reflect upon the subject, it cannot excite surprise that
slave-captains become as hard-hearted and fierce as tigers. The very
first step in their business is a deliberate invasion of the rights of
others; its pursuit combines every form of violence, bloodshed, tyranny
and anguish; they are accustomed to consider their victims as cattle, or
blocks of wood;[C] and they are invested with perfectly despotic powers.

[Footnote C: I have read letters from slave-captains to their employers,
in which they declare that they shipped such a number of _billets of
wood_, or _pieces of ebony_, on the coast of Africa.

Near the office of the Richmond Inquirer in Virginia, an auction
flag was hoisted one day this last winter, with the following curious
advertisement: "On Monday the 11th inst., will be sold in front of the
High Constable's office, one bright mulatto woman, about twenty-six
years of age; also, _some empty barrels, and sundry old candle-boxes_."]

There is a great waste of life among white seamen employed in this
traffic, in consequence of the severe punishment they receive, and
diseases originating in the unwholesome atmosphere on board. Clarkson,
after a long and patient investigation, came to the conclusion that two
slave voyages to Africa, would destroy more seamen than eighty-three to
Newfoundland; and there is this difference to be observed, that the loss
in one trade is generally occasioned by weather or accident, in the
other by cruelty or disease. The instances are exceedingly numerous
of sailors on board slave-ships, that have died under the lash, or in
consequence of it. Some of the particulars are so painful that it has
made me sicken to read them; and I therefore forbear to repeat them. Of
the Alexander's crew, in 1785, no less than eleven deserted at Bonny, on
the African coast, because life had become insupportable. They chose all
that could be endured from a most inhospitable climate, and the violence
of the natives, rather than remain in their own ship. Nine others died
on the voyage, and the rest were exceedingly abused. This state of
things was so universal that seamen were notoriously averse to enter
the hateful business. In order to obtain them it became necessary
to resort to force or deception. (Behold how many branches there are
to the tree of crime!) Decoyed to houses where night after night was
spent in dancing, rioting and drunkenness, the thoughtless fellows
gave themselves up to the merrimen