SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 119 



It is not of the original orderly purchase of these people, 

 but of their subsequent destination, that philanthropy has to 

 be jealous. From a country, where if they stayed- the parents, 

 or elder brothers, or princes, who sold them, would seize and sell 

 them again, they must clearly be removed ; but this with every 

 practicable care for their health and accommodation. The 

 act of parliament which regulated the transportation of negroes, 

 the carrying-trade bill, was an eminently useful law. Nor is 

 it at all less applicable to the trade in natural-born white bond- 

 slaves, conducted from many parts of Scotland,* of Ireland, 



* " As the same principles of profit regulated every voyage, the circum- 

 stances attending each were in general extremely similar : in some perhaps 

 the inconvenieivce v^ras less than in others ; but the following statement, taken 

 from a judicial proceeding before the court of session relative to a ship that 

 carried passengers from the isle of Sky to Carolina in 1791, is selected both 

 for its publicity and authenticity. ' The vessel was about 270 tons burden— 



* the number of passengers about 400, including women and children, so that 

 ' their situation was most uncomfortable and dangerous, there being hardly 



* room for them to stretch themselves. There were three tiers of beds fore 



* and aft, and two midship. The births for a full passenger were 1 8 inches 



* broad. I'hose fore and aft were only about 2 feet high, including the space 

 ' occupied by bedding, so that it was scarcely possible to creep into tliera. 



* The others were a little higher, so that the passenger could turn himself on 



* his side, and rest on his elbow. To add to their calamities, they neither 

 ' had a sufficiency of victuals nor proper cooking utensils, there being only 



* two pots of twenty-four pints each, which were quite inadequate to the pre- 



* paration in any reasonable time of a meal for 400 persons. Had the ves- 



* sel made out its voyage, the chief part of the people must have been con- 



