Clarkson. By the report it appeared, that, instead of the Slave
Trade being a nursery for British seamen, it was their grave. It
appeared that more seamen died in that trade in one year than in the
whole remaining trade of the country in two. Out of 910 sailors in it,
216 died in the year, while upon a fair average of the same number of
men employed in the trades to the East and West Indies, Petersburgh,
Newfoundland, and Greenland, no more than eighty-seven died. It appeared
also, that out of 3170, who had left Liverpool in the slave-ships in the
year 1787, only 1428 had returned. And here, while he lamented the loss
which the country thus annually sustained in her seamen, he had
additionally to lament the barbarous usage which they experienced, and
which this trade, by its natural tendency to harden the heart,
exclusively produced. He would just read an extract of a letter from
Governor Parrey, of Barbados, to Lord Sydney, one of the secretaries of
state. The Governor declared he could no longer contain himself on
account of the ill treatment, which the British sailors endured at the
hands of their savage captains. These were obliged to have their vessels
strongly manned, not only on account of the unhealthiness of the climate
of Africa, but of the necessity of guarding the slaves, and preventing
and suppressing insurrections; and when they arrived in the West Indies,
and were out of all danger from the latter, they quarrelled with their
men on the most frivolous pretences, on purpose to discharge them, and
thus save the payment of supernumerary wages home.
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