a dreadful massacre about twenty years before. The captains of
these vessels, thinking that the natives asked too much for their
slaves, held a consultation, how they should proceed; and agreed to fire
upon the town unless their own terms were complied with. On a certain
evening they notified their determination to the traders; and told them,
that, if they continued obstinate, they would put it into execution the
next morning. In this they kept their word. They brought sixty-six guns
to bear upon the town; and fired on it for three hours. Not a shot was
returned. A canoe then went to offer terms of accommodation. The parties
however not agreeing, the firing recommenced; more damage was done; and
the natives were forced into submission. There were no certain accounts
of their loss. Report said that fifty were killed; but some were seen
lying badly wounded, and others in the agonies of death by those who
went afterwards on shore.

He would now say a few words relative to the Middle Passage, principally
to show, that regulation could not effect a cure of the evil there. Mr.
Isaac Wilson had stated in his evidence, that the ship, in which he
sailed, only three years ago, was of three hundred and seventy tons; and
that she carried six hundred and two slaves. Of these she lost one
hundred and fifty-five. There were three or four other vessels in
company with her, and which belonged to the same owners. One of these
carried four hundred and fifty, and buried two hundred; another carried
four hundred and sixty-six, and buried seventy-three; another five
hundred and forty-six, and burled one hundred and fifty-eight; and from
the four together, after the landing of their cargoes, two hundred and
twenty died. He fell in with another vessel, which had lost three
hundred and sixty-two; but the number, which had been bought, was not
specified. Now if to these actual deaths, during and immediately after
the voyage, we were to add the subsequent loss in the seasoning, and to
consider that this would be greater than ordinary in cargoes which were
landed in such a sickly state, we should find a mortality, which, if it
were only general for a few months, would entirely depopulate the globe.

But he would advert to what Mr. Wilson said, when examined, as a
surgeon, as to the causes of these losses, and particularly on board his
own ship, where he had the means of ascertaining them. The substance of
his reply was this--That most of the slav