He
then laid open to me the different methods of obtaining slaves in Africa,
as he had learned from those on board his own vessel in his first, or
former, voyage. He unfolded also the manner of their treatment in the
Middle Passage, with the various distressing scenes which had occurred in
it. He stated the barbarous usage of the seamen as he had witnessed it, and
concluded by saying, that there never was a subject, which demanded so
loudly the interference of the legislature as that of the Slave-trade.
When he had finished his narrative, and answered the different questions
which I had proposed to him concerning it, I asked him in as delicate a
manner as I could, How it happened, that, seeing the trade in this horrible
light, he had consented to follow it again? He told me frankly, that he had
received a regular medical education, but that his relations, being poor,
had not been able to set him up in his profession. He had saved a little
money in his last voyage. In that, which he was now to perform, he hoped to
save a little more.
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