t as in any port of this continent. You
can imagine for yourself how easy it was to carry on the traffic
between this place and the West Indies. When landed on the coast of
Florida, it is an easy matter to distribute them throughout the more
southern states. The law which makes it piracy to traffic in the
foreign slave trade is a dead letter; and I doubt not it has been so
in the more southern states ever since it was enacted. For you can
perceive at once, that interested men, who believe the colored man is so
much better off here than he possibly can be in Africa, will not
hesitate to kidnap the blacks whenever an opportunity presents itself.
I will notice one fact that came under my own observation, which will
convince you that the horrors of the foreign slave-trade have not yet
ceased among our southern gentry. It is as follows. A slave ship,
which I have reason to believe was employed by southern men, came near
the port of Savannah with about FIVE HUNDRED SLAVES, from Guinea and
Congo. It was said that the ship was driven there by contrary winds;
and the crew, pretending to be short of provisions, run the ship into
a by place, near the shore, between Tybee Light and Darien, to recruit
their stores. Well, as Providence would have it, the revenue cutter,
at that time taking a trip along the coast, fell in with this slave
ship, took her as a prize, and brought her up into the port of
Savannah. The cargo of human chattels was unloaded, and the captives
were placed in an old barracks, in the fort of Savannah, under the
protection of the city authorities, they pretending that they should
return them all to their native country again, as soon as a convenient
opportunity presented itself. The ship's crew of course were arrested,
and confined in jail. Now for the sequel of this history. About one
third part of the negroes died in a few weeks after they were landed,
in seasoning, so called, or in becoming acclimated--or, as I should
think, a distemper broke out among them, and they died like the
Israelites when smitten with the plague. Those who did not die in
seasoning, must be hired out a little while, to be sure, as the city
authorities could not afford to keep them on expense doing nothing. As
it happened, the man in whose employ I was when the cargo of human
beings arrived, hired some twenty or thirty of them, and put them
under my care. They continued with me until the sickly season drove me
off to the north. I soon retu