tain Potter, lay at anchor at Mana with one
hundred slaves aboard. The mate, second mate, the boatswain, and about
half the crew were sent into the interior to buy some more slaves.
Noticing the reduced numbers of their jailors, the slaves determined to
rise. Ridding themselves of their irons, they crowded to the deck, and,
all unarmed as they were, killed the captain, the surgeon, the carpenter,
the cooper, and a cabin-boy. Whereupon the remainder of the crew took to
the boats and boarded a neighboring slaver, the "Spencer." The captain of
this craft prudently declined to board the "Perfect," and reduce the
slaves to subjection again; but he had no objection to slaughtering naked
blacks at long range, so he warped his craft into position and opened fire
with his guns. For about an hour this butchery was continued, and then
such of the slaves as still lived, ran the schooner ashore, plundered, and
burnt her.

[Illustration: "THE ROPE WAS PUT AROUND HIS NECK"]

How such insurrections were put down was told nearly a hundred years later
in an official communication to Secretary of State James Buchanan, by
United States Consul George W. Gordon, the story being sworn testimony
before him. The case was that of the slaver "Kentucky," which carried 530
slaves. An insurrection which broke out was speedily suppressed, but
fearing lest the outbreak should be repeated, the captain determined to
give the wretched captives an "object lesson" by punishing the
ringleaders. This is how he did it:

"They were ironed, or chained, two together, and when they were hung, a
rope was put around their necks and they were drawn up to the yard-arm
clear of the sail. This did not kill them, but only choked or strangled
them. They were then shot in the breast and the bodies thrown overboard.
If only one of two that were ironed together was to be hung, the rope was
put around his neck and he was drawn up clear of the deck, and his leg
laid across the rail and chopped off to save the irons and release him
from his companion, who at the same time lifted up his leg until the other
was chopped off as aforesaid, and he released. The bleeding negro was then
drawn up, shot in the breast and thrown overboard. The legs of about one
dozen were chopped off this way.

"When the feet fell on the deck they were picked up by the crew and thrown
overboard, and sometimes they shot at the body while it still hung,
living, and all sorts of sport was made of the bus