FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote L:  He had drowned himself in endeavouring to desert.]

[Footnote M:  Among others whom we brought from Bayonne, two gentlemen, who had been in the West Indies, where they sold slaves; and they confessed they had made at one time a false bill of sale, and sold two Portuguese white men among a lot of slaves.]

[Footnote N:  Some people have it, that sometimes shortly before persons die their ward has been seen; that is, some spirit exactly in their likeness, though they are themselves at other places at the same time.  One day while we were at Bayonne Mr. Mondle saw one of our men, as he thought, in the gun-room; and a little after, coming on the quarter-deck, he spoke of some circumstances of this man to some of the officers.  They told him that the man was then out of the ship, in one of the boats with the Lieutenant:  but Mr. Mondle would not believe it, and we searched the ship, when he found the man was actually out of her; and when the boat returned some time afterwards, we found the man had been drowned at the very time Mr. Mondle thought he saw him.]

CHAP.  V.

The author’s reflections on his situation—­Is deceived by a promise of being delivered—­His despair at sailing for the West Indies—­Arrives at Montserrat, where he is sold to Mr. King—­Various interesting instances of oppression, cruelty, and extortion, which the author saw practised upon the slaves in the West Indies during his captivity from the year 1763 to 1766—­Address on it to the planters.

Thus, at the moment I expected all my toils to end, was I plunged, as I supposed, in a new slavery; in comparison of which all my service hitherto had been ‘perfect freedom;’ and whose horrors, always present to my mind, now rushed on it with tenfold aggravation.  I wept very bitterly for some time:  and began to think that I must have done something to displease the Lord, that he thus punished me so severely.  This filled me with painful reflections on my past conduct; I recollected that on the morning of our arrival at Deptford I had rashly sworn that as soon as we reached London I would spend the day in rambling and sport.  My conscience smote me for this unguarded expression:  I felt that the Lord was able to disappoint me in all things, and immediately considered my present situation as a judgment of Heaven on account of my presumption in swearing:  I therefore, with contrition of heart, acknowledged my transgression to God, and poured out my soul before him with unfeigned repentance, and with earnest supplications I besought him not to abandon me in my distress, nor cast me from his mercy for ever.  In a little time my grief, spent with its own violence, began to subside; and after the first confusion of my thoughts was over I reflected with more calmness on my present condition: