Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 342, April, 1844. Various
to carry only a number limited to their accommodation, were now crowded with wretches, stowed in spaces that scarcely allowed them to breathe. The cheapness of the living cargo, produced by the withdrawal of the British from the slave coast, excited the activity, almost the fury, of the trade; and probably 100,000 miserable beings were thus annually dragged from their own country, to undergo the labour of brutes, and die the death of brutes in the Western World.
Another source of evil was added to the original crime. The colonial possessions of Spain had been broken up into republics, and those were all slave-dealers. The great colony of Portugal, Brazil, had rushed into this frightful commerce with the feverish avidity of avarice set free from all its old restrictions. North America, coquetting with philanthropy, and nominally abjuring the principle of slavery, suffered herself to undergo the corruption of the practice for the temptation of the lucre, and the Atlantic was covered with slave-ships.
But rash, ill considered, and unfortunate as was the precipitate measure of Fox, we shall never but rejoice at the abolition of the slave-trade by our country. If England had stood alone for ever in that abolition, it would be a national glory. To have cast that commerce from her at all apparent loss, was the noblest of national gains; and it may be only when higher knowledge shall be given to man, of the causes which have protected the empire through the struggles of war and the trials of peace, that we may know the full virtue of that most national and magnanimous achievement of charity to man.
It is only in the spirit of this principle that the legislature has followed up those early exertions, by the purchase of the final freedom of the slave, by the astonishing donative of twenty millions sterling, the largest sum ever given for the purposes of humanity. It is only in the same spirit that our cabinet continues to press upon the commercial states the right of search, a right which we solicit on the simple ground of humanity; and which, though it cannot be our duty to enforce at the hazard of hostility, must never be abandoned where we can succeed by the representations of reason, justice, and religion.
The curious and succinct narrative to which we now advert, gives the experience of a short voyage on board of one of those slave ships. And the miseries witnessed by its writer, whose detail seems as accurate as it is simple, more than justify the zeal of our foreign secretary in labouring to effect the total extinction of this death-dealing trade.
H.M.S. the Cleopatra, of twenty-six guns, commanded by Captain Wyvill, arriving at Rio Janeiro in September 1842, the reverend writer took the opportunity of being transferred from the Malabar, as chaplain. In the beginning of September the Cleopatra left the Mauritius, to proceed to the Mozambique Channel, off Madagascar, her appointed station, to watch the slave-traders. After various cruises along the coast, and as far as Algoa Bay, they at last captured a slaver.
April 12.—At daybreak the look-out at the topmast-head perceived a vessel on the lee quarter, at such a distance as to be scarcely visible; but her locality being pronounced "very suspicious," the order was given to bear up for her. The breeze falling, the boats were ordered out, and in a few minutes the barge and the first gig were pulling away in the direction of the stranger. So variable, however, is the weather at this season, that before the boats had rowed a mile from the ship, a thick haze surrounded the ship, and the chase was lost sight of. The rain fell in torrents, and the ship was going seven knots through the water. On the clearing up of the fog, the chase was again visible. The sun broke forth, and the rakish-looking brigantine appeared to have carried on all sail during the squall. They could see, under her sails, the low black hull pitching up and down; and, approaching within range, one of the forecastle guns was cleared away for a bow-chaser. The British ensign had been for some time flying at the peak. It was at length answered by the green and yellow Brazilian flag. At length, after a variety of dexterous manœuvres to escape, and from fifteen to twenty shots fired after her, she shortened sail and lay to. Dark naked forms passing across the deck, removed any remaining doubt as to her character, and showed that she had her slave cargo on board. An officer was sent to take possession, and the British ensign displaced the Brazilian. The scene on board was a sufficiently strange one; the deck was crowded with negroes to the number of 450, in almost riotous confusion, having risen but a little while before against the crew. The meagre, famished-looking throng, having broken through all control, had seized every thing for which they had a fancy in the vessel; some with handfuls of the powdered roots of the cassava, others with large pieces of pork and beef, having broken open the casks, and others with fowls, which they had torn from the coops. Many were busily dipping rags, fastened with bits of string, into the water-casks to act as sponges, and had got at the contents of a cask of Brazilian rum, which they greatly enjoyed. However, they exhibited the wildest joy, mingled with the clank of the iron, as they were knocking off their fetters on every side. From the moment the first ball had been fired, they had been actively employed in thus freeing themselves. The crew found but thirty thus shackled in pairs, but many more pairs of shackles were found below. There could not be a moment's doubt as to the light in which they viewed their captors, now become their liberators. They rushed towards them in crowds, and rubbed their feet and hands caressingly, even rolling themselves on the deck before them; and, when they saw the crew of the vessel rather unceremoniously sent over the side into the boat which was to take them prisoners to the frigate, they set up a long universal shout of triumph and delight. The actual number of the negroes now on board, amounted to 447. Of those 180 were men, few, however, exceeding twenty years of age; 45 women; 213 boys. The name of the prize was the Progresso, last from Brazil, and bound to Rio Janeiro. The crew were seventeen; three Spaniards, and the rest Brazilians. The vessel was of about 140 tons; the length of the slave-deck, 37 feet; its mean breadth, 21½ feet; its height, 3½ feet—a horrible space to contain between four and five hundred human beings. How they could even breathe is scarcely conceivable. The captain and one of the crew were said to have been drowned in the surf at the embarkation of the negroes. Two Spaniards, and a Portuguese cook, were sent back into the prize.
As the writer understood Spanish, and as some one was wanting to interpret between the English crew and those managers of the negroes, he proposed to go on board with them to their place of destination, the Cape of Good Hope. The English crew were a lieutenant, three petty officers, and nine seamen. It had been the captain's first intention to take a hundred of the negroes on board the frigate, which would probably have prevented the fearful calamities that followed; but an unfortunate impression prevailed, that some of them were infected with the small-pox. In the same evening the Progresso set sail. For the first few hours all went on well—the breeze was light, the weather warm, and the negroes were sleeping on the deck; their slender supple limbs entwined in a surprisingly small compass, resembling in the moonlight confused piles of arms and legs, rather than distinct human forms. But about an hour after midnight, the sky began to gather clouds, a haze overspread the horizon to windward, and a squall approached. The hands, having to shorten sail, suddenly found the negroes in the way, and the order was given to send them all below.
There seems to have been some dreadful mismanagement to cause the horrid scene that followed. Why all the negroes should have been driven down together; or why, when the vessel was put to rights, they should not have been allowed to return to the deck; or why, when driven down, the hatches should have been forced upon them—are matters which we cannot comprehend; but nothing could be more unfortunate than the consequence of those rash measures. We state the event in the words of the narrative:—
"The night being intensely hot and close, 400 wretched beings crammed into a hold twelve yards in length, seven in breadth, and only three and a half feet in height, speedily began to make an effort to re-issue to the open air; being thrust back, and striving the more to get out, the after hatch was forced down upon them. Over the other hatchway, in the fore part of the vessel, a wooden grating was fastened. A scene of agony followed those most unfortunate measures, unequaled by any thing that we have heard of since the Black Hole of Calcutta. To this sole inlet for the air, the suffocating heat of the hold, and perhaps panic from the strangeness of their situation, made them press. They crowded to the grating, and, clinging to it for air, completely barred its entrance. They strove to force their way through apertures in length fourteen inches, and barely six inches in breadth, and in some instances succeeded. The cries, the heat, I may say without exaggeration, 'the smoke of their torment,' which ascended, can be compared to nothing earthly. One