_Hostile disposition towards the author increases, on account of his known
patronage of the seamen employed in the Slave-trade--manner of procuring
and paying them at Liverpool--their treatment, and mortality--Account of
the murder of Peter Green--trouble taken by the author to trace it--his
narrow escape--goes to Lancaster--but returns to Liverpool--leaves the
latter place._
It has appeared that a number of persons used to come and see me, out of
curiosity, at the King's Arms tavern; and that these manifested a bad
disposition towards me, which was near breaking out into open insult. Now
the cause of all this was, as I have observed, the knowledge which people
had obtained, relative to my errand at this place. But this hostile
disposition was increased by another circumstance, which I am now to
mention. I had been so shocked at the treatment of the seamen belonging to
the slave-vessels at Bristol, that I determined, on my arrival at
Liverpool, to institute an inquiry concerning it there also. I had made
considerable progress in it, so that few seamen were landed from such
vessels, but I had some communication with them; and though no one else
would come near me, to give me any information about the trade, these were
always forward to speak to me, and to tell me their grievances, if it were
only with the hope of being able to get redress. The consequence of this
was, that they used to come to the King's Arms tavern to see me. Hence one,
two, and three were almost daily to be found about the door; and this
happened quite as frequently after the hostility just mentioned had shown
itself, as before. They, therefore, who came to visit me out of curiosity,
could not help seeing my sailor visitors; and on inquiring into their
errand, they became more than ever incensed against me.
The first result of this increased hostility towards me was an application
from some of them to the master of the tavern, that he would not harbour
me. This he communicated to me in a friendly manner, but he was by no means
desirous that I should leave him. On the other hand, he hoped I would stay
long enough to accomplish my object. I thought it right, however, to take
the matter into consideration; and, having canvassed it, I resolved to
remain with him, for the reasons mentioned in the former chapter. But, that
I might avoid doing any thing that would be injurious to his interest, as
well as in some measure avoid giving unnecessary offence to others, I took
lodgings in Williamson Square, where I retired to write, and occasionally
to sleep, and to which place all seamen, desirous of seeing me, were
referred. Hence I continued to get the same information as before, but in a
less obnoxious and injurious manner.
The history of the seamen employed in the slave-vessels belonging to the
port of Liverpool, I found to be similar to that of those from Bristol.
They, who went into this trade, were of two classes. The first consisted of
those who were ignorant of it, and to whom, generally, improper
representations of advantage had been made, for the purpose of enticing
them into it. The second consisted of those, who, by means of a regular
system, kept up by the mates and captains, had been purposely brought by
their landlords into distress, from which they could only be extricated by
going into this hateful employ. How many have I seen, with tears in their
eyes, put into boats, and conveyed to vessels, which were then lying at the
Black Rock, and which were only waiting to receive them to sail away!
The manner of paying them in the currency of the Islands was the same as at
Bristol. But this practice was not concealed at Liverpool, as it was at the
former place. The articles of agreement were printed, so that all, who
chose to buy, might read them. At the same time it must be observed, that
seamen were never paid in this manner in any other employ; and that the
African wages, though nominally higher for the sake of procuring hands,
were thus made to be actually lower than in other trades.
The loss by death was so similar, that it did not signify whether the
calculation on a given number was made either at this or the other port. I
had, however, a better opportunity at this, than I had at the other, of
knowing the loss as it related to those, whose constitutions had been
ruined, or who had been rendered incapable, by disease, of continuing their
occupation at sea. For the slave-vessels, which returned to Liverpool,
sailed immediately into the docks, so that I saw at once their sickly and
ulcerated crews. The number of vessels, too, was so much greater from this,
than from any other port, that their sick made a more conspicuous figure in
the infirmary. And they were seen also more frequently in the streets.
