294 



NARRATIVE OF AN 



C HAP. to fhoot him out of the rigging, he at laft furrendcred, and 



being brought adore, was dragged to fort Zelandia, in 

 company with two others, by a file of mulketeers, where, 

 for having been drunk on duty, they received a fire-cant 

 each? at the captain's requeft ; that is, they were baftinadoed 

 or beaten on the fhoulders by two corporals with bamboo 

 canes, till their backs were black, and fwelled like a 

 cuiliion. However arbitrary this mode of correction, the 

 captain endeavoured to explain the neceffity of it ; the 

 private American failors being of a turbulent fpirit indeed 

 when drunk, akhough when fober they may be fairly 

 glafled among the beft feamen in the world. 



Early the next morning, while mufing on all the dif- 

 ferent dangers and chaftifements to which the lower 

 clafs of people are expofed, I heard a crowd pafs under 

 my window. Gurioiity made me ftart up, drefs in a 

 hurry, and follow them : when I difcovered three ne- 

 groes in chains, furrounded by a guard, going to be exe- 

 cuted in the favannah. Their undaunted look, however 

 averfe I may be to the fight of cruelties, fo attra^Sled my 

 attention, as to determine me to fee the rcfult, which was 

 thus : — The fentcnce being read in Low Dutch (which 

 they did not underftand) one was condemned to be 

 flogged below the gallows, and his accomplice to have 

 his head ftruck off with an ax, for having fiiot a flave 

 who had come to fteal plantains on the eftate of his mif- 

 trefs. The truth however was, that this had been done 

 by that lady's abfolute command ; but the murder being 

 ♦ , difcovered, 



o 



