to become monsters, than to continue to be men.

While I was at Bristol, I heard from an officer of the Alfred, who gave
me the intelligence privately, that the steward of a Liverpool ship,
whose name was Green, had been murdered in that ship. The Alfred was in
Bonny river at the same time, and his own captain, (so infamous for his
cruelty, as has been before shown,) was on board when it happened. The
circumstances, he said, belonging to this murder, were, if report were
true, of a most atrocious nature, and deserved to be made the subject of
inquiry. As to the murder itself, he observed, it had passed as a
notorious and uncontradicted fact.

This account was given me just as I had made an acquaintance with Mr.
Falconbridge, and I informed him of it; he said he had no doubt of its
truth; for in his last voyage he went to Bonny himself, where the ship
was then lying, in which the transaction happened: the king and several
of the black traders told him of it. The report then current was simply
this, that the steward had been barbarously beaten one evening; that
after this he was let down with chains upon him into a boat, which was
alongside of the ship, and that the next morning he was found dead.

On my arrival at Liverpool, I resolved to inquire into the truth of this
report. On looking into one of the wet docks, I saw the name of the
vessel alluded to; I walked over the decks of several others, and got on
board her. Two people were walking up and down her, and one was leaning
upon a rail by the side. I asked the latter how many slaves this ship
had carried in her last voyage; he replied he could not tell; but one of
the two persons walking about could answer me, as he had sailed out and
returned in her. This man came up to us, and joined in conversation. He
answered my questions and many others, and would have shown me the ship,
but on asking him how many seamen had died on the voyage, he changed his
manner, and said, with apparent hesitation, that he could not tell. I
asked him next, what had become, of the steward Green. He said he
believed he was dead. I asked how the seamen had been used. He said, not
worse than others. I then asked whether Green had been used worse than
others. He replied, he did not then recollect. I found that he was now
quite upon his guard, and as I could get no satisfactory answer from him
I left the ship.

On the next day I looked over the muster-roll of this vessel; on
examining it, I fo