would now go to that of the transportation of them. And here he had fondly
hoped, that when men with affections and feelings like our own had been
torn from their country, and every thing dear to them, he should have found
some mitigation of their sufferings; but the sad reverse was the case. This
was the most wretched part of the whole subject. He was incapable of
impressing the house with what he felt upon it. A description of their
conveyance was impossible. So much misery condensed in so little room was
more than the human imagination had ever before conceived. Think only of
six hundred persons linked together, trying to get rid of each other,
crammed in a close vessel with every object that was nauseous and
disgusting, diseased, and struggling with all the varieties of
wretchedness. It seemed impossible to add any thing more to human misery.
Yet shocking as this description must be felt to be by every man, the
transportation had been described by several witnesses from Liverpool to be
a comfortable conveyance. Mr. Norris had painted the accommodations on
board a slave-ship in the most glowing colours. He had represented them in
a manner which would have exceeded his attempts at praise of the most
luxurious scenes. Their apartments, he said, were fitted up as
advantageously for them as circumstances could possibly admit: they had
several meals a day; some, of their own country provisions, with the best
sauces of African cookery; and, by way of variety, another meal of pulse,
according to the European taste. After breakfast they had water to wash
themselves, while their apartments were perfumed with frankincense and
lime-juice. Before dinner they were amused after the manner of their
country; instruments of music were introduced: the song and the dance were
promoted: games of chance were furnished them: the men played and sang,
while the women and girls made fanciful ornaments from beads, with which
they were plentifully supplied. They were indulged in all their little
fancies, and kept in sprightly humour. Another of them had said, when the
sailors were flogged, it was out of the hearing of the Africans, lest it