When they left the vessel, they proposed going to Old Calabar, being determined to perish, rather than return to the ship. All the provisions they took with them was, a bag containing about half a hundred weight of bread, half a small cheese, and a cask of water of about 38 gallons. They made a sail of a hammock, and erected one of the boat’s oars for a mast. Thus slenderly provided, they dropped down the river of Bonny, and kept along the coast; but mistaking one river for another, they were seized by the natives, who stripped them, and marched them across the country, for a considerable distance, to the place to which they themselves intended going. During the march, several were taken ill, and some of them died. Those who survived, were sold to an English ship which lay there. Every one of these deserters, except three, died on the coast, or during their passage to the West-Indies; and one of the remaining three died soon after his arrival there. So that only two out of the whole number, lived to arrive in England, and those in a very infirm state of health. While I am upon the subject of the desertions among the sailors, I must add, that the captains in this trade generally take out with them tobacco and slops, which they sell at an exorbitant price to the sailors. And in case of their desertion or decease, they have it in their power to charge to the seamens accounts, whatever quantity they please, without contradiction. This proves an additional reason for cruel usage. In case of desertion, the sailors forfeit their wages, by which the expences of the voyage are lessened, and consequently the merchants reap benefit from it. The relation just given of the barbarities exercised by the officers in the slave trade, upon the seamen under their command, may appear to those who are unacquainted with the method in which this iniquitous branch of commerce is conducted, to be exaggerated. But I can assure them, that every instance is confined within the strictest bounds of truth. Many others may likewise be brought to prove, that those I have recited are by no means singular. Indeed, the reverse of this conduct would be esteemed a singularity. For the common practice of the officers in the Guinea trade, I am sorry to say it, will, with a very few exceptions, justify the assertion, that to harden the feelings, and to inspire a _delight in giving torture_ to a fellow creature, is the natural tendency of this unwarrantable traffick. It is but justice however, that I except from this general censure, one captain with whom I sailed. Upon all occasions I found him to be a humane and considerate man, and ever ready to alleviate the evils attendant on the trade, as far as they were to be lessened.