ing the
voyage, but that mattered little to the slave-dealer, who had paid
nothing for them, and who could find plenty more where they came from.
Often the slave-dealers had on board, or rather in the hold of the ship,
something like 900 slaves. When the decks were battened down during
storms the tortures they endured were frightful. Often when the hatches
were opened after a hurricane more than one-third of the slaves were
found to be dead from suffocation or want of food, and often, sooner
than have the trouble of hauling up the dead bodies, the hatches were
battened down again and the poor slaves left in their misery till the
end of the voyage, when perhaps another third were found to have died.

It was to prevent atrocities such as these that our sailors were called
upon to perform such gallant deeds on the African Coast, and their
gallantry and powers of endurance were never displayed to better purpose
than during the chases and captures of slavers. Accounts of some of
them are given, to show the sort of work our officers and men are called
upon to perform to keep down this horrible evil.

CAPTURE OF BRAZILIAN SLAVER "FIRME" BY THE BOATS OF HMS "DOLPHIN"--1840.

At daylight on the 30th May 1840, the _Dolphin_ being under easy sail
off Whydah, a brigantine was observed on the lee-bow. All sail was
immediately made in chase; but as the stranger increased her distance,
the cutter, a twenty-foot boat, with nine men, including the officer,
and the gig with six, were despatched at half-past six o'clock, under
command of Mr Murray and Mr Rees, to endeavour to come up with and
detain the chase before the setting in of the sea-breeze. Both boats
being soddened from constant blockading pulled heavily, and the crews
had been employed during a squally, rainy morning in trimming and making
sail; but after a harassing pull of two hours and a half under a hot
sun, they came up with the chase, the gig being rather ahead. The
brigantine bore down upon her, opening a sharp and continued fire of
musketry, which was returned, when both boats, after steadily reloading
under her fire, cheered and boarded on each quarter. The sweeps of the
brigantine were rigged out, which prevented their boarding by the
chains, thereby rendering it difficult for more than one or two to get
up the side at a time.

Mr Murray was the first on board; and though knocked back into the boat
with the butt-end of a musket, which broke his collar-bone,