1830.] The Slave Trade. 297 



station for the military ; hopes which the event totally frustrated. The 

 officers' quarters, in Crawford Island, are out of repair, and going fast to 

 decay. The soldiers' barracks are ill calculated, either for the health or 

 the comfort of the men. The hospital is decayed and out of repair. 

 " It is perched upon the top of a hill, in so exposed a situation, that, at 

 times, there is only the option of shutting up the doors and windows, or 

 of exposing the ^patients to strong currents of wind, and occasional rains." 

 With regard to public instruction, " all these schools," twenty-two in 

 number, say the Commissioners (p. 67) " were visited and minutely ex- 

 amined." " An insuperable difficulty was experienced from the abso- 

 lute ignorance of most of the teachers !" The pupils, of course, were 

 tolerable scholars, except that they could neither spell, read, write, nor 

 count their own fingers ! ! " The noting of times and seasons, or even 

 the common modes of expressing them, has" " formed no part of their 

 education." Some of the Mulatto children had made more progress, 

 but " few of them can spell the commonest word correctly." The whole 

 affair appears to be little better than a mockery ! 



We wish, for the sake of humanity, that in describing the situation of 

 the liberated Africans, we could draw a veil over the cruel destruction 

 of human life, which the Slave Trade and our impracticable plans for its 

 suppression as well as our injudicious arrangements in regard to the 

 survivors are daily creating on the seas and coasts of Africa. It is 

 necessary, however, to notice the subject, that our readers may be fully 

 aware of the fatal consequences of those measures, into which the legis- 

 lature were prematurely hurried by the blind zeal and heated imagina- 

 tion of a party, who still possess too much influence with the govern- 

 ment ; and who, impelled by the same fanatical irregularity of mind, 

 or influenced by men who seek the interest of their party under the 

 garb of philanthropy, are making exertions to hurry the country into 

 further errors. For, unless it is fully understood, it may be continued 

 and extended. We, therefore, call upon every humane person in the 

 empire to attend to the further facts of the case. 



In consequence of the trade being now contraband, concealment has 

 become necessary ; and the smugglers, in order to escape our cruizers, 

 employ small fast sailing vessels, into which they put such an over 

 quantity of slaves, that pestilence and disease soon destroys great 

 numbers of them. There has been an instance where many, having 

 become blind, were thrown overboard alive others in casks during the 

 chase, and the trade is, unquestionably, carried on with much greater 

 atrocity than at any former period. When actually captured by our 

 cruizers, their sorrows do not cease. All those captured on the African 

 coast must be taken to Sierra Leone, however distant, and the mortality, 

 during the voyage, is often dreadful.* In the instance of La Fortune, 

 prize to the Brazen, of 245 slaves then on board, 46 died on the passage, 

 and 77 in the harbour, when waiting for adjudication. In that of the 

 Rosalia, taken by the Athol, 92 out of 285 died before they reached 

 Sierra Leone. Many hundreds of these poor wretches die from previous 

 suffering and the want of proper medical atteudance, food, and lodgings, 

 immediately after being landed, before it is possible to have them 

 registered and located. Experience has shown that it is in vain to look 

 for voluntary labourers among the survivors, and they are, therefore, 



* Vide Commissioners' Report. 



M.M. New Series. VOL. IX. No. 51. 2 Q 



