curses of a few of the more humane witnesses of his barbarity.  An officer of a Guinea ship, who had the care of a number of new slaves, and was returning from the sale-yard to the vessel with such as remained unsold; observed a stout fellow among them rather slow in his motions, which he therefore quickened with his rattan.  The slave soon afterwards fell down, and was raised by the same application.  Moving forwards a few yards, he fell down again; and this being taken as a proof of his sullen perverse spirit, the enraged officer furiously repeated his blows, till he expired at his feet.  The brute coolly ordered some of the surviving slaves to carry the dead body to the water’s side, where, without any ceremony or delay, being thrown into the sea, the tragedy was supposed to have been immediately finished by the not more inhuman sharks, with which the harbour then abounded.  These voracious fish were supposed to have followed the vessels from the coast of Africa, in which ten thousand slaves were imported in that one season, being allured by the stench, and daily fed by the dead carcasses thrown overboard on the voyage.”

If the reader should observe here, that cattle are better protected in this country, than slaves in the colonies, his observation will be just.  The beast which is driven to market, is defended by law from the goad of the driver; whereas the wretched African, though an human being, and whose feelings receive of course a double poignancy from the power of reflection, is unnoticed in this respect in the colonial code, and may be goaded and beaten till he expires.

We may now take our leave of the first receivers.  Their crime has been already estimated; and to reason farther upon it, would be unnecessary.  For where the conduct of men is so manifestly impious, there can be no need, either of a single argument or a reflection; as every reader of sensibility will anticipate them in his own feelings.

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FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 056:  It is universally allowed, that at least one fifth of the exported negroes perish in the passage.  This estimate is made from the time in which they are put on board, to the time when they are disposed of in the colonies.  The French are supposed to lose the greatest number in the voyage, but particularly from this circumstance, because their slave ships are in general so very large, that many of the slaves that have been put on board sickly, die before the cargo can be completed.]

[Footnote 057:  This instance happened in a ship, commanded by one Collingwood.  On the 29th of November, 1781, fifty-four of them were thrown into the sea alive; on the 30th forty-two more; and in about three days afterwards, twenty-six.  Ten others, who were brought upon the deck for the same purpose, did not wait to be hand-cuffed, but bravely leaped into the sea, and shared the fate of their companions.  It is a fact, that the people on board this ship had not been put upon short allowance.  The excuse which this execrable wretch made on board for his conduct, was the following, “that if the slaves, who were then sickly, had died a natural death, the loss would have been the owners; but as they were thrown alive into the sea, it would fall upon the underwriters.”]