On the whole, it is likely that during the earlier years of this century nearly a fourth of all the slavers overhauled by the cruisers made some sort of resistance with arms, and as late as 1845 we have an account of the massacre of the crew of the cruiser Wasp on the African coast. But that one was a sorry victory for the slavers, for it led to the just order to British cruisers to give no quarter to a slaver that resisted, and resistance immediately went out of fashion. Previous to that massacre, according to Captain Canot, British officers were known, sometimes, to admire a good fighter so much as to let him escape— even to help him escape after capture! When there was no hope in a fight, the only way to escape condemnation was to get rid of the slaves before the cruiser could get an officer alongside. That legislators should not have foreseen the effect of this law or its interpretation, is no great wonder. But that the rule should have remained in force as it did is a shocking exhibit in the civilization of the day. The facts as to the workings of this rule appear in the brief stories of scores of captured slavers. There was the case reported by the British cruiser Black Joke, Captain Ramsey, for instance, in the Bight of Benin, in 1831. Captain Ramsey sent two tenders in chase of the Spanish slaver brigs Rapido and Regulo that were seen coming, loaded with slaves, from the Bonny River in September of that year. "When chased by the tenders both put back, made all sail up the river, and ran on shore. During the chase they were seen from our vessels to throw their slaves overboard, by twos, shackled together by the ankles, and left in this manner to sink or swim as they best could. Men, women, and children were seen in great numbers, struggling in the water, by everyone on board the two tenders; and, dreadful to relate, upward of one hundred and fifty of these wretched creatures perished in this way." So runs Captain Ramsey's report. Captain Ramsey said afterward that he and his men distinctly saw the sharks tearing the negroes as they struggled in the water. In order to save the two vessels, that together were not worth $10,000, from condemnation in court, these slaver captains deliberately murdered one hundred and fifty human beings. The Regulo was overhauled while she had yet two hundred and four on board out of her original cargo of four hundred and fifty. The Rapido had not one left on board when overhauled, but, two of her cargo having been picked up, it was possible to prove that they had been on board of her, and she was made a lawful prize. One of the most murderous stories of captains who were anxious to get rid of their slaves is told of the slaver Brillante, commanded by an Englishman named Homans, who in ten voyages had landed 5,000 negroes in Cuba. She was brig rigged, carried ten guns, thirty sweeps (big oars), and a crew of sixty men in the forecastle. An English cruiser that attacked her was so badly cut up that her crew had to abandon her. When, on another occasion, the boats from a sloop-of-war attacked the Brillante they were driven off with great slaughter. Finally Homans found himself trapped by four cruisers that came upon him from all quarters, and there was no escaping them. However, the wind died away and night came on before the cruisers arrived at their range, and at that Homans set his largest anchor ready for dropping. Then he hauled the chain-cable out through the hawse-pipe and stretched it around the ship outside the rail, by means of slender stops, and to this chain he bound every slave on board-about 600 in number, piling them up at the rail and securing their armshackles to it by strong cords through the chain links. There the slaves remained until the war-ship boats were heard coming near at hand, and then he cast loose the anchor, and down all those slaves were carried into the sea. Although the crews of the war-ship boats had heard the noise and the outcries when the slaves were sent to the bottom, and the hold of the slaver contained indisputable evidence that the slaves had been there but a few minutes before the boats arrived, they had to let the slaver go free. Indeed, Homans jeered in their faces and defied them as they stood on his deck, but they had no redress. The British war-ship Medina on boarding a slaver off the Gallinas River found no slaves on board. The officers learned afterward, however, that her captain really had had a mulatto girl in the cabin. He kept 1 her for some time after the cruiser appeared, but see ing that he was to be boarded, and knowing that the presence of one slave was enough to condemn the ship, he tied her to a kedge anchor and dropped her into the sea. And so, as is believed, he drowned his own unborn flesh and blood, as well as the slave girl. In view of the murders invariably committed on board the slavers, it is not without interest to recall that among those captured in 1828 was one on its way |