With respect to their treatment, nothing could be worse. It seemed to me to
be but one barbarous system from the beginning to the end. I do not say
barbarous, as if premeditated, but it became so in consequence of the
savage habits gradually formed by a familiarity with miserable sights, and
with a course of action inseparable from the trade. Men in their first
voyages usually disliked the traffic; and, if they were happy enough then
to abandon it, they usually escaped the disease of a hardened heart. But if
they went a second and a third time, their disposition became gradually
changed. It was impossible for them to be accustomed to carry away men and
women by force, to keep them in chains, to see their tears, to hear their
mournful lamentations, to behold the dead and the dying, to be obliged to
keep up a system of severity amidst all this affliction,--in short, it was
impossible for them to be witnesses, and this for successive voyages, to
the complicated mass of misery passing in a slave-ship, without losing
their finer feelings, or without contracting those habits of moroseness and
cruelty, which would brutalize their nature. Now, if we consider that
persons could not easily become captains (and to these the barbarities were
generally chargeable by actual perpetration, or by consent) till they had
been two or three voyages in this employ, we shall see the reason why it
would be almost a miracle, if they, who were thus employed in it, were not
rather to become monsters, than to continue to be men.
While I was at Bristol, I heard from an officer of the Alfred, who gave me
the intelligence privately, that the steward of a Liverpool ship, whose
name was Green, had been murdered in that ship. The Alfred was in Bonny
river at the same time, and his own captain (so infamous for his cruelty,
as has been before shown) was on board when it happened. The circumstances,
he said, belonging to this murder, were, if report were true, of a most
atrocious nature, and deserved to be made the subject of inquiry. As to the
murder itself, he observed, it had passed as a notorious and uncontradicted
fact.
This account was given me just as I had made an acquaintance with Mr.
Falconbridge, and I informed him of it. He said he had no doubt of its
truth. For in his last voyage he went to Bonny himself, where the ship was
then lying, in which the transaction happened. The king and several of the
black traders told him of it. The report then current was simply this, that
the steward had been barbarously beaten one evening; that after this he was
let down with chains upon him into a boat, which was alongside of the ship,
and that the next morning he was found dead.
On my arrival at Liverpool, I resolved to inquire into the truth of this
report. On looking into one of the wet docks, I saw the name of the vessel
alluded to. I walked over the decks of several others, and got on board
her. Two people were walking up and down her, and one was leaning upon a
rail by the side. I asked the latter how many slaves this ship had carried
in her last voyage. He replied, he could not tell; but one of the two
persons walking about could answer me, as he had sailed out and returned in
her. This man came up to us, and joined in conversation. He answered my
question and many others, and would have shown me the ship. But on asking
him how many seamen had died on the voyage, he changed his manner, and
said, with apparent hesitation, he could not tell. I asked him next, what
had become of the steward Green. He said, he believed he was dead. I asked
how the seamen had been used. He said, Not worse than others. I then asked
whether Green had been used worse than others. He replied, he did not then
recollect. I found that he was now quite upon his guard, and as I could get
no satisfactory answer from him I left the ship.
On the next day, I looked over the muster-roll of this vessel. On examining
it, I found that sixteen of the crew had died. I found also the name of
Peter Green. I found, again, that the latter had been put down among the
dead. I observed also, that the ship had left Liverpool on the fifth of
June 1786, and had returned on the fifth of June 1787, and that Peter Green
was put down as having died on the nineteenth of September; from all which
circumstances it was evident that he must, as my Bristol information
asserted, have died upon the Coast.
Notwithstanding this extraordinary coincidence of name, mortality, time,
and place, I could gain no further intelligence about the affair till
within about ten days before I left Liverpool; when among the seamen, who
came to apply to me in Williamson Square, was George Ormond. He came to
inform me of his own ill-usage; from which circumstance I found that he had
sailed in the same ship with Peter Green. This led me to inquire into the
transaction in question, and I received from him the following, account:--
Peter Green had been shipped as steward. A black woman, of the name of
Rodney, went out in the same vessel. She belonged to the owners of it, and
was to be an interpretess to the slaves who should be purchased. About five
in the evening, some time in the month of September, the vessel then lying
in Bonny river, the captain, as was his custom, went on shore. In his
absence, Rodney, the black woman, asked Green for the keys of the pantry;
which he refused her, alleging that the captain had already beaten him for
having given them to her on a former occasion, when she drunk the wine. The
woman, being passionate, struck him, and a scuffle ensued, out of which
Green extricated himself as well as he could.
When the scuffle was over the woman retired to the cabin, and appeared
pensive. Between eight and nine in the evening, the captain, who was
attended by the captain of the Alfred, came on board. Rodney immediately
ran to him, and informed him that Green had made an assault upon her. The
captain, without any inquiry, beat him severely, and ordered his hands to
be made fast to some bolts on the starboard side of the ship and under the
half deck, and then flogged him himself, using the lashes of the
cat-of-nine-tails upon his back at one time, and the double walled knot at
the end of it upon his head at another; and stopping to rest at intervals,
and using each hand alternately, that he might strike with the greater
severity.
The pain, had now become so very severe, that Green cried out, and
entreated the captain of the Alfred, who was standing by, to pity his hard
case, and to intercede for him. But the latter replied, that he would have
served him in the same manner. Unable to find a friend here, he called upon
the chief mate; but this only made matters worse, for the captain then
ordered the latter to flog him also; which he did for some time, using
however only the lashes of the instrument. Green then called in his
distress upon the second mate to speak for him; but the second mate was
immediately ordered to perform the same cruel office, and was made to
persevere in it till the lashes were all worn into threads. But the
barbarity did not close here: for the captain, on seeing the instrument now
become useless, ordered another, with which he flogged him as before,
beating him at times over the head with the double walled knot, and
changing his hands, and cursing his own left hand for not being able to
strike so severe a blow as his right.
The punishment, as inflicted by all parties, had now lasted two hours and a
half, when George Ormond was ordered to cut down one of the arms, and the
boatswain the other, from the places of their confinement. This being done,
Green lay motionless on the deck. He attempted to utter something. Ormond
understood it to be the word water. But no water was allowed him. The
captain, on the other hand, said he had not yet done with him, and ordered
him to be confined with his arms across, his right hand to his left foot,
and his left hand to his right foot. For this purpose the carpenter brought
shackles, and George Ormond was compelled to put them on. The captain then
ordered some tackle to be made fast to the limbs of the said Peter Green,
in which situation he was then hoisted up, and afterwards let down into a
boat, which was lying alongside the ship. Michael Cunningham was then sent
to loose the tackle, and to leave him there.
In the middle watch, or between one and two next morning, George Ormond
looked out of one of the port-holes, and called to Green, but received no
answer. Between two and three, Paul Berry, a seaman, was sent down into the
boat and found him dead. He made his report to one of the officers of the
ship. About five in the morning, the body was brought up, and laid on the
waist near the half-deck door. The captain on seeing the body, when he
rose, expressed no concern, but ordered it to be knocked out of irons, and
to be buried at the usual place of interment for seamen, or Bonny Point. I
may now observe, that the deceased was in good health before the punishment
took place, and in high spirits; for he played upon the flute only a short
time before Rodney asked him for the keys, while those seamen, who were in
health, danced.
On hearing this cruel relation from George Ormond, who was throughout a
material witness to the scene, I had no doubt in my own mind of the truth
of it. But I thought it right to tell him at once that I had seen a person,
about four weeks ago, who had been the same voyage with him and Peter
Green, but yet who had no recollection of these circumstances. Upon this he
looked quite astonished, and began to grow angry. He maintained he had seen
the whole. He had also held the candle himself during the whole punishment.
He asserted that one candle and half of another were burnt out while it
lasted. He said also that, while the body lay in the waist, he had handled
the abused parts, and had put three of his fingers into a hole, made by the
double walled knot, in the head, from whence a quantity of blood and, he
believed, brains issued. He then challenged me to bring the man before him.
I desired him upon this to be cool, and to come to me the next day, and I
would then talk with him again upon the subject.
In the interim I consulted the muster-roll of the vessel again. I found the
name of George Ormond. He had sailed in her out of Liverpool, and had been
discharged at the latter end of January in the West Indies, as he had told
me. I found also the names of Michael Cunningham and of Paul Berry, whom he
had mentioned. It was obvious also that Ormond's account of the captain of
the Alfred being on board at the time of the punishment, tallied with that
given me at Bristol by an officer of that vessel, and that his account of
letting down Peter Green into the boat tallied with that, which Mr.
