Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/83

 71

��' thrown overboard, and forty-two were made to be par- ' takers of their fate on the succeeding day. In the ' course of three days afterwards the remaining twenty- ' six were brought upon deck, to complete the number of ' victims. The first sixteen submitted to be thrown into ' the sea, but the rest, with a noble resolution, would not

• suffer the officers to touch them, but leaped after their ' companions, and shared their fate.

' and unparalleled act of wickedness was, that the cap-
 * The plea which was set up in behalf of this atrocious

• tain discovered, when he made the proposal, that he had ' only two hundred gallons of water on board, and that ' he had missed his port. It was proved, however, in an-

• swer to this, that no one had been put upon short al-

• lowance ; and that, as if Providence had determined to ' afford an unequivocal proof of the guilt, a shower of < rain fell, and con tinued for three days, immediately af-

• ter the second lot of slaves had been destroyed, by

• means of which they might have filled many of their

• vessels » with water, and thus have prevented all ne-

• cessity for the destruction of the third.

' Mr Sharpe was present at this trial, and procured the

• attendance of a short-hand writer to take down the ' facts which should come out in the course of it. These

��It appeared that they filled six.

�� �