es laboured under a fixed
melancholy, which now and then broke out into lamentations and plaintive
songs, expressive of the loss of their relations, friends, and country.
So powerfully did this sorrow operate, that many of them attempted in
various ways to destroy themselves, and three actually effected it.
Others obstinately refused to take sustenance; and when the whip and
other violent means were used to compel them to eat, they looked up in
the face of the officer, who unwillingly executed this painful task, and
said, with a smile, in their own language, "Presently we shall be no
more." This, their unhappy state of mind, produced a general languor and
debility, which were increased in many instances by an unconquerable
aversion to food, arising partly from sickness, and partly, to use the
language of the slave-captains, from sulkiness. These causes naturally
produced the flux. The contagion spread; several were carried off daily;
and the disorder, aided by so many powerful auxiliaries, resisted the
power of medicine. And it is worth while to remark, that these grievous
sufferings were not owing either to want of care on the part of the
owners, or to any negligence or harshness of the captain; for Mr. Wilson
declared, that his ship was as well fitted out, and the crew and slaves
as well treated, as anybody could reasonably expect.

He would now go to another ship. That, in which Mr. Claxton sailed as a
surgeon, afforded a repetition of all the horrid circumstances which had
been described. Suicide was attempted, and effected; and the same
barbarous expedients were adopted to compel the slaves to continue an
existence, which they considered as too painful to be endured. The
mortality, also, was as great. And yet here, again, the captain was in
no wise to blame. But this vessel had sailed since the regulating act.
Nay, even in the last year, the deaths on shipboard would be found to
have been between ten and eleven per cent, on the whole number exported.
In truth, the House could not reach the cause of this mortality by all
their regulations. Until they could cure a broken heart--until they
could legislate for the affections, and bind by their statutes the
passions and feelings of the mind, their labour would be in vain.

Such were the evils of the Passage. But evils were conspicuous
everywhere in this trade. Never was there, indeed, a system so replete
with wickedness and cruelty. To whatever part of it we turned our