We then meet with as opposite an exhibition of character as can possibly be conceived: three or four hundred Africans cruelly massacreed or carried off, by means of the treacherous contrivance of six English captains in Old Calabar River. But let us “turn our eyes for relief to some ordinary wickedness”[4]: Some consider frauds as a necessary part of the traffic; they put false heads into powder casks, cut off two or three yards from the middle of a piece of cloth, adulterate spirits, and steal back articles given. Besides these, there are others who pay in bottles, which hold but half the contents of the samples shewn; use false steel-yards and weights, and sell such guns as burst on firing; so that many of the natives of the windward coast, are without their fingers and thumbs on this account, and it has become a saying that these guns kill more out of the butt than the muzzle. The Third Chapter contains an account of the transactions of the enslaved Africans, and of the method of confining, airing, feeding, and exercising them; incidents on the passage, and the manner of selling them when arrived at their destined ports; the deplorable situation of the refuse or sickly slaves; separation of relations and friends; mortality on the passage, and frequently after sale; and the causes of this mortality. On being brought on board, says Dr. Trotter, they shew signs of extreme distress and despair, from a feeling of their situation, and regret at being torn from their friends and connexions. They sometimes dream of being in their own country, and when they awake shew their despair by howling and shrieking in a most dreadful manner. The women go into fits. In the course of the voyage, the slaves are chained to the deck every day from eight in the morning to four o’clock in the afternoon. They are fed twice a day with rice, yams, and horse-beans, and now and then a little beef and bread: after each of these two meals they are allowed half a pint of water: and are forced to jump in their irons, which, by the slave dealers, is called making them dance. This exercise frequently occasions the fetters to excoriate their limbs; and, when it is very painful to move at all, they are compelled to dance by a cat-of-nine-tails. The captains order them to sing, and they sing songs of sorrow, the subject of which are their wretched situation, and the idea of never returning home: the witness remembers the very words upon these occasions.