s, which I shall
relate in few words.

The chief mate used to beat the men-slaves on very trifling occasions.
About eleven one evening, the ship then lying off the coast, he heard a
noise in their room. He jumped down among them with a lanthorn in his hand.
Two of those, who had been ill-used by him, forced themselves out of their
irons and, seizing him, struck him with the bolt of them, and it was with
some difficulty that he was extricated from them by the crew.

The men-slaves, unable now to punish him, and finding they had created an
alarm, began to proceed to extremities. They endeavoured to force
themselves up the gratings, and to pull down a partition which had been
made for a sick-birth; when they were fired upon and repressed. The next
morning they were brought up one by one; when it appeared that a boy had
been killed, who was afterwards thrown into the sea.

The two men, however, who had forced themselves out of irons, did not come
up with the rest, but found their way into the hold, and armed themselves
with knives from a cask, which had been opened for trade. One of them being
called to in the African tongue by a Black trader, who was then on board,
came up, but with a knife in each hand; when one of the crew, supposing him
yet hostile, shot him in the right side and killed him on the spot.

The other remained in the hold for twelve hours. Scalding water mixed with
fat was poured down upon him, to make him come up. Though his flesh was
painfully blistered by these means, he kept below. A promise was then made
to him in the African tongue by the same trader, that no injury should be
done him, if he would come among them. To this at length he consented. But
on observing, when he was about half way up, that a sailor was armed
between decks, he flew to him, and clasped him, and threw him down. The
sailor fired his pistol in the scuffle, but without effect. He contrived
however to fracture his skull with the butt end of it, so that the slave
died on the third day.

The second circumstance took place after the arrival of the same vessel at
St. Vincent's. There was a boy-slave on board, who was very ill and
emaciated. The mate, who, by his cruelty, had been the author of the former
mischief, did not choose to expose him to sale with the rest, lest the
small sum he would fetch in that situation should lower the average price,
and thus bring down[A] the value of the privileges of the officers of the
ship. This b