Page:The American Slave Trade (Spears).djvu/123

 net profit may be reduced to $25 by the expenses of the voyage.

However, to be liberal, there was the sum of $250 net, at least, which the slaver could get for transporting a negro from Africa to Cuba. If the owners of steamships costing a million can afford to carry firstclass passengers in luxury for $125, the slaver might have carried negroes in cleanliness and perfect comfort, and still have realized profits of from fifty to one hundred per centum every voyage, from the investment. It is plain that the horrors of the Middle Passage were not necessarily incident to the transportation of slaves from Africa to the West Indies.