Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/301

 excessive rake of her masts, that she seemed amongst the other craft as a swallow seems amongst other birds. Her deck was crowded with naked blacks, whose woolly heads studded the rail. She was a slaver with a large cargo. In the autumn of 1833 this schooner, apparently a Brazilian, and named with the liberty-stirring appellation of 'Dona Maria da Gloria,' had left Loando, ou the slave coast, with a few bales of merchandise, to comply with the formalities required by the authorities from vessels engaged in legal traffic; for the slave-trade, under the Brazilian Hag, is now piracy. No sooner was she out of port than the real object of her voyage declared itself. She hastily received on board four hundred and thirty negroes, who had been mustered in readiness, and sailed for Rio Janeiro. Off the mouth of that harbor she arrived in November, and was captured as a slaver by his majesty's brig Snake; The case was brought in December before the court established there; and the court decided that, as her Brazilian character had not been fully made out, it was incompetent to the final decision of the case. It was necessary to apply to the court of mixed commission at Sierra Leone for the purpose of adjudication. A second time, therefore, the unfortunate dungeon-ship put to sea with her luckless cargo, and again crossed the Atlantic amidst the horrors of a two month's voyage. The Dona Maria da Gloria having returned to Africa, cast anchor at Freetown in the middle of February, 1834, and on arrival, found the number reduced by death from four hundred and thirty to three hundred and thirty-five.

"Continuance of misery for several months in a cramped posture, in a pestilential atmosphere, had not only destroyed many, but had spread disease amongst the survivors. Dropsy, eruptions, abscesses, and dysentery were making ravages, and ophthalmia was general. Until formally adjudicated by the court, the wretched slaves could not be landed, nor even relieved from their sickening situation. With the green hills and valleys of the colony close to them, they must not leave their prison. I saw them in April; they had been in the harbor two months, and no release had been offered them. But the most painful circumstance was the final decision of the court. The slaver was proved to have been sailing under Portuguese colors, not Brazilian; and the treaty with the Portuguese prohibits slave traffic to the north of a certain line only, whereas the Dona Maria had been captured a few degrees to the south. No alternative remained. Her capture was decided to have been illegal. She was formally delivered up to her slave-captain; and he received from the British authorities written orders to the commanders of the British cruisers, guaranteeing a safe and free passage back to the Brazils; and I saw the evil ship weigh anchor and leave Sierra Leone, the seat of slave liberation, with her large canvas proudly swelling, and her ensign floating as if in contempt and triumph. Thus, a third time were the dying wretches carried across the Atlantic after seven months' confinement; few probably lived through the passage."

Formerly, the forfeited slave-ships at Sierra Leone used to be sold; and there were frequent instances of a forfeited slaver sold in one year plying the