On my introduction to him, I asked him if he had any objection to give me an account of the cruelties, which were said to be connected with the Slave-trade.  He answered, without any reserve, that he had not; for that he had now done with it.  Never were any words more welcome to my ears than these—­“Yes—­I have done with the trade”—­and he said also, that he was free to give me information concerning it.  Was he not then one of the very persons, whom I had so long been seeking, but in vain?

To detail the accounts which he gave me at this and at subsequent interviews, relative to the different branches of this trade, would fill no ordinary volume.  Suffice it to say in general terms, as far as relates to the slaves, that he confirmed the various violent and treacherous methods of procuring them in their own country; their wretched condition, in consequence of being crowded together, in the passage; their attempts to rise in defence of their own freedom, and, when this was impracticable, to destroy themselves by the refusal of sustenance, by jumping overboard into the sea, and in other ways; the effect also of their situation upon their minds, by producing insanity and various diseases; and the cruel manner of disposing of them in the West Indies, and of separating relatives and friends.

With respect to the seamen employed in this trade, he commended captain Frazer for his kind usage to them, under whom he had so long served.  The handsome way in which be spoke of the latter pleased me much, because I was willing to deduce from it his own impartiality, and because I thought I might infer from it also his regard to truth as to other parts of his narrative.  Indeed I had been before acquainted with this circumstance.  Thompson, of the Seven Stars, had informed me that Frazer was the only man sailing out of that port for slaves, who had not been guilty of cruelty to his seamen:  and Mr. Burges alluded to it, when he gave me advice not to proceed against the captain of the Alfred; for he then said, as I mentioned in a former chapter, “that he knew but one captain in the trade, who did not deserve long ago to be hanged.”  Mr. Falconbridge, however, stated, that though he had been thus fortunate in the Tartar and Emilia, he had been as unfortunate in the Alexander; for he believed there were no instances upon naval record, taken altogether, of greater barbarity, than of that which had been exercised towards the seamen in this voyage.  In running over these, it struck me that I had heard of the same from some other quarter, or at least that these were so like the others, that I was surprised at their coincidence.  On taking out my notes, I looked for the names of those whom I recollected to have been used in this manner; and on desiring Mr. Falconbridge to mention the names of those also to whom he alluded, they turned out to be the same.  The mystery, however, was soon cleared up, when I told him from whom I had received my intelligence:  for Mr. Arnold, the last-mentioned person in the last chapter, had been surgeon’s mate under Mr. Falconbridge in the same vessel.