Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/317

 barter, calculated to produce more than 400." Another merchant writes, "The business wears a most unfavorable aspect; although the vessel arrived safely, we shall scarcely get back our outlay, for out of the small number embarked, there died eighty-one during the voyage and shortly after landing. The others were sold at Matanzas, at an average of $306. The twenty who were sick brought us $2,304."

The captains of the slavers were generally instructed to fly on the slightest appearance of danger — "if you hesitate, you are lost." In one of the contracts for wages between the owners and crew of a captured slaver, it was stipulated, in order to compel the men to fight, that wages shall not be due in the event of capture by a vessel of equal force, nor even in the event of capture by one of superior force, unless after an obstinate defense; and in that case the wages of those who will not fight shall be forfeited, and divided among the brave defenders."

The slavers were generally provided with three sets of papers, Spanish, Portuguese, and American, and the American flag was frequently made use of to shield the miscreants. The Venus, a ship of 460 tons, was built in Baltimore in 1838, expressly for a slaver. She arrived at Havana on the 4th of August in that year, and sailed shortly afterwards under American colors. She was owned by a Spaniard and a Frenchman, and was said to have cost them $100,000. She proceeded to the coast of Africa, and embarked the unprecedented number of 1,100 slaves, of whom the survivors, 860 in number, were landed on the coast. She had been absent but four months, and returned into port under Portuguese colors. It was asserted in Havana that $150,000 had been cleared by this single adventure. The arrival of the vessel occasioned a correspondence between the British commissioners and the American consul. The facts which brought about the correspondence were the notoriety with which a large vessel like the Venus, built at Baltimore, had arrived from the United States and sailed on a slaving voyage under the American flag, together with the belief that several American citizens had embarked in her from Havaua, and had also returned in her. It was also reported that the Venus had been visited on the coast of Africa, still showing her American colors, by the officers of a British cruiser. It was even a subject of boast that although one of the British cruisers had seen the Venus receive part of her cargo, yet that such was her superiority in sailing that it was found impossible to come up with her on the attempt being made to give chase. While the Venus remained at Havana, she was visited by officers of the British navy. The Portuguese papers with which she returned were those of an old slaver, which had sailed under many a flag, and finally bore the Portuguese name of the Duquesa de Braganza, the name which the Venus assumed in order to have the benefit of her Portuguese papers, without the trouble or expense of going to purchase them.

Under these circumstances, the British commissioners who were sent to Havana for the express purpose of contributing, as far as lay in their power, to the suppression o f the slave-trade, felt it their duty to communicate the facts