Others had thrown themselves into the sea; and more than one, when in the act of drowning, were seen to wave their hands in triumph, "exulting" (to use the words of an eye-witness) "that they had escaped." Yet these and similar things, when viewed through the African medium he had mentioned, took a different shape and colour.

Captain Knox, an adverse witness, had maintained, that slaves lay during the night in tolerable comfort.

And yet he confessed, that in a vessel of one hundred and twenty tons, in which he had carried two hundred and ninety slaves, the latter had not all of them room to lie on their backs.

How comfortably then must they have lain in his subsequent voyages! for he carried afterwards in a vessel of a hundred and eight tons four hundred and fifty and in a vessel of one hundred and fifty tons, no less than six hundred slaves.

Another instance of African deception was to be found in the testimony of Captain Frazer, one of the most humane captains in the trade.