Falconbridge, as I mentioned before, had heard from the king and the black
traders in Bonny river.
When he came to me next day, he came in high spirits. He said he had found
out the man whom I had seen. The man, however, when he talked to him about
the murder of Peter Green, acknowledged every thing concerning it. Ormond
intimated that this man was to sail again in the same ship under the
promise of being an officer, and that he had been kept on board, and had
been enticed to a second voyage, for no other purpose than that he might be
prevented from divulging the matter. I then asked Ormond, whether he
thought the man would acknowledge the murder in my hearing. He replied,
that, if I were present, he thought he would not say much about it, as he
was soon to be under the same captain, but that he would not deny it. If
however I were out of sight, though I might be in hearing, he believed he
would acknowledge the facts.
By the assistance of Mr. Falconbridge, I found a public-house, which had
two rooms in it. Nearly at the top of the partition between them was a
small window, which a person might look through by standing upon a chair. I
desired Ormond, one evening, to invite the man into the larger room, in
which he was to have a candle, and to talk with him on the subject. I
purposed to station myself in the smallest in the dark, so that by looking
through the window I could both see and hear him, and yet be unperceived
myself. The room, in which I was to be, was one, where the dead were
frequently carried to be owned. We were all in our places at the time
appointed. I directly discovered that it was the same man with whom I had
conversed on board the ship in the wet docks. I heard him distinctly relate
many of the particulars of the murder, and acknowledge them all. Ormond,
after having talked with him some time, said, "Well, then, you believe
Peter Green was actually murdered?" He replied, "If Peter Green was not
murdered, no man ever was." What followed I do not know. I had heard quite
enough; and the room was so disagreeable in smell, that I did not choose to
stay in it longer than was absolutely necessary.
I was now quite satisfied that the murder had taken place, and my first
thought was to bring the matter before the mayor, and to take up three of
the officers of the ship. But, in mentioning my intention to my friends, I
was dissuaded from it. They had no doubt but that in Liverpool, as there
was now a notion that the Slave-trade would become a subject of
parliamentary inquiry, every effort would be made to overthrow me. They
were of opinion also that such of the magistrates, as were interested in
the trade, when applied to for warrants of apprehension, would contrive to
give notice to the officers to escape. In addition to this they believed,
that so many in the town were already incensed against me, that I should be
torn to pieces, and the house where I lodged burnt down, if I were to make
the attempt. I thought it right therefore to do nothing for the present;
but I sent Ormond to London, to keep him out of the way of corruption, till
I should make up my mind as to further proceedings on the subject.
It is impossible, if I observe the bounds I have prescribed myself, and I
believe the reader will be glad of it on account of his own feelings, that
I should lay open the numerous cases, which came before me at Liverpool,
relative to the ill treatment of the seamen in this wicked trade. It may be
sufficient to say, that they harassed my constitution, and affected my
spirits daily. They were in my thoughts on my pillow after I retired to
rest, and I found them before my eyes when I awoke. Afflicting however as
they were, they were of great use in the promotion of our cause. For they
served, whatever else failed, as a stimulus to perpetual energy. They made
me think light of former labours, and they urged me imperiously to new. And
here I may observe, that among the many circumstances, which ought to
excite our joy on considering the great event of the abolition of the
Slave-trade, which has now happily taken place, there are few for which we
ought to be more grateful, than that from this time our commerce ceases to
breed such abandoned wretches; while those, who have thus been bred in it,
and who may yet find employment in other trades, will in the common course
of nature be taken off in a given time, so that our marine will at length
be purified from a race of monsters, which have helped to cripple its
strength, and to disgrace its character.
