In Heaven Or Earth, Where'er Thou Be,
Angels Of Mercy Guide And Comfort Thee!
A note to the same poem gives the following record of facts,
substantiated in a court of justice, in which there can be only one
answer to the question, "Which were the savages?"
"In this year (1783) certain underwriters desired to be heard
against Gregson and others of Liverpool, in the case of the ship
Zong, Captain Collingwood, alleging that the captain and officers of
the said vessel threw overboard one hundred and thirty-two slaves
alive into the sea, in order to defraud them by claiming the value
of the said slaves, as if they had been lost in a natural way. In
the course of the trial which afterwards came on, it appeared that
the slaves on board the Zong were very sickly; that sixty of them
had already died, and several were ill and likely to die, when the
captain proposed to James Kelsal, the mate, and others to throw
several of them overboard, stating that 'if they died a natural
death, the loss would fall upon the owners of the ship, but that if
they were thrown into the sea, it would fall upon the underwriters.'
He selected accordingly one hundred and thirty-two of the most
sickly of the slaves. Fifty-four of these were immediately thrown
overboard, and forty-two were made to be partakers of their fate on
the succeeding day. In the course of three days afterwards the
remaining twenty-six were brought upon deck to complete the number
of victims.
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