Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/82

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��' for a nejro mother whose son had been miirdcrcd by ' the Moors, that the poor boi) hud never told a tie.' — Purkt's Travels. The description of African hfe and manners that follows, and the song of the Negro's (laugh- ters, are copied without exaggeration from the authen- tic acounts of Mungo Parke.

Note'. Page 30, line 10. — Or heudhnp plunged alive into t tie 111(1171. — On this subject the following instance of almost incredible cruelty was substantiated in a court of justice.


 * In this ^car (17P3\ certain underwriters desired to be

' case of the ship 7ong, Captain Collingwood, alledging ' that the captain and officers of the said \essel threw over-
 * heard against Grcgs-on and others of Liverpool, in the


 * board one hundred and thirty-two slaves alive into the


 * sea, in order to defraud tlicni, by claiming the value of

' In the course of the trial, which aftei wards came on, it
 * the said slaves, as if they had been lost in a natural way.

' sickly ; that sixty of them had already died ; and seve-
 * appeared that the slaves on board the Zong were very

' scd to Jame.-'Kelsal, the mate, and others, to throw se-
 * ral were ill, and likely to die, when the cajtoin propo-

" natural death, the loss would fall upon the owners of
 * veral of them overboard, stating " that if they died a

" the ship, but that, if they were thrown into the sea, it " would fall upon the underwriters." He selected, ac- ' cordingly, one hundred and thirty-two of the most sick-


 * ly of the slaves. Fifty-four of these were immetUately

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