The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-10-17 00:00:00

THE SLAVE TRADE

Lord Denman has just published an eloquent exposure
of the horrors and iniquities of the Slave Trade. The
motives of his lordship in thus coming forward on the
side of humanity are beyond suspicion.
With becoming indignation Lord Denman relates the
atrocities with which this most horrible of all trades is
attended. It is common to ship more slaves than a ves-
sel will carry, on the calculation that a great number
must die during their voyage. Captain Matson, in his
evidence, relates :
" The effort of a slave captain is to land as many slaves as he
can on the coast of the Brazils, but, as it is not possible for the
most practised eye to tell a healthy from an unhealthy slave by
seeing him in the barracoons, if the vessel could take 300
slaves moderately crowded, the captain would take half as many
again, say 450, and cram them on board, below and on the
decks, for the sake of putting them to the test, knowing that
all those who were not likely to cross the Atlantic would sicken
during the first forty-eight hours; then directly they show the
symptoms of weakness, on account of their weak constitution,
they are put on one side of the deck, no food nor water is given
them, and they are allowed to die ; they are then thrown over-
board. Then, at the end of forty-eight hours, that man has a
prime cargo of slaves of those who do not sicken. Those whose
constitutions are strong enough to stand the first crowding and
the heat will live till they have crossed the Atlantic; they will
live during the passage."
The miserable cargoes sometimes suffer more from the
fears and brutality of their captors than even from their
avarice. One case is related by Mr. Bandinel of mutiny,
which is quoted by Lord Denman, as an example of the
monstrous cruelty with which the traffic is not uncommonly
attended. The Kentucky, a slave-vessel, took in a cargo
of negroes at Inhambane; the day after the vessel sailed
the blacks rose, and some of them got off their irons
ThP -.lied by t" - '

de mutiny was que.. ....ie crew firing below on the
crowded cargo. The remainder of the terrible tale we
extract as we find it ;

"On the next day they were brought upon deck, two or three
dozens at a time, all being well ironed, and tried by Captain
Fronseca and officers ' • and within two or three days after-
wards forty-six men and one woman were hung, and shot, and
thrown overboard. They were ironed or chained two together,
and, when hung, a rope was put round their necks, and they
were drawn up to the yardarm, clear of the sail. This did not
kill them but only choked or strangled them ; they were then
sthnt in tlip hranct find tha hnrliac thrnnyn nArearlinfiv.ri Tr nrsll7

one or two that were ironed together was to be hung, a rope
was put round his neck, and he was drawn up clear of the
deck, outside of the bulwarks, and his leg laid across the rail
and chopped off, to save the irons and release him from his
companion, who at the same time lifted up his leg till the
other's was chopped off, and he released. The bleeding negro

The legs of about one dozen were Chopped off in this w

When the feet fell on deck, they were acked up by the Bra-
zilian crew and thrown overboard, and sometimes at the body
while it still hung living, and all kinds of sport were made of
the business."

These cases are quoted by Lord Denman to excite that
detestation of the entire system of slave-dealing which
they are sure to raise in every human mind. It is impos-
sible to conceive a blacker degree of human guilt and
atrocity, or to imagine that man's cruelty to man can be
carried further.