nto the sea, and in other ways; the
effect also of their situation upon their minds, by producing insanity
and various diseases; and the cruel manner of disposing of them in the
West Indies, and of separating relatives and friends.

With respect to the seamen employed in this trade, he commended Captain
Frazer for his kind usage to them, under whom he had so long served. The
handsome way in which he spoke of the latter pleased me much, because I
was willing to deduce from it his own impartiality, and because I
thought I might infer from it, also, his regard to truth as to other
parts of his narrative. Indeed I had been before acquainted with this
circumstance. Thompson, of the Seven Stars, had informed me that Frazer
was the only man sailing out of that port for slaves who had not been
guilty of cruelty to his seamen: and Mr. Burges alluded to it, when he
gave me advice not to proceed against the captain of the Alfred; for he
then said, as I mentioned in a former chapter, "that he knew but one
captain in the trade, who did not deserve long ago to be hanged." Mr.
Falconbridge, however, stated, that though he had been thus fortunate in
the Tartar and Emilia, he had been as unfortunate in the Alexander; for
he believed there were no instances upon naval record, taken altogether,
of greater barbarity, than of that which had been exercised towards the
seamen in this voyage. In running over these, it struck me that I had
heard of the same from some other quarter, or at least that these were
so like the others, that I was surprised at their coincidence. On taking
out my notes, I looked for the names of those whom I recollected to have
been used in this manner; and on desiring Mr. Falconbridge to mention
the names of those, also, to whom he alluded, they turned out to be the
same. The mystery, however, was soon cleared up, when I told him from
whom I had received my intelligence: for Mr. Arnold, the last-mentioned
person in the last chapter, had been surgeon's mate under Mr.
Falconbridge in the same vessel.

There was one circumstance of peculiar importance, but quite new to me,
which I collected from the information which Mr. Falconbridge had given
me. This was, that many of the seamen, who left the slave-ships in the
West Indies, were in such a weak, ulcerated, and otherwise diseased
state, that they perished there. Several, also, of those who came home
with the vessels were in the same deplorable condition. This was the
cas