“Being sick in my cabin, I was informed that a man slave would neither eat, drink, nor speak. I desired the mate and surgeon to try and persuade him to speak. I desired that the slaves might try also. When I found he was still obstinate, not knowing whether it was from sulkiness or insanity, I ordered a person to present him with a piece of fire in one hand and a piece of yam in the other, and to tell me what effect this had upon him. I learned that he took the yam and began to eat it, but he threw the fire overboard.” These were the tender mercies of the kind. Few slaves could expect so much consideration. There was a slave ship once struck on Morant Keys, not far from the east end of Jamaica--again I get my information from Clarkson. The crew, taking care of their own skins, landed in their boats with arms and provisions, and with incredible brutality--save that nothing a slaver did would now strike me as incredible--left the slaves on board still in their irons. This was in the night; and when morning broke they saw that the slaves, who must have been capable men, had not only managed to get free, but were busy making rafts on which they placed the women and children, swimming themselves beside the rafts, and guiding them as they drifted towards the island whereon were the crew. They should have been hailed as heroes and helped, but the crew were afraid--whether rightly or wrongly I cannot say. Certainly you could hardly expect men who had been left heavily ironed to drown, to deal very tenderly with the men who had calmly acquiesced in their death. At any rate, the story goes the white men feared, not that the black men would attack them, but that they would consume the water and provisions that had been landed. They resolved to destroy them as they approached the shore, and they killed between three and four hundred; and out of the whole cargo only thirty-three were saved to be brought to Kingston and sold.