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. The first sixteen submitted to be thrown into the sea,
but the rest, with a noble resolution, would not suffer the offices
to touch them, but leaped after their companions and shared their
fate.
"The plea which was set up in behalf of this atrocious and
unparalleled act of wickedness was that the captain discovered, when
he made the proposal, that he had only two hundred gallons of water
on board, and that he had missed his port. It was proved, however,
in answer to this, that no one had been put upon short allowance;
and that, as if Providence had determined to afford an unequivocal
proof of the guilt, a shower of rain fell, and continued for three
days, immediately after the second lot of slaves had been destroyed,
by means of which they might have filled many of their vessels with
water, and thus have prevented all necessity for the destruction of
the third.
"Mr. Granville Sharp (who after many years of struggle first
obtained the decision of a court of justice that there ARE no slaves
in England) was present at this trial, and procured the attendance
of a shorthand writer to take down the facts which should come out
in the course of it. These he gave to the public afterwards. He
communicated them also, with a copy of the trial, to the Lords of
the Admiralty, as the guardians of justice upon the seas, and to the
Duke of Portland, as principal Minister of state.
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