Page:The African Slave Trade (Clark).djvu/34

30 found, to their horror, that they were filled with nothing but salt water. All the slaves on board perished! We could judge of the extent of their sufferings from the afflicting sight we now saw.

"When the poor creatures were ordered down again, several of them came and pressed their heads against our knees, with looks of the greatest anguish, at the prospect of returning to the horrid place of suffering below."

The devoted philanthropist, Granville Sharp, presented a case to the British public that justly aroused their indignation. It shows the power of avarice to obliterate the last vestiges of humanity, and convert men into devils.

"From the trial, it appeared that the ship Zong, Luke Collingwood master, sailed from the island of St. Thomas, on the coast of Africa, September 6, 1781, with four hundred and forty slaves, and fourteen whites on board, for Jamaica, and that in the November following she fell in with that island; but, instead of proceeding to some port, the master, mistaking, as he alleges, Jamaica for Hispaniola, ran her to leeward. Sickness and mortality had by this time taken place on board the crowded vessel; so that, between the time of leaving the coast of Africa and the 29th of November, sixty slaves and seven white people had died, and a great number of the surviving slaves were then sick, and not likely to live.

"On that day, the master of the ship called together a few of the officers, and stated to them, that if the sick slaves died a natural death, the loss would fall on the owners of the ship, — it would be the loss of the underwriters; alleging, at the same time, that it would be less cruel to throw the sick