ing case." He granted a new trial, at which the insurers escaped paying for theloss. So the laws, being unjust, were violated — disregarded even — by the courts before they were repealed. Such sacrifice of a part of a cargo of slaves to save the others was common enough in the history of the trade.
For a picture of a slaver of the lower class take that given by Drake in his "Revelations of a Slave-Smuggler." He says:
We had left the Verds, and were making southerly in ballast, when we overhauled a Portuguese schooner, and ran alongside. She had a full cargo of slaves, with a large quantity of gold-dust, and our captain, Ruiz, proposed to attack her. The crew were ready, and, inspired by rum, soon mastered the schooner's hands; our captain blowing out the brains of a passenger, who owned the gold. Some of the Portuguese leaped overboard, with spars; but Ruiz had a boat manned, and knocked the survivors on the head with axes. The gold-dust and negroes were then quickly transferred to the slaver, the schooner was scuttled, and we kept on our way to the land with 190 slaves.... We then ran for Accra, and landed at Papoe, a town belonging to a Dahoman chief, where we found 600 negroes, waiting for a Spanish slaver, soon expected. Ruiz bought 400 of these, paying in the Portuguese gold-dust, and hauled our course for the Atlantic voyage.
But this was to be my last trip in the blood-stained Gloria. Hardly were we out a fortnight before it was discovered that our roystering crew had neglected to change the sea-water which had served as our ballast, in the lower casks, and which ought to have been replaced with fresh water in Africa. We were drawing from the last casks before this discovery was made; and the horror of our situation sobered Captain Ruiz. He gave orders to hoist the precious remnant abaft the main grating, and made me calculate how long it