Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1858 — The Horrors of the “Middle Passage.” [ARTICLE]

The Horrors of the “Middle Passage.”

I ‘ —Vi A correspondent of the /Veto York Journal of Commerce, writing on board the United States frigate Powhattan at St. Helena, February 4, gives an interesting account of, : a visit to a slave vessel which had been captured by British cruisers and taken to St. Helena. The slaver was a brigatine, built about four years ago at New London, Conn/; and admirably constructed for speed. Siie measured about two hundred and twenty tuns, and her slave deck was only four and a half feet high, yet no less than six hundred and fifty Africans had been crowded into this small vessel. The utmost compression compatible With life was resorted to, and had not a large portion been chil- ! dren they could not have been stowed j away. The writer says that the following j method was employed to economise space: The Africans were placed in rows face to face lengthwise of the deck, and each one ignnningone leg between the leg 3 of the one fitting opposite. Anpther row was placed back to back against the exterior row first seated, and thus the whole deck was almost a soliff #tmