People familiar with Whittier's poems will recall ‘The Slave Ships," founded on the experience of the French slaver Rodeur. In 1819 while she was on her way to Guadeloupe with but one hundred and sixty-two slaves on board, a disease of the eyes appeared in the hold and spread rapidly. To save the unaffected and to ground a claim on the underwriters, the captain threw thirty-six of the negroes alive into the sea. The disease continued its ravages, however, and soon attacked the crew with such malignancy that in a short time all but one of them became blind.
In this terrorful condition a sail was seen, and the one man who had the use of his eyes steered the Rodeur toward her. In a short time she was seen to be drifting derelict with all sail set, though men were wandering about her deck. The man on the Rodeur hailed her, and then her crew swarmed to her rail and begged for help, saying that she was the Spanish slaver Leon, and that every soul on board was blind through the ophthalmia generated among the slaves.
The Rodeur reached port steered by the one man, but he went blind on reaching shore. The Leon was never seen again.
To the stories of the ills of the Middle Passage so far given must be added those which relate to the mental sufferings of the slaves and those that grew out of the deliberate cruelty of the crews. Indeed it is not to much to say that the saddest result of the
