"
This event occured after he left the ship, according to his own
narrative. The same story is told in a different way by an eye witness
of undoubted veracity. He says that the prisoners were so incensed
against Spicer that they determined to kill him. For this purpose some
of them held him, while another was about to cut his throat, when the
guards, hearing the uproar, rushed down the hatchway, and rescued him.
Hawkins also says: "I one day observed a prisoner on the forecastle of
the ship, with his shirt in his hands, having stripped it from his
body, deliberately picking the vermin from the pleats and putting them
in his mouth. * * * I stepped very near the man and commenced a
conversation with him. He said he had been on board two years and a
half, or eighteen months. He had completely lost count of time, was a
skeleton and nearly naked. This was only one case from perhaps a
hundred similar. This man appeared in tolerable health as to body,
his emaciation excepted. * * * The discipline of the prisoners by the
British was in many respects of the most shocking and appalling
character. The roll of the prisoners, as I was informed, was called
every three months, unless a large acquisiton of prisoners should
render it necessary more often. The next day after our crew were put
on board the roll was called, and the police regulations of the ship
were read.
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