Though the unabating cruelty, exercised upon _seamen_ in the Slave
Trade, first prompted me to give in my mite of information to the cause,
yet it may not be thought foreign to the subject to make a few remarks
on the treatment of the _slaves_. Mr. _Falconbridge_'s account, which
carries truth and conviction on the face of it, gives a most just
description of their package, diet, and treatment. But no pen, no
abilities, can give more than a very faint resemblance of the horrid
situation. One _real_ view—one MINUTE, absolutely spent in the slave
rooms on the middle passage, would do more for the cause of humanity,
than the pen of a _Robertson_, or the whole collective eloquence of the
British senate.
That interest must operate on the captain to treat the slaves with
kindness, has been advanced by those who have cogent reasons for wishing
the continuance of this trade: but, like most of the arguments they
advance, it has more of speciousness than of truth. The infernal
passions, that seem to be nourished in the very vitals of this employ,
bid defiance to every power of controul. Humanity, justice, religion,
have long lost their influence there. But even AVARICE, the author of
the destructive business, when struggling with CRUELTY, loses its force,
and finds its powers of dominion foiled by the very monster it self
produced.
The slaves, with regard to attention to their health and diet, claim,
from the purpose of the voyage, a consideration superior to the seamen:
but when the capricious and irascible passions of their general tyrant
were once set afloat, I never could see any difference in the cruelty of
their treatment.
Flogging, that favourite exercise, was in continual use with the poor
Negroes as well as the seamen. So incessant was the practice, that it is
impossible to discriminate the particular occasions or circumstances.
One or two, however, I may mention.
Just before we left the coast, and when the rooms were so crowded, that
the slaves were packed together to a degree of pain, there came a
boat-load of slaves along-side in the night, after all those on board
had been put below. The new comers were also put down, to shift for
themselves, and of course much noise ensued. In the womens' room, this
was sadly increased by one of the strangers being so unfortunate as to
throw down a certain tub. In the morning she was tied up to the
captain's bed, with her face close to his, and a person was ordered to
flog her. The idea of the sex operating on the unwilling executioner,
she did not receive her punishment with all the severity that was
expected. The executioner was himself immediately tied up, and for the
lenity he had shewn, received a violent lashing. The woman was then
flogged till her back was full of holes. I remember, that in healing
them, they were so thick, that I was forced to cut two or three of them
into one, to apply the dressings.
That the chief tortures are applied to the unhappy sufferers, on
refusing the diet that is offered them, has been fully mentioned by
others. We had our share of them; and the lash was often inflicted until
the poor victims fainted away with pain. Two women, by many degrees the
two finest slaves in the ship, felt a severity of this kind with such
poignancy, that folding themselves in each others arms, they plunged
over the poop of the vessel into the sea, and were drowned. We were
obliged to put all the women immediately below, as they cried out in a
most affecting manner, and many of them were preparing to follow their
companions. These are the people whom the good trader's represent, as
wanting every kind of sensibility!
Were I to transcribe a regular journal of the usage of the slaves on the
middle passage, it would be but a repetition of acts similar to the
above, and varied perhaps only by the circumstances that attended it.
One instance more of brutality I would, however, willingly relate, as
practiced by the captain on an unfortunate slave, of the age of eight or
nine, but that I am _obliged_ to withhold it; for though my heart bleeds
at the recollection, though the act is too atrocious and bloody to be
passed over in silence, yet as I cannot express it in any words that
would not severely wound the feelings of the _delicate_ reader, I must
be content with suffering it to escape among those numerous hidden and
unrevealed enormities, the offspring of barbarity and despotism, that
are committed daily in the prosecution of this execrable trade.
Before I quit this subject of the Slaves, I must mention a circumstance
that, I dare say very often occurs, though perhaps seldom with so
advantageous a succedaneum. The doctor and his mate being both dead, the
medicine chest was given into my charge and disposal: a knowledge of
Latin, and a little medical reading, were all my qualifications. What a
situation would it have been for an ignorant, an unfeeling, or an
indolent man! Medicines or poisons to be dealt out promiscuously to such
a number of persons, all afflicted with disease, during a passage
through the tedious latitudes across the Atlantic. The only directions I
had to go by, were a few remarks on the last stage of the flux, written
in a minute or two, by a surgeon at St. Thomas's, on a bit of cartridge
paper.