ribe the silent sorrow which appeared in the
countenance of the afflicted father, and the painful anguish of the
tender mother, expecting to be for ever separated from their tender
offspring; the distressed maid, wringing her hands in presage of her
future wretchedness, and the general cry of the innocent from a dreadful
apprehension of the perpetual slavery to which they were doomed! Under a
sense of my offence to God, in the persons of his creatures, I
acknowledge I purchased eleven, whom I conducted tied two and two to the
ship. Being but a small ship, (ninety ton) we soon purchased our cargo,
consisting of one hundred and seventy slaves, whom thou mayest, reader,
range in thy view, as they were shackled two and two together, pent up
within the narrow confines of the main deck, with the complicated
distress of sickness, chains, and contempt; deprived of every fond and
social tie, and, in a great measure, reduced to a state of desperation.
We had not been a fortnight at sea, before the fatal consequence of this
despair appeared; they formed a design of recovering their natural
right, LIBERTY, by rising and murdering every man on board; but the
goodness of the Almighty rendered their scheme abortive, and his mercy
spared us to have time to repent. The plot was discovered; the
ring-leader, tied by the two thumbs over the barricade door, at sun-rise
received a number of lashes: in this situation he remained till sun-set,
exposed to the insults and barbarity of the brutal crew of sailors, with
full leave to exercise their cruelty at pleasure. The consequence of
this was, that next morning the miserable sufferer was found dead,
flayed from the shoulders to the waist. The next victim was a youth,
who, from too strong a sense of his misery, refused nourishment, and
died disregarded and unnoticed, till the hogs had fed on part of his
flesh. Will not christianity blush at this impious sacrilege? May the
relation of it serve to call back the struggling remains of humanity in
the hearts of those, who, from a love of wealth, partake in any degree
of this oppressive gain; and have such an effect on the minds of the
sincere, as may be productive of peace, the happy effect of true
repentance for past transgressions, and a resolution to renounce all
connexion with it for the time to come.]

Reader, bring the matter home to thy own heart, and consider whether any
situation can be more completely miserable than that of these distressed