the present century, lived and moved for no
other end than to endeavour to put down
an unjust, unchristian, and nefarious traffic.
Seventy years of English labour, twenty
millions of English money, and an African
squadron, kept up by English capital at an
annual cost of half-a-million, have been
powerless, however, to extinguish the trade
in human beings in any places except our
own colonies. At this present time there
exists an annual exportation of more than
one hundred thousand negroes from the
coast of Africa to Cuba, the Southern States
of North America, and the French, Dutch,
and Portuguese settlements. As the
shipments are contraband, they are carried on in
vessels constructed more for rapid sailing
than commodious stowage, and the sufferings
of the unfortunate negroes are consequently
increased. Still, the demand for slave-labour
is so great, and the price offered for the
negro is so high, that the trade is immensely
lucrative, even after allowing for the loss of
one-half the cargo by death from close packing,
or throwing overboard, to lighten the
vessel during the heat of a chase. It is a
melancholy and an appalling fact — a fact
that ought to call Clarkson and Wilberforce
from their graves — that the condition of the
negro during the sea-transit is ten times
worse at the present time than it was when
the trade was legal. The only operation of
the so-called Abolition Bills has been to
impose difficulties in the way of supply,
without destroying to any great extent the
demand, and the inevitable result is an
increase of price for the human commodity.

The slave-trade of a hundred years ago
may have been conducted badly and cruelly
in individual instances, by brutal captains,
such as, unfortunately, we have at the present
time in our ordinary Merchant Service; but,
I have materials before me that will enable
me to give a tolerably authentic picture of
a slave-captain of seventeen hundred and
ninety, who may have been a very favourable
specimen of his class.

Captain Hugh Crow was born in the town
of Ramsay, Isle of Man, in the year seventeen
hundred and sixty-five. When very young,
he lost his right eye; and when only twelve
years of age he was nearly drowned, but was
preserved to pass the chief part of his life
on the element that threatened to destroy
him in his youth. Being brought up at a
seaport town, he imbibed an inclination for a
sea-faring life; and, after two years' labour
as a boat-builder, he went his first voyage in
the spring of seventeen hundred and eighty-
two. While at Cork, before setting sail
under convoy for Barbadoes, he saw, for the
first time, great scenes of oppression and
distress under the cruel system of impressment.
He saw sailors swimming from ship
to ship to escape the press-gang; some nearly
smothered by stowing themselves away in
confined places below decks; others, who
were not fortunate enough to escape, dragged
on board by the hair of their heads.

In October, seventeen hundred and eighty-
three, he set sail for the coast of America;
and at Charleston he saw several vessels
arrived from Ireland crowded with poor
labourers, who were to be sold for so many
years, by the captains, to defray the cost of
their passage out. Among them were many
half-starved poor creatures, who were
advertised to be sold to the highest bidder; and
at the sale, while the whites were bidding,
the blacks, who attended in large numbers,
would indulge their love of fun at the expense
of the poor Irishmen, by exclaiming: "One
dollar more for 'em da; I have 'em. Three
bit more for 'em da; I have 'em. Negra
buy buckra now!" Such scenes as these, if
nothing else, must have inclined him to look
upon the slave-trade with calmness instead of
horror.

In seventeen hundred and eighty-nine he
had several offers to go as mate to the coast
of Africa, but he refused them, having not
yet overcome his repugnance to the slave-
trade; but in seventeen hundred and ninety
his friends overruled his objections, and he
was appointed chief mate to a fine brig, and
sailed on his first voyage to the slave-country.
His visit gave him a favourable opinion of
the blacks, especially of the natives of Benin,
whom he found to be a truly fine, tractable
race of people. His affection for the negro
increased with time, and in every case it
seems to have been fully returned. On the
occasion of his second voyage to New Calabar,
soon after they had weighed anchor with
a cargo of negroes, they were overtaken by a
tornado, with thunder, lightning, and rain,
and before they could take in sail or let go
the anchor, they were driven ashore. The
storm and darkness of the night made their
situation one of eminent peril. To lighten
the ship they employed gangs in starting the
water-casks and heaving the fire-wood over.
The ship began to lie over almost on her
beam-ends; and dreading that the poor
blacks below, whose cries were most
distressing, might be suffocated, they allowed
them to come on deck at the risk of their
own lives, for they outnumbered the crew in
the proportion of ten to one. Their chief
dependence was upon the good disposition of
sixty of the negroes whom they had shipped
on the windward coast, a race superior to
those of New Calabar. The confidence was
not misplaced; for, perceiving the danger,
they were so active to assist, that they were
mainly instrumental in saving the ship.
During this voyage, one of these windward-
coast men fell overboard, and the studding
sails being set at the time below and aloft,
the ship was running at the rate of seven or
eight knots, and it was some time before
they could bring her to. Chief mate Hugh
Crow, being anxious to save the poor fellow,
if possible, he prevailed upon four of the crew