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.
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