Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/310

 tearing their flesh. Some of them were bound by cords, and many had their arms grievously lacerated.

In 1825, on board a schooner's boat of only five tons burthen which was taken, were found seventeen slaves, twenty-three had been taken in, six had already died. The negroes were in a state of complete starvation and approaching dissolution. The space allowed them was no more than eighteen inches between the water casks and the deck.

The Aviso, another captured vessel, had 465 slaves on board; of whom 34 died after their capture, notwithstanding every attention. Such was the filth and crowd that not half could have reached the Brazils alive. Commodore Bullen put the crew on shore in Prince's island. These wretches, as soon as they found that they must be boarded, had stove in their boilers, as a last malignant effort to add to the misery of those whom a few minutes would place beyond their power.

One Oiseau, commander of a French slave-ship called Le Louis, having completed his cargo on the old Calabar, thrust them all between decks, (a height of only three feet,) and closed the hatches on them for the night. Fifty were found dead in the morning. As a matter of course, he only immediately returned on shore to supply their place. Captain Arnaud, of the Louisa, arrived at Guadaloupe with 200 negroes, the remainder of an original cargo of 265. Having by mistake purchased more than he could accommodate, he had thrown the odd 65 into the sea.

A writer in the African Repository, who visited Africa in one of our national vessels, states that the steward of the vessel had been to Africa five times in a slave-ship. On one occasion, when an insurrection was expected, they shot two hundred of the slaves. Out of 400, the number which they carried at each trip, 40 died on every passage. The African Institution in one of their reports publishes the following deed of infernal atrocity: A French slaver having landed part of a cargo of 250 slaves at Guadaloupe, was pursued by an armed French vessel, when, to avoid detection, they threw the remaining sixty-five overboard, all of whom perished.

A writer in a letter from Rio de Janeiro, dated January 11, 1830, says: "I will relate but a single fact at this time to show the dreadful character of the slave-trade. The Brazilian government derives a large revenue from the importation of slaves, by laying a duty of so much per head immediately on their arrival without regard to their health or condition. When vessels, therefore, which have slaves on board arrive off the port, a general survey takes place by the physician, and those poor wretches whose existence is doubtful are thrown overboard in order to save the duty."

Mr. Robert Baird, in his "Impressions of the West Indies and North America," in 1849, speaking of the slave-trade, says: "There can be no doubt of the fact, that during the last year the importation of slaves into the island of Cuba has been carried on in full vigor — so vigorously and extensively that the price of slaves had fallen, in consequence of the plentiful supply, from four hundred and fifty or five hundred, to from two hundred and fifty to three