sometimes six or seven hundred together, where they lie as close as possible. Under these complicated distresses they are often reduced to a state of desperation, wherein many have leaped into the sea, and have kept themselves under water till they were drowned; others have starved themselves to death, for the prevention whereof some masters of vessels have cut off the legs and arms of a number of those poor desperate creatures, to terrify the rest. Great numbers have also frequently been killed, and some deliberately put to death under the greatest torture, when they have attempted to rise, in order to free themselves from their present misery, and the slavery designed them. An instance of the last kind appears particularly in an account given by the master of a vessel, who brought a cargo of slaves to _Barbadoes_; indeed it appears so irreconcileable to the common dictates of humanity, that one would doubt the truth of it, had it not been related by a serious person of undoubted credit, who had it from the captain’s own mouth. Upon an inquiry, What had been the success of his voyage? he answered, ‘That he had found it a difficult matter to set the negroes a fighting with each other, in order to procure the number he wanted; but that when he had obtained this end, and had got his vessel filled with slaves, a new difficulty arose from their refusal to take food; those desperate creatures chusing rather to die with hunger, than to be carried from their native country.’ Upon a farther inquiry, by what means he had prevailed upon them to forego this desperate resolution? he answered, ‘That he obliged all the negroes to come upon deck, where they persisted in their resolution of not taking food, he caused his sailors to lay hold upon one of the most obstinate, and chopt the poor creature into small pieces, forcing some of the others to eat a part of the mangled body; withal swearing to the survivors, that he would use them all, one after the other, in the same manner, if they did not consent to eat.’ This horrid execution he applauded as a good act, it having had the desired effect, in bringing them to take food. A similar case is mentioned in _Astley_’s Collection of Voyages, by _John Atkins_, Surgeon on board Admiral _Ogle_’s squadron, ‘Of one _Harding_, mailer of a vessel, in which several of the men-slaves, and a woman-slave, had attempted to rise, in order to recover their liberty; some of whom the master, of his own authority, sentenced to cruel death; making them first eat the heart and liver of one of those he killed. The woman he hoisted by the thumbs; whipped and slashed with knives before the other slaves, till she died.’