Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/141

( 107 ) them with pickles made use of certain vulgar expressions. Mr. Moriey also himself, when he was Dixon's cabin-boy, for accidentally breaking a glass, was tied to the tiller by the hands, flogged with a cat, and kept hanging for some time.

Mr. Morley has seen the seamen lie and die upon deck. They are generally, he says, treated ill when sick. He has known men ask to have their wounds or ulcers dressed; and has heard the doctor, with oaths, tell them to take their own dung and dress them.

Mr. Ellison also, in describing the treatment in the Briton, says, there was a boy on board, whom Wilson, the chief mate, was always beating. One morning, in the passage out, he had not got the tea-kettle boiled in time for his breakfast, upon which, when it was brought, Wilson told him he would severely flog him after breakfast. The boy, for fear of this, went into the lee fore chains. When Wilson came from the cabin, and called for Paddy, (the name he went by, being an Irish boy) he would not come, but remained in the fore chains; on which Wilson going forward, and attempting to haul him in, the boy jumped overboard, and was drowned.

Another time, on the Middle Passage, the same Wilson ordered one James Allison, (a man he had been continually beating for trifles) to go into the women's room to scrape it. Allison said he was not able, for he was very unwell; upon which Wilson obliged him to go down. Observing, however, that the man did not work, he asked him the reason, and was answered as before, " that he was not able." Upon this, Wilson threw a handspike at him, which struck him on the breast, and he dropped down to appearance dead. — Allison recovered afterwards a little, but died the next day.

Mr. Ellison relates other instances of ill usage on board his own ship, and with respect to instances in others, he says, that in all slave ships they are most O 2