The Rev. Pascoa Grenfell Hill, a chaplain in the British navy, once made a short voyage on a slaver which his ship, the "Cleopatra," had captured. The vessel had a full cargo, and when the capture was effected, the negroes were all brought on deck for exercise and fresh air. The poor creatures quite understood the meaning of the sudden change in their masters, and kissed the hands and clothing of their deliverers. The ship was headed for the Cape of Good Hope, where the slaves were to be liberated; but a squall coming on, all were ordered below again. "The night," enters Mr. Hill in his journal, "being intensely hot, four hundred wretched beings thus crammed into a hold twelve yards in length, seven feet in breadth, and only three and one-half feet in height, speedily began to make an effort to reissue to the open air. Being thrust back and striving the more to get out, the afterhatch was forced down upon them. Over the other hatchway, in the fore part of the vessel, a wooden grating was fastened. To this, the sole inlet for the air, the suffocating heat of the hold and, perhaps, panic from the strangeness of their situation, made them flock, and thus a great part of the space below was rendered useless. They crowded to the grating and clinging to it for air, completely barred its entrance. They strove to force their way through apertures in length fourteen inches and barely six inches in breadth, and in some instances succeeded. The cries, the heat, I may say without exaggeration, the smoke of their torment which ascended can be compared to nothing earthly. One of the Spaniards gave warning that the consequences would be 'many deaths;' this prediction was fearfully verified, for the next morning 54 crushed and mangled corpses were brought to the gangway and thrown overboard. Some were emaciated from disease, many bruised and bloody. Antoine tells me that some were found strangled; their hands still grasping each others' throats."