Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/72

( 38 ) neither more nor less, that could be stowed in the different rooms of it upon these data. These, if counted, ( deducting the women stowed in Z of Figures VI. and VII.) will be found to amount to four hundred and fifty-one. Now, if it be considered that the ship Brookes is of 320 tons, and that she is allowed to carry by Act of Parliament four hundred and fifty-four persons, it is evident that if three more could be wedged among the number represented in the plan, this plan would contain precisely the number which the Act directs; and if it should be farther considered that there ought to be in each apartment in the plan one or more tubs, as well as stanchions to support the platforms and decks, for which no deduction has been made, in order to give every possible advantage in stowing, then the above plan may be considered as giving a very favourable representation of the stowing of the negroes even since the late regulating Act. The plan therefore abundantly proves that the stowage of these poor people as well as the consequences of it must have been as described by the Evidences above; for, if when four hundred and fifty-one slaves are put into the different rooms of the Brooks, the floors are not only covered with bodies, but these bodies actually touch each other, what must have been their situation, when six hundred were stowed in them at the time alluded to by Dr. Trotter, who belonged to this ship, and six hundred and nine by the confession of the slave-merchants in a subsequent voyage.

Incidents on the passage

To come now to the different incidents on the passage. Mr. Falconbridge says, that there is a place in every ship