On taking
out my notes, I looked for the names of those whom I recollected to have
been used in this manner; and on desiring Mr. Falconbridge to mention
the names of those, also, to whom he alluded, they turned out to be the
same. The mystery, however, was soon cleared up, when I told him from
whom I had received my intelligence: for Mr. Arnold, the last-mentioned
person in the last chapter, had been surgeon's mate under Mr.
Falconbridge in the same vessel.
There was one circumstance of peculiar importance, but quite new to me,
which I collected from the information which Mr. Falconbridge had given
me. This was, that many of the seamen, who left the slave-ships in the
West Indies, were in such a weak, ulcerated, and otherwise diseased
state, that they perished there. Several, also, of those who came home
with the vessels were in the same deplorable condition. This was the
case, Mr. Falconbridge said, with some who returned in the Alexander. It
was the case, also, with many others; for he had been a pupil for twelve
months in the Bristol Infirmary, and had had ample means of knowing the
fact. The greatest number of seamen, at almost all times, who were
there, were from the slave-vessels.
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