Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/153

( 199 ) could be the cause of such actions, and the answer was, "that they would rather die than live in the situation they were in."

Great joy at each other's funerals in the Colonies, but lamentations at home.

As the last proof in the evidence, and that an irrefragable one, how much happier the Africans are in their own country than in the colonies, may be adduced the great joy which is discovered at their funerals by their fellow-slaves, and which joy is said to proceed from the idea that the deceased are returning home.

Mr. Douglas saw three funerals of Guinea slaves in the West Indies. At these funerals, says he, they sing, and are merry, and, naming the deceased, say, he is gone to Guinea.

Great rejoicings, says Cook, are made by African negroes at the funerals of each other, from a belief that the deceased are gone to their own country again.

African negroes, says Forster, shewed the most extravagant joy at their friends funerals, from believing the deceased gone back to their country.

Captain Wilson confirms the above by stating, that he never saw any signs of happiness among the imported slaves, except at their funerals, when they shew extravagant joy, from a persuasion that the deceased is escaped from slavery to his own country. Captain Wilson, however, does not stop here, for he goes on to declare, that in Africa their funerals are attended with the most mournful cries.

Mr. Dalrymple's words upon this subject.

It is impossible to conclude this chapter better than by an extract from the evidence of Mr. Dalrymple.—That gentleman says, he might have had the means of putting his estate in Grenada under cultivation, as he might have had slaves from the house of Backhouse and Tarlton, but having had an opportunity, when on the coast of Africa, of knowing how happy the negroes