Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/154

 of the shallop was ordered to bring to, and take Hilton in, and leave him od shore any where. He lived that evening and night out, and died early the next morning, and was thrown overboard off Cape Mesurado.

Mr. Falconbridge, being called upon also to speak to the ill usage of seamen, said that on board the Alexander, Captain M'Taggart, he has seen them tied up and flogged with the cat frequently. He remembers also an instance of an old man, who was boatswain of the Alexander, having one night some words with the mate, when the boatswain was severely beaten, and had one or two of his teeth knocked out. The boatswain said he would jump overboard; upon which he was tied to the rail of the quarter-deck, and a pump-bolt put into his mouth by way of gagging him. He was then untied, put under the half-deck, and a sentinel put over him all night — in the morning he was released. Mr. Falconbridge always considered him as a quiet, inoffensive man. In the same voyage a black boy was beaten every day, and one day, after he was so beaten, he jumped through one of the gun-ports of the cabin into the river. A canoe was lying alongside, which dropped astern and picked him up. Mr. Falconbridge gave him one of his own shirts to put on, and asked him if he did not expect to be devoured by the sharks. The boy said he did, and that it would be much better for him to be killed at once, than to be daily treated with so much cruelty.

Mr. Falconbridge remembers also, on board the same ship, that the black cook one day broke a plate. For this he had a fish-gig darted at him, which would certainly have destroyed him if he had not stooped or dropped down. At another time also, the carpenter's mate had let his pitch-pot catch fire. He and the cook were accordingly both tied up, stripped and flogged, but the cook with the greatest severity. After that the cook had salt water and cayenne pepper rubbed upon his back. A man also came on board at Bonny, belonging to a little ship, (Mr. Falconbridge believes the captain's name was Dodson, of Liverpool,) which had been overset at New Calabar. This man, when he came on board, was in a convalescent state. He was severely beaten one night, but for what cause Mr. Falconbridge knows not, upon which he came to Mr. Falconbridge for something to rub his back with. Mr. Falconbridge was told by the captain not to give him any thing, and the man was desired to go forward. He went accordingly, and lay under the forecastle. Mr. Falconbridge visited him very often, at which times he complained of his bruises. He died in about three weeks from the time he was beaten. The last words he ever spoke were, after shedding tears, "I cannot punish him," meaning the captain, "but God will." These are the most remarkable instances which Mr. Falconbridge recollects. He says, however, that the ill treatment was so general, that only three in this ship escaped being beaten out of fifty persons.

To these instances, which fell under the eyes of the witnesses now cited, we may add the observations of a gentleman who, though never in the slave-trade, had yet great opportunities of obtaining information upon this subject. Sir George Young remarks, that those seamen whom he saw in the slave-trade,