I asked him if he was willing to give me any account of these voyages, for that I was making an inquiry into the nature of the Slave Trade. He replied, he knew that I was. He had been cautioned about falling in with me; he had, however, taken no pains to avoid me. It was a bad trade, and ought to be exposed.
I went over the same ground as I had gone with Gardiner relative to the first of these voyages; or that in the Alexander. It is not necessary to detail the particulars. It is impossible, however, not to mention, that the treatment of the seamen on board this vessel was worse than I had ever before heard of. No less than eleven of them; unable to bear their lives; had deserted at Bonny, on the coast of Africa,—which is a most unusual thing,—choosing all that could be endured, though in a most inhospitable climate, and in the power of the natives, rather than to continue in their own ship. Nine others also, in addition to the loss of these, had died in the same voyage. As to the rest; he believed, without any exception, that they had been badly used.
In examining him with respect to his second voyage, or that in the Little Pearl, two circumstances came out with respect to the slaves, which I shall relate in few words.
The chief mate used to beat the men-slaves on very trifling occasions. About eleven one evening, the ship then lying off the coast, he heard a noise in their room. He jumped down among them with the lanthorn in his hand. Two of those who had been ill-used by him, forced themselves out of their irons, and, seizing him, struck him with the bolt of them, and it was with some difficulty that he was extricated from them by the crew.
The men-slaves, unable now to punish him, and finding they had created an alarm, began to proceed to extremities. They endeavoured to force themselves up the gratings, and to pull down a partition which had been made for a sick-birth; when they were fired upon and repressed. The next morning they were brought up one by one; when it appeared that a boy had been killed, who was afterwards thrown into the sea.
The two men, however, who had forced themselves out of irons, did not come up with the rest, but found their way into the hold, and armed themselves with knives from a cask, which had been opened for trade. One of them being called to in the African tongue by a black trader, who was then on board, came up, but with a knife in each hand; when one of the crew, supposing him yet hostile, shot him in the right side and killed him on the spot.
The other remained in the hold for twelve hours. Scalding water mixed with fat was poured down upon him, to make him come up. Though his flesh was painfully blistered by these means, he kept below. A promise was then made to him in the African tongue by the same trader, that no injury should be done him if he would come among them. To this at length he consented; but on observing, when he was about half way up, that a sailor was armed between decks, he flew to him, and clasped him, and threw him down. The sailor fired his pistol in the scuffle, but without effect; he contrived, however, to fracture his skull with the butt end of it, so that the slave died on the third day.
The second circumstance took place after the arrival of the same vessel at St. Vincent's. There was a boy-slave on board, who was very ill and emaciated. The mate, who, by his cruelty, had been the author of the former mischief, did not choose to expose him to sale with the rest, lest the small sum he would fetch in that situation should lower the average price, and thus bring down[A] the value of the privileges of the officers of the ship. This boy was kept on board, and no provisions allowed him.
[A]: Officers are said to be allowed the privilege of one or more slaves, according to their rank. When the cargo is sold, the sum total fetched is put down, and this being divided by the number of slaves sold, gives the average price of each. Such officers, then, receive this average price for one or more slaves, according to their privileges, but never the slaves themselves.
The mate had suggested the propriety of throwing him overboard, but no one would do it. On the ninth day he expired, having never been allowed any sustenance during that time.