Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/64

( 34 ) The parts, says Mr. Claxton, (to continue the account) on which their shackles are fastened, are often excoriated by the violent exercise they are thus forced to take, of which they made many grievous complaints to him. In his ship even those who had the flux, scurvy, and such œdematous swellings in their legs as made it painful to them to move at all, were compelled to dance by the cat.

He says also that on board his ship they sometimes sung, but not for their amusement. The captain ordered them to sing, and they sung songs of sorrow. The subject of these songs were their wretched situation, and the idea of never returning home. He recollects their very words upon these occasions.

The above account of shackling, messing, dancing, and singing the slaves, is allowed by all the evidences as far as they speak to the same points, except by Mr. Falconbridge, in whose ships the slaves had a pint and and [sic] half of water per day.

Mode of stowing them with its bad Consequences.

On the subject of the stowage and its consequences, Dr. Trotter says, that the slaves in the passage are so crowded below, that it is impossible to walk through them, without treading on them. Those, who are out of irons, are locked spoonways (in the technical phrase) to one another. It is the first mate's duty to see them stowed in this way every morning; those who do not get quickly into their places, are compelled by a cat-of-nine-tails.

When the scuttles are obliged to be shut, the gratings are not sufficient for airing the rooms. He never himself could breathe freely, unless immediately under the hatchway. He has seen the slaves drawing their breath with all those laborious and anxious efforts for life, which are observed in expiring animals, subjected by experiment to foul air, or in the exhausted receiver of an air pump. He has also seen them when the tarpawlings [sic] have inadvertently been thrown over the gratings, atempting [sic] to heave them up; crying out in their own language, "We are dying:" on removing the tarpawlings [sic] and