The temper of many of the interested people of Liverpool had now become
still more irritable, and their hostility more apparent than before. I
received anonymous letters, entreating me to leave it, or I should
otherwise never leave it alive. The only effect, which this advice had upon
me, was to make me more vigilant when I went out at night. I never stirred
out at this time without Mr. Falconbridge. And he never accompanied me
without being well armed. Of this, however, I knew nothing until we had
left the place. There was certainly a time, when I had reason to believe
that I had a narrow escape. I was one day on the pier-head with many others
looking at some little boats below at the time of a heavy gale. Several
persons, probably out of curiosity, were hastening thither. I had seen all
I intended to see, and was departing, when I noticed eight or nine persons
making towards me. I was then only about eight or nine yards from the
precipice of the pier, but going from it. I expected that they would have
divided to let me through them; instead of which they closed upon me and
bore me back. I was borne within a yard of the precipice, when I discovered
my danger; and perceiving among them the murderer of Peter Green, and two
others who had insulted me at the King's Arms, it instantly struck me that
they had a design to throw me over the pier-head; which they might have
done at this time, and yet have pleaded that I had been killed by accident.
There was not a moment to lose. Vigorous on account of the danger, I darted
forward. One of them, against whom I pushed myself, fell down. Their ranks
were broken. And I escaped, not without blows, amidst their imprecations
and abuse.
I determined now to go to Lancaster, to make some inquiries about the
Slave-trade there. I had a letter of introduction to William Jepson, one of
the religious society of the Quakers, for this purpose. I found from him,
that, though there were slave-merchants at Lancaster, they made their
outfits at Liverpool, as a more convenient port. I learnt too from others,
that the captain of the last vessel, which had sailed out of Lancaster to
the coast of Africa for slaves, had taken off so many of the natives
treacherously, that any other vessel known to come from it would be cut
off. There were only now one or two superannuated captains living in the
place. Finding I could get no oral testimony, I was introduced into the
Custom-house. Here I just looked over the muster-rolls of such
slave-vessels as had formerly sailed from this port; and having found that
the loss of seamen was precisely in the same proportion as elsewhere, I
gave myself no further trouble, but left the place.
On my return to Liverpool, I was informed by Mr. Falconbridge, that a
shipmate of Ormond, of the name of Patrick Murray, who had been discharged
in the West Indies, had arrived there. This man, he said, had been to call
upon me in my absence, to seek redress for his own bad usage; but in the
course of conversation he had confirmed all the particulars as stated by
Ormond, relative to the murder of Peter Green. On consulting the
muster-roll of the ship, I found his name, and that he had been discharged
in the West Indies on the second of February. I determined therefore to see
him. I cross-examined him in the best manner I could. I could neither make
him contradict himself, nor say any thing that militated against the
testimony of Ormond. I was convinced therefore of the truth of the
transaction; and, having obtained his consent, I sent him to London to stay
with the latter, till he should hear further from me. I learnt also from
Mr. Falconbridge, that my visitors had continued to come to the King's Arms
during my absence; that they had been very liberal of their abuse of me;
and that one of them did not hesitate to say (which is remarkable) that "I
deserved to be thrown over the pier-head."
Finding now that I could get no further evidence; that the information
which I had already obtained was considerable[A]; and that the commitee had
expressed an earnest desire, in a letter which I had received, that I would
take into consideration the propriety of writing my Essay on the Impolicy
of the Slave-trade as soon possible, I determined upon leaving Liverpool. I
went round accordingly and took leave of my friends. The last of these was
William Rathbone, and I have to regret, that it was also the last time I
ever saw him. Independently of the gratitude I owed him for assisting me in
this great cause, I respected him highly as a man. He possessed a fine
understanding with a solid judgment. He was a person of extraordinary
simplicity of manners. Though he lived in a state of pecuniary
independence, he gave an example of great temperance, as well as of great
humility of mind. But however humble he appeared, he had always the courage
to dare to do that which was right, however it might resist the customs or
the prejudices of men. In his own line of trade, which was that of a
timber-merchant on an extensive scale, he would not allow any article to be
sold for the use of a slave-ship, and he always refused those, who applied
to him for materials for such purposes. But it is evident that it was his
intention, if he had lived, to bear his testimony still more publicly upon
this subject; for an advertisement, stating the ground of his refusal to
furnish any thing for this traffic upon Christian principles, with a
memorandum for two advertisements in the Liverpool papers, was found among
his papers at his decease.
[Footnote A: In London, Bristol and Liverpool, I had already obtained the
names of more than 20,000 seamen, in different voyages, knowing what had
become of each.]