MORTALITY ON BOARD AMERICAN BRIG. 347 



would not allow this officer to leave Brass in 

 order to communicate the melancholy intelli- 

 gence to his captain until he was intimidated by 

 threats, a week after the interment. It appears 

 to me more than probable that an attempt was 

 made to kill the supercargo, to prevent his going 

 into the Eboe country, and thereby taking away 

 a certain trade, and an old-established one, from 

 their town, and in the attempt the gun ex- 

 ploded, — a very common occurrence among the 

 negroes, as they charge the guns half full, in 

 order, as they observe, " to make gun speak too 

 much." 



The captain of the American brig received 

 the intelligence of the supercargo's death when 

 performing the last ceremony over the corpse of 

 his carpenter ; and there being no medical assist- 

 ance on board, he lost nearly all his hands. 

 Fever had appeared among them, and in less 

 than six weeks his crew of sixteen was reduced 

 to five ! To add to the misfortunes of these 

 Americans, on one dark and stormy night, eight 

 or ten Kroomen ran away with the brig's boat, 

 with buckets and five boarding-pikes. A few 

 months afterwards I engaged some Kroomen at 

 Fernando Po, when I found that two of them 



