all below.

There seems to have been some dreadful mismanagement to cause the
horrid scene that followed. Why _all_ the negroes should have been
driven down together; or why, when the vessel was put to rights, they
should not have been allowed to return to the deck; or why, when
driven down, the hatches should have been forced upon them--are
matters which we cannot comprehend; but nothing could be more
unfortunate than the consequence of those rash measures. We state the
event in the words of the narrative:--

"The night being intensely hot and close, 400 wretched beings
crammed into a hold twelve yards in length, seven in breadth,
and only three and a half feet in height, speedily began to
make an effort to re-issue to the open air; being thrust back,
and striving the more to get out, the _after hatch_ was forced
down upon them. Over the other hatchway, in the fore part of
the vessel, a wooden grating was fastened. A scene of agony
followed those most unfortunate measures, unequaled by any
thing that we have heard of since the Black Hole of Calcutta.
To this _sole inlet_ for the air, the suffocating heat of the
hold, and perhaps panic from the strangeness of their
situation, made them press. They crowded to the grating, and,
clinging to it for air, completely barred its entrance. They
strove to force their way through apertures in length fourteen
inches, and barely six inches in breadth, and in some
instances succeeded. The cries, the heat, I may say without
exaggeration, 'the smoke of their torment,' which ascended,
can be compared to nothing earthly. One of the Spaniards gave
warning that the consequence would be many deaths--_manana
habra muchos muertos_."

If this statement with its consequences be true, we cannot conceive
how the conduct of those persons by whom it was brought about can be
passed over without enquiry. There seems to have been nothing in the
shape of _necessity_ for its palliation. There was no storm, the
vessel was in no danger of foundering unless the hatches were fastened
down. That the negroes might have lumbered the deck for the first few
minutes of preparing to meet the squall is probable; but why, when
they were palpably suffocating, they should still have been kept down,
is one of the most unaccountable circumstances we ever remember. We
must hope that while we are nationally incurring an enormous
expendit