... Self interest prompted
the baptized heathen to take some care of their wretched slaves for a
market, but no other care was taken of those poor Protestant Christians
from Ireland but to deliver as many as possible alive on shoar upon the
cheapest terms, no matter how they fared upon the voyage nor in what
condition they were landed."[36]
[Footnote 35: _E. g_., Gomer Williams, pp. 560, 561.]
[Footnote 36: D.D. Wallace, _Life of Henry Laurens_ (New York, 1915), pp.
67, 68. For the tragic sufferings of an English convict shipment in 1768
see _Plantation and Frontier_, I, 372-373]
William Snelgrave, long a ship captain in the trade, relates that he was
accustomed when he had taken slaves on board to acquaint them through his
interpreter that they were destined to till the ground in America and not
to be eaten; that if any person on board abused them they were to complain
to the interpreter and the captain would give them redress, but if they
struck one of the crew or made any disturbance they must expect to be
severely punished. Snelgrave nevertheless had experience of three mutinies
in his career; and Coromantees figured so prominently in these that he
never felt secure when men of that stock were in his vessel, for, he said,
"I knew many of these Cormantine negroes despised punishment and even death
itself.
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