Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/79

( 45 ) After an insurrection, Mr. Elllson says, he has seen them flogged, and the cook's tormentors and tongs heated to burn their flesh. Mr. Newton also adds, that it is usual for captains, after insurrections and plots happen, to flog the slaves. Some captains, on board whose ships he has been, added the thumb-screw, and one in particular told him repeatedly that he had put slaves to death after an insurrection by various modes of torture.

The second sort of incident on the passage is mentioned by Mr. Falconbridge in the instance of an English vessel blowing up off Galenas, and most of the men-slaves, entangled in their irons, perishing.

The third sort is described by Mr. Hercules Ross as follows. One instance, says he, marked with peculiar circumstances of horror, occurs: — About twenty years ago, a ship from Africa, with about four hundred slaves on board, struck upon some shoals, called the Morant Keys, distant eleven leagues, S. S. E. off the East end of Jamaica. The officers and seamen of the ship landed in their boats, carrying with them arms and provisions. The slaves were left on board in their irons and shackles. This happened in the night time. The Morant Keys consist of three small sandy islands, and he understood that the ship had struck upon the shoals, at about half a league to windward of them. When morning came, it was discovered that the negroes had got out of their irons, and were busy making rafts, upon which they placed the women and children, whilst the men, and others capable of swimming, attended upon the rafts, whilst they drifted before the wind towards the island where the seamen had landed. From an apprehension that the negroes would consume the water and provisions which the seamen had landed, they came to the resolution of destroying them, by means of their fire-arms and other weapons. As the poor wretches approached the shore, they actually destroyed between three and four hundred of them. Out of the whole cargo only thirty-three or thirty-four were saved, and brought to Kingston, where Mr, Ross saw them sold at public