Page:A Dissuasion from the Slave Trade.djvu/29

 obtained his end, having filled his vessel with Slaves, a new difficulty arose from their refusal to take food: Those desperate creatures chusing rather to die with hunger than to be carried from their native country." Upon a further enquiry how he got them to forego this desperate resolution, he answered, "That he obliged all the Negroes to come on deck, where they persisting in their resolution of not taking food, he caused his sailors to lay hold on one of the most obstinate, who chopped the poor creature into small pieces, forcing some of the others to eat a part of the mangled body; swearing to the survivors, that he would use them all one after the other in the same manner if they did not consent to eat." This horrid execution he applauded as a good act, it having had the desired effect in causing them to take food.

" detestable and shocking as these usages to the poor Negroes may appear to such whose hearts are not yet hardened by the practise of that cruelty which the love of wealth by degrees introduceth into the human mind, it will not be strange to those who have been concerned or employed in the Trade."