189 

 HORRORS OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE. 



By the lov)est of the computations, it will appear, 

 that, on an averat^e, each slave- trading transport 

 loses, in the voyage, betw^een six and seven per cent, 

 of the cargo livurg at the time of embarkation. So 

 that if, instead of reckoning the yearly shipments 

 from the African shore at 100,000 slaves, we take 

 onl}^ an average of 50,000 yearly, yet still, more 

 than 3,000 men and women in each year, — or the 

 days being taken one with another, from eight to 

 ten living souls, every day of the calendar, are sac- 

 rificed to the mammon of the foreign sugar-trade — 

 not by breakers or tempests, but in summer seas, 

 beneath the bright, tropical noon. It is in the 

 putrid hold of the slave-ship, where the manacled 

 wretches lie doubled up, chm to knee, sweltering 

 between decks scarcely three feet high, that death 

 does his regular business, and takes his daily per 

 centage on the cargo. The morning's muster is 

 called, — the proportion of mortality for the past 

 night is ascertained, — the useless bodies are tossed 

 over the vessel's side, — and the wear and tear is 

 coolly written oiFon the adventure. Or perhaps a 

 sail becoming visible gives omen of a search. Then 

 at once the hatches are closed down upon the gasp- 

 ing freight, that no opening for air may, by sound 

 or by stench, betray the human mass below ; and, 

 before that crisis of fear and evasion is past, ten, 

 twenty, thirty, of the panting heap have perished by 

 suffocation. Sometimes, however, the number of 

 the negroes is too large, or the frame of the vessel 

 too inartificial, for such eflfectual concealment from 

 the survey of the English cruiser. In vain the 

 slave-dealer crowds all his sail for flight ; the res- 

 cuing vessel oains upon him, and capture seems 

 inevitable. One only chance remains — to baffle the 

 discovery of its crime by destroying all its proofs. 

 The time grows short, — the English lieutenant bears 

 on, and a gun-shot in advance almost sweeps the 



