigate the ships to the West-Indies. In the year 1786, I saw a ship, belonging to Miles Barber, and Co. at Cape Monserado, on the Windward Coast, which had lost all the crew except three, from boating; a practice that proves extremely destructive to sailors, by exposing them to the parching sun and heavy dews of Africa, for weeks together, while they are seeking for negroes up the rivers, as before described.
It might naturally be asked, as such are the dangers to which the sailors employed in the slave trade are exposed from the intemperature of the climate, the inconveniencies of the voyage, and the treatment of the officers, how the captains are able to procure a sufficient number to man their ships. I answer, that it is done by a series of finesse and imposition, aided not only by allurements, but by threats.
There are certain public-houses, in which, for interested purposes, the sailors are trusted, and encouraged to run in debt. To the landlords of these houses the captains apply. And a certain number being fixed on, the landlord immediately insists upon their entering on board such a ship, threatening, in case of refusal, to arrest and throw them into prison. At the same time the captain holds out the allurements of a month’s pay in advance above the ships in any other trade, and the promise of satisfying their inexorable landlords. Thus terrified on the one hand by the apprehensions of a prison, and allured on the other by the promised advance, they enter. And by this means a very great proportion of the sailors in the slave trade are procured; only a very small number of landmen are employed. During the several voyages I have been in the trade, I have not known the number to exceed one for each voyage. The few ships that go out in time of war, generally take with them, as other merchant ships do, a greater proportion of landmen. And with regard to apprentices, we had not any on board the ships I sailed in, neither to my knowledge have I ever seen any. So far is this trade from proving a nursery for seamen.