Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/148

( 114 ) was so bad, that their lives were miserable on board—beaten and half starved.—There were various other instances which escape his memory. Mr. Simpson says, however, that he has never heard any complaints from West Indiamen, or other merchant ships;—on the contrary, they wished to avoid a man of war; whereas, if the captain of the Adventure had listened to all the complaints made to him from sailors of slave-ships, and removed them, he must have greatly distressed the African trade.

Captain Hall, of the navy, speaking on the same subject, asserts, that as to peculiar modes of punishment adopted in Guineamen, he once saw a man chained by the neck in the main top of a slave-ship, when passing under the stern of his Majesty's ship Crescent, in Kingston-Bay, St. Vincent's; and was told by part of the crew, taken out of the ship, at their own request, that the man had been there one hundred and twenty days. He says he has great reason to believe, that in no trade are seamen so badly treated as in the slave-trade, from their flying to men of war for redress, and whenever they come within reach; whereas men from West Indian or other trades seldom apply to a ship of war.

The last evidence, whom perhaps it will appear necessary to cite on this occasion, is the Rev. Mr. Newton, This gentleman agrees in the ill usage of the seamen