Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/72

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

( 38 )

The paged version of this document contained the following header content in the margin: This mode and its consequences confirmed by another species of proof.

neither more nor less, that could be stowed in the different rooms of it upon these data. These, if counted, ( [1] deducting the women stowed in Z of Figures VI. and VII.) will be found to amount to four hundred and fifty-one. Now, if it be considered that the ship Brookes is of 320 tons, and that she is allowed to carry by Act of Parliament four hundred and fifty-four persons, it is evident that if three more could be wedged among the number represented in the plan, this plan would contain precisely the number which the Act directs; and if it should be farther considered that there ought to be in each apartment in the plan one or more tubs, as well as stanchions to support the platforms and decks, for which no deduction has been made, in order to give every possible advantage in stowing, then the above plan may be considered as giving a very favourable representation of the stowing of the negroes even since the late regulating Act. The plan therefore abundantly proves that the stowage of these poor people as well as the consequences of it must have been as described by the Evidences above; for, if when four hundred and fifty-one slaves are put into the different rooms of the Brooks, the floors are not only covered with bodies, but these bodies actually touch each other, what must have been their situation, when six hundred were stowed in them at the time alluded to by Dr. Trotter, who belonged to this ship, and six hundred and nine by the confession of the slave-merchants in a subsequent voyage [2].

Incidents on the passage

To come now to the different incidents on the passage. Mr. Falconbridge says, that there is a place in every ship

  1. By the late Act of Parliament the space Z, which is half of the half-deck, M Z is appropriated to the seaman.
  2. The situation of the slaves must be dreadful even on the present regulated plan; for their bodies not only touch each other, but many of them have not even room to sit upright; for when every deduction has been made, the height above the platform D F H, Fig. I. and below it C E G, is in the Brooks but two feet seven inches. The average height in nine other vessels measured by Captain Parrey was only five feet two inches; and in the Venus and Kitty the slaves had not two feet above or below the platforms. The slaves immediately under the beams must be in a still more dreadful situation as is seen by the plan; for in Fig. I. under the upper deck P P, and lower deck A A these beams are represented by shaded squares, as also they are introduced in Fig. II. and III.

for