Page:Full and true account, of the cruel sufferings of the passengers on board the brig Nancy bound for New-York.pdf/4

[ 4 ] the vessel, whose torrents would frequently pour down, whereby the passengers, sick, scarce able to crawl, and some of them dying, were sometimes almost drowned, while their cries and distress, were made matter of laughter and derision, to the inhuman captain, and his crew, who while the helm was lashed, and the vessel lying to, for a week or two days successively, very unconcerned took their rest, without affording the least assistance to the distressed sufferers on board, who in the darkness of the night, could not obtain a spark of light to see how to shelter themselves, or procure dry clothes.

When the wind at last came fair, and they were proceeding on the voyage, the people who had been so long confined to the starving miserable diet of raw meal and water, but now extremely solicitous for meat, for which they were almost in a longing condition, and as there was a considerable quantity of their stipulated allowance due to them; they desired it might then be deliver’d. The captain said he had but a bare sufficiency for himself and seamen, and could spare none,—the passengers were amazed, and reminded him of the agreement signed with his own hand,—but told him if he was really scant, they would be content with a small part of their due, if it was only a pound or less to each. But no entreaties could prevail on him to let them have a morsel. When he was reminded of his contract, and that on his arrival he would be called to account for his conduct, he discovered some uneasy apprehensions, and swore he had a great mind to put into the first land he could make, and with the seamen quit the vessel altogether, leaving the passengers to shift for themselves.

His behaviour gave them reason to think he had really such a design in contemplation, and that on their approach to any land, he would have hoisted out the longboat and left them, pretending they were mutinous; and his conduct seemed calculated to make them so; for he, his mate, and most of the crew, used the women and children, and indeed all the passengers, with a utmost brutality, contempt and insult.

When the husband of a poor sick woman begged for