Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/306

 was, because many of those negroes, affected with nostalgia, threw themselves into the sea, locked in each others arms.

The disease which had spread itself so rapidly and frightfully among the Africans, soon began to infect all on board, and to create alarms for the crew. The danger of infection, and perhaps the cause which produced the disease, were increased by a violent dysentery, attributed to the use of rain water. The first of the crew who caught the infection was a sailor who slept under the deck, near the grated hatch which communicated with the hold. The next day a landsman was seized with ophthalmia; and, in three days more the captain and almost the whole crew were infected by it.

The sufferings of the people and the number of the blind augmented every day, so that the crew — previously alarmed by the apprehension of a revolt among the negroes — were seized with the further dread of not being able to make the West Indies, if the only sailor who had hitherto escaped the contagion, and on whom their whole hope rested, should become blind like the rest. This calamity had actually befallen the Leon, a Spanish slaver which the Rodeur met with on her passage, and the whole of whose crew, having become blind, were under the necessity of altogether abandoning the direction of their ship. They entreated the charitable interference of the Rodeur; but the sea men of this vessel could not either quit her to go on board the Leon, on account of the cargo of negroes, nor receive the crew in the Rodeur, in which there were scarcely room for themselves. The difficulty of taking care of so large a number of sick in so confined a space, and the total want of fresh meat and of medicines, made them envy the fate of those who were about to become the victims of a death which seemed to them inevitable, and the consternation was general.

The Rodeur reached Gaudaloupe on the 21st of June, 1819, her crew being in a most deplorable condition. Three days after her arrival, the only man who, during the voyage, had withstood the influence of the contagion, and whom Providence appeared to have preserved as a guide to his unfortunate companions, was seized with the same malady. Of the negroes, thirty-nine had become perfectly blind, twelve had lost an eye, and fourteen were affected with blemishes more or less considerable. Of the crew, twelve lost their sight entirely, among whom was the surgeon; five become blind of one eye, one of them being the captain, and four were partially injured.

Such were the miseries of this voyage of iniquity, but the atrocities of it even transcended its miseries. It is stated among other things, that the captain caused several of the negroes who were prevented in the attempt to throw themselves overboard to be shot and hanged in the hope that the example might deter the rest from a similar conduct. But even this severity proved unavailing, and it became necessary to confine the slaves entirely to the hold during the remainder of the voyage. It is further stated, that upwards of thirty of the slaves who became blind were-thrown into the sea and drowned upon the principle that had they been landed at Guadaloupe no one would have bought them, and that the proprietors would consequently have incurred