They had stated the average height between decks at about five feet and four inches. But Captain Parrey showed, that out of the nine he measured, the height in four of the smallest was only four feet eight inches, and the average height in all of them was but five feet two.
They had asserted that vessels under two hundred tons had no platforms. But by his account the four just mentioned were of this tonnage, and yet all of them had platforms either wholly or in part.
On other points they were found both to contradict themselves and one another. They had asserted, as before mentioned, that if they were restricted to less than two full-grown slaves to a ton, the trade would be ruined. But in examining into the particulars of nineteen vessels, which they produced themselves, five of them only had cargoes equal to the proportion which they stated to be necessary to the existence of the trade. The other fourteen carried a less number of slaves (and they might have taken more on board if they had pleased); so that the average number in the nineteen was but one man and four-fifths to a ton, or ten in a hundred below their lowest standard[A]. One again said, that no inconvenience arose in consequence of the narrow space allowed to each individual in these voyages. Another said, that smaller vessels were more healthy than larger, because, among other reasons, they had a less proportion of slaves as to number on board.
[A]: The falsehood of their statements in this respect was proved again afterwards by facts. For, after the regulation had taken place, they lost fewer slaves and made greater profits.
They were found also guilty of a wilful concealment of such facts, as they knew, if communicated, would have invalidated their own testimony. I was instrumental in detecting them on one of these occasions myself. When Mr. Dalzell was examined, he was not wholly unknown to me; my Liverpool muster-rolls told me that he had lost fifteen seamen out of forty in his last voyage. This was a sufficient ground to go upon; for generally, where the mortality of the seamen has been great, it may be laid down that the mortality of the slaves has been considerable also. I waited patiently till his evidence was nearly closed, but he had then made no unfavourable statements to the house. I desired, therefore, that a question might be put to him, and in such a manner, that he might know that they, who put it, had got a clue to his secrets. He became immediately embarrassed; his voice faltered; he confessed with trembling that he had lost a third of his sailors in his last voyage. Pressed hard immediately by other questions, he then acknowledged that he had lost one hundred and twenty, or a third of his slaves, also. But would he say that these were all he had lost in that voyage? No; twelve others had perished by an accident, for they were drowned. But were no others lost beside the one hundred and twenty and the twelve? None, he said, upon the voyage, but between twenty and thirty before he left the Coast. Thus this champion of the merchants, this advocate for the health and happiness of slaves in the middle passage, lost nearly a hundred and sixty of the unhappy persons committed to his superior care, in a single voyage!
The evidence, on which I have now commented, having been delivered, the counsel summed up on the 17th of June, when the committee proceeded to fill up the blanks in the bill. Mr. Pitt moved that the operation of it be retrospective, and that it commence from the 10th instant. This was violently opposed by Lord Penrhyn, Mr. Gascoyne, and Mr. Brickdale, but was at length acceded to.
Sir William Dolben then proposed to apportion five men to every three tons in every ship under one hundred and fifty tons burden, which had the space of five feet between the decks, and three men to two tons in every vessel beyond one hundred and fifty tons burden, which had equal accommodation in point of height between the decks. This occasioned a very warm dispute, which was not settled for some time, and which gave rise to some beautiful and interesting speeches on the subject.
Mr. William Smith pointed out in the clearest manner many of the contradictions, which I have just stated in commenting upon the evidence; indeed he had been a principal means of detecting them. He proved how little worthy of belief the witnesses had shown themselves, and how necessary they had made the present bill by their own confession. The worthy baronet, indeed, had been too indulgent to the merchants, in the proportion he had fixed of the number of persons to be carried to the tonnage of their vessels. He then took a feeling view of what would be the wretched state of the poor Africans on board, even if the bill passed as it now stood; and conjured the house, if they would not allow them more room, at least not to infringe upon that which had been proposed.
Lord Belgrave (afterwards Grosvenor) animadverted with great ability upon the cruelties of the trade, which he said had been fully proved at the bar. He took notice of the extraordinary opposition which had been made to the bill then before them, and which he believed every gentleman, who had a proper feeling of humanity, would condemn. If the present mode of carrying on the trade received the countenance of that house, the poor unfortunate African would have occasion doubly to curse his fate. He would not only curse the womb that brought him forth, but the British nation also, whose diabolical avarice had made his cup of misery still more bitter. He hoped that the members for Liverpool would urge no further opposition to the bill, but that they would join with the house in an effort to enlarge the empire of humanity; and that, while they were stretching out the strong arm of justice to punish the degraders of British honour and humanity in the East, they would with equal spirit exert their powers to dispense the blessings of their protection to those unhappy Africans, who were to serve them in the West.
Mr. Beaufoy entered minutely into an examination of the information, which had been given by the witnesses, and which afforded unanswerable arguments for the passing of the bill. He showed the narrow space which they themselves had been made to allow for the package of a human body, and the ingenious measures they were obliged to resort to for stowing this living cargo within the limits of the ship. He adverted next to the case of Mr. Dalzell, and showed how one dismal fact after another, each making against their own testimony, was extorted from him. He then went to the trifling mortality said to be experienced in these voyages, upon which subject he spoke in the following words: "Though the witnesses are some of them interested in the trade, and all of them parties against the bill, their confession is, that of the negroes of the windward coast, who are men of the strongest constitution which Africa affords, no less on an average than five in each hundred perish in the voyage,—a voyage, it must be remembered but of six weeks. In a twelvemonth, then, what must be the proportion of the dead? No less than forty-three in a hundred, which is seventeen times the usual rate of mortality; for all the estimates of life suppose no more than a fortieth of the people, or two and a half in the hundred, to die within the space of a year. Such then is the comparison. In the ordinary course of nature the number of persons, (including those in age and infancy, the weakest periods of existence,) who perish in the space of a twelvemonth, is at the rate of but two and a half in a hundred; but in an African voyage, notwithstanding the old are excluded and few infants admitted, so that those who are shipped are in the firmest period of life, the list of deaths, presents an annual mortality of forty-three in a hundred. It presents this mortality even in vessels from the windward coast of Africa; but in those which sail to Bonny, Benin, and the Calabars, from whence the greatest proportion of the slaves are brought, this mortality is increased by a variety of causes, (of which the greater length of the voyage is one,) and is said to be twice as large which supposes that in every hundred the deaths annually amount to no less than eighty-six. Yet even the former comparatively low mortality; of which the counsel speaks with so much satisfaction, as a proof of the kind and compassionate treatment of the slaves, even this indolent and lethargic destruction gives to the march of death seventeen times its usual speed. It is a destruction, which, if general but for ten years, would depopulate the world, blast the purposes of its creation, and extinguish the human race."