Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/151

 any thing would have been taken. lie adds also that this was not a singular instance, but that it was generally the case; for he had many opportunities between the years 1769 and 1773 of seeing the great distresses of crews of Guinea ships, when they arrived in the West Indies.

We may refer also to Captain Smith, of the navy, who asserts that though he may have boarded near twenty of these vessels in the West Indies, for the purpose of impressing men, he was never able to get more than two men. The principal reason was the fear of infection, having seen many of them in a very disordered and ulcerated state.

The assertion also of Captain Hall, of the merchant service, relative to their situation after their arrival at their destined ports of sale, is confirmed by the rest of the witnesses in the minutest manner; for the seamen belonging to the slave-vessels are described as lying about the wharves and cranes, or wandering about the streets or islands full of sores and ulcers. It is asserted by the witnesses, that they never saw any other than Guinea seamen in that state in the West Indies. The epithets also of sickly, emaciated, abject, deplorable objects, are applied to them. They are mentioned again as destitute, and starving, and without the means of support, no merchantmen taking them in because they are unable to work, and men-of-war refusing them for fear of infection. Many of them are also described as lying about in a dying state; and others have been actually found dead, and negroes have been seen carrying the bodies of others to be interred.

It may be remarked here, that this diseased and forlorn state of the seamen was so inseparable from the slave-trade, that the different witnesses had not only seen it at Jamaica, Antigua, and Barbadoes, the places mentioned by Captain Hall, but wherever they have seen Guinea-men arrive, namely, at St. Vincents, Grenada, Dominique, and in North America also.

The reasons why such immense numbers were left behind in the West Indies, as were found in this deplorable state, are the following: The seamen leave their ships from ill usage, says Ellison. It is usual for captains, say Clappeson and Young, to treat them ill, that they may desert and forfeit their wages. Three others state they were left behind purposely by their captains; and Mr. H. Rose adds, in these emphatical words, "that it was no uncommon thing for the captains to send on shore, a few hours before they sail, their lame, emaciated, and sick seamen, leaving them to perish.

That the seamen employed in the slave-trade were worse fed, both in point of quantity and quality of provisions, than the seamen in other trades, was allowed by most of the witnesses, and that they had little or no shelter night or day from the inclemency of the weather, during the whole of the Middle Passage, was acknowledged by them all. With respect to their personal ill usage, the following extracts may suffice:

Mr. Morley asserts that the seamen in all the Guinea-men he sailed in, except one, were generally treated with great rigor, and many with cruelty. lie recollects many instances: Mathews, the chief mate of the Venus, Captain Forbes, would knock a man down for any frivolous thing with a cat, a piece of