exclusive of those which died before we left the Coast, of which I have no account.
I believe, upon an average between the more healthy, and the more sickly voyages, and including all contingencies, One Fourth of the whole purchase may be allotted to the article of Mortality. That is, if the English ships purchase Sixty Thousand Slaves annually, upon the whole extent of the Coast, the annual loss of lives cannot be much less than Fifteen Thousand.
I am now to speak of the survivors.— When the ships make the land, (usually the West-India islands,) and have their port in view after having been four, five, six weeks, or a longer time, at sea, (which depends much upon the time that passes before they can get into the permanent Trade Winds, which blow from the North-East and East across the Atlantic,) then, and not before, they venture to release the Men Slaves from their irons. And then, the sight of the land, and their freedom from long and painful confinement, usually excite in them a degree of alacrity, and a transient feeling of joy—
The prisoner leaps to lose his chains.
