But he hoped the committee would attend to the latter part of the assertion of Captain Smith.  Yes:—­this trade, while it injured the constitutions of our sailors, debased their morals.  Of this, indeed, there was a barbarous illustration in the evidence.  A slaveship had struck on some shoals, called the Morant Keys, a few leagues from the east end of Jamaica.  The crew landed in their boats, with arms and provisions, leaving the slaves on board in their irons.  This happened in the night.  When morning came, it was discovered that the Negros had broken their shackles, and were busy in making rafts; upon which afterwards they placed the women and children.  The men attended upon the latter, swimming by their side, whilst they drifted to the island where the crew were.  But what was the sequel?  From an apprehension that the Negros would consume the water and provision, which had been landed, the crew resolved to destroy them as they approached the shore.  They killed between three and four hundred.  Out of the whole cargo only thirty-three were saved, who, on being brought to Kingston, were sold.  It would, however, be to no purpose, he said, to relieve the Slave-trade from this act of barbarity.  The story of the Morant Keys was paralleled by that of Captain Collingwood; and were you to got rid of these, another, and another, would still present itself, to prove the barbarous effects of this trade on the moral character.

But of the miseries of the trade there was no end.  Whilst he had been reading out of the evidence the story of the Morant Keys, his eye had but glanced on the opposite page, and it met another circumstance of horror.  This related to what were called the refuse-slaves.  Many people in Kingston were accustomed to speculate in the purchase of those, who were left after the first day’s sale.  They then carried them out into the country, and retailed them.  Mr. Ross declared, that he had seen these landed in a very wretched state, sometimes in the agonies of death, and sold as low as for a dollar, and that he had known several expire in the piazzas of the vendue-master.  The bare description superseded the necessity of any remark.  Yet these were the familiar incidents of the Slave-trade.

But he would go back to the seamen.  He would mention another cause of mortality, by which many of them lost their lives.  In looking over Lloyd’s list, no less than six vessels were cut off by the irritated natives in one year, and the crews massacred.  Such instances were not unfrequent.  In short, the history of this commerce was written throughout in characters of blood.