Page:The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African.pdf/193



''Some account of Brimstone-hill in Montserrat — The author surprised by two earthquakes. — Favourable change in the author's situation — He commences merchant with three-pence — His various success in dealing in the different islands, and America, and the impositions he meets with in his transactions with white people — A curious imposition on human nature — Danger of the surfs in the West Indies — Remarkable instance of kidnapping a free mulatto — The author is nearly murdered by Dr. Perkins, in Savannah.''

the preceding chapter I have set before the reader a few of those many instances of oppression, extortion and cruelty, which I have been a witness to in the West Indies; but, were I to enumerate them all, the catalogue would be tedious and disgusting. The punishments of the slaves, on every trifling occasion, are so frequent, and so well known, together with the different instruments with which they are tortured, that it cannot any longer afford novelty to recite them; and they Rh