But here a shriek unusually loud, accompanied with a dreadful rattling of chains, interrupted the discourse.  The wretched Africans were just about to embark:  they had turned their face to their country, as if to take a last adieu, and, with arms uplifted to the sky, were making the very atmosphere resound with their prayers and imprecations.

* * * * *

CHAP.  II.

The foregoing scene, though it may be said to be imaginary, is strictly consistent with fact.  It is a scene, to which the reader himself may have been witness, if he has ever visited the place, where it is supposed to lie; as no circumstance whatever has been inserted in it, for which the fullest and most undeniable evidence cannot be produced.  We shall proceed now to describe, in general terms, the treatment which the wretched Africans undergo, from the time of their embarkation.

When the African slaves, who are collected from various quarters, for the purposes of sale, are delivered over to the receivers, they are conducted in the manner above described to the ships.  Their situation on board is beyond all description:  for here they are crouded, hundreds of them together, into such a small compass, as would scarcely be thought sufficient to accommodate twenty, if considered as free men.  This confinement soon produces an effect, that may be easily imagined.  It generates a pestilential air, which, co-operating with, bad provisions, occasions such a sickness and mortality among them, that not less than twenty thousand[056] are generally taken off in every yearly transportation.

Thus confined in a pestilential prison, and almost entirely excluded from the chearful face of day, it remains for the sickly survivors to linger out a miserable existence, till the voyage is finished.  But are no farther evils to be expected in the interim particularly if we add to their already wretched situation the indignities that are daily offered them, and the regret which they must constantly feel, at being for ever forced from their connexions?  These evils are but too apparent.  Some of them have resolved, and, notwithstanding the threats of the receivers, have carried their resolves into execution, to starve themselves to death.  Others, when they have been brought upon deck for air, if the least opportunity has offered, have leaped into the sea, and terminated their miseries at once.  Others, in a fit of despair, have attempted to rise, and regain their liberty.  But here what a scene of barbarity has constantly ensued.  Some of them have been instantly killed upon the spot; some have been taken from the hold, have been bruised and mutilated in the most barbarous and shocking manner, and have been returned bleeding to their companions, as a sad example of resistance; while others, tied to the ropes of the ship, and mangled alternately with the whip and knife, have been left in that horrid situation, till they have expired.