The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-06 00:00:00

THE SLAVE TRADE.

A statement made by one of the crew of the
slaver City of Norfolk, stranded on the Cuban coast,
respecting the voyage of that vessel, is interesting.
He says :
" The City of Norfolk sailed from the port of
New York on the sth day of June last, for the
purpose, as we were informed, of entering the
service of the Government of Venezuela as a trans-
port. The steamer arrived at St. Thomas's, the
passage occupying 10 days, where we remained six
days, and discharged a part of the cargo, consisting
of tobacco and packages of merchandise apparently,
the contents of which were unknown to us. While
lying at this port we received on board the steamer
200 tons of coal and 18 large casks, the contents of
which were not known by us at the time. We
sailed thence for Barcelona, the passage occupying
three days, where we took in a quantity of fresh
provisions (for the cabin) and an enormous quantity
of fresh water for ship's use. Suspicions of wrong
were aroused, but again allayed, on account of the
nature of our voyage, as a transport, necessarily
requiring a larger quantity than as a trader. On
the fifth day out of St. Thomas the seamen were
ordered below to open the casks abovementioned,
and found them to contain rice, beans, &c., besides
a number of kegs of spoons, small tin cups, razors,
and combs. This circumstance was made the theme
of conversation forward, and, after mature delibera-
tion, we went to the captain in a body, requesting to
be informed of his intentions, and the destinationtat
of the ship, upon which he frankly admitted
the
he was bound for the coast of Africa fore
purpose of procuring a cargo of slaves.
ex-
pressed to him our decided unwillingness iir
ed us of that
to go,
and that he should have inform
fact while in port. He replied that he wished to
hear no more from us, ordering us to go to our
work, and threatening to starve us
in case of refusal. We made the coastnto in compliance 36 ays,
on Sunday, August 1_
2 and
embarked 770 slaves,
place called San
sailed on the same
h tenthday
- for a
day out discovered the
propeller to be
Marino, and on
out
te
of order, one of the body pins
having worked
We succeeded in repairing
out.
damages by means of a cable taken round the pro-
peller, and stood on under canvass only for 25 days,
when
we removed the cable and started the that we
which worked as well as usual, excepting
h
feared to reverse them. On the morning of Oct. 1
we disembarked and landed the negroes on a small
quay, about 18 miles from San Marino, where the
captain was persuaded by a fisherman to do so, on
account of two or three steamers of war which were
on the look out for him. After landing all the
negroes the captain, engineers, firemen, and some
of the sailors took the steamer and stood out to sea
for the purpose of sinking and removing all vestiges
of her. They removed the pipe of the fresh water
condenser and the bottom of the delivery valve,
secured the wheel in a certain position, and aban-
doned her, standing out to sea under a full head of
steam. At daylight the next morning we found
the steamer had rounded to and run ashore on the
same quay that we had landed on the previous day.
The captain, being alarmed, proposed to convey the
negroes to the main land in lighters, and, the plan
appearing the roost feasible, his proposal was at
once carried into effect. We had succeeded in re-
moving 108 negroes when a Spanish cruiser hove
in sight, and the captain and officers fled to parts
unknown, leaving us to look out for ourselves. The
cruiser came to anchor, manned her boats and
pulled in for the quay. Our party endeavoured to
effect their escape in one of our boats, but inCeOrD;
sequence of the overloaded state of the boat were
overhauled, and, together with the remaining