to the same owners.  One of these carried four hundred and fifty, and buried two hundred; another carried four hundred and sixty-six, and buried seventy-three; another five hundred and forty-six, and burled one hundred and fifty-eight; and from the four together, after the landing of their cargoes, two hundred and twenty died.  He fell in with another vessel, which had lost three hundred and sixty-two; but the number, which had been bought, was not specified.  Now if to these actual deaths, during and immediately after the voyage, we were to add the subsequent loss in the seasoning, and to consider that this would be greater than ordinary in cargoes which were landed in such a sickly state, we should find a mortality, which, if it were only general for a few months, would entirely depopulate the globe.

But he would advert to what Mr. Wilson said, when examined, as a surgeon, as to the causes of these losses, and particularly on board his own ship, where he had the means of ascertaining them.  The substance of his reply was this—­That most of the slaves laboured under a fixed melancholy, which now and then broke out into lamentations and plaintive songs, expressive of the loss of their relations, friends, and country.  So powerfully did this sorrow operate, that many of them attempted in various ways to destroy themselves, and three actually effected it.  Others obstinately refused to take sustenance; and when the whip and other violent means were used to compel them to eat, they looked up in the face of the officer, who unwillingly executed this painful task, and said, with a smile, in their own language, “Presently we shall be no more.”  This, their unhappy state of mind, produced a general languor and debility, which were increased in many instances by an unconquerable aversion to food, arising partly from sickness, and partly, to use the language of the slave-captains, from sulkiness.  These causes naturally produced the flux.  The contagion spread; several were carried off daily; and the disorder, aided by so many powerful auxiliaries, resisted the power of medicine.  And it is worth while to remark, that these grievous sufferings were not owing either to want of care on the part of the owners, or to any negligence or harshness of the captain; for Mr. Wilson declared, that his ship was as well fitted out, and the crew and slaves as well treated, as anybody could reasonably expect.

He would now go to another ship.  That, in which Mr. Claxton sailed as a surgeon, afforded a repetition of all the horrid circumstances which had been described.  Suicide was attempted, and effected; and the same barbarous expedients were adopted to compel the slaves to continue an existence, which they considered as too painful to be endured.  The mortality, also, was as great.  And yet here, again, the captain was in no wise to blame.  But this vessel had sailed since the regulating act.  Nay, even in the last year, the deaths on shipboard would be found to have been between ten and eleven per cent, on the whole number exported.  In truth, the House could not reach the cause of this mortality by all their regulations.  Until they could cure a broken heart—­until they could legislate for the affections, and bind by their statutes the passions and feelings of the mind, their labour would be in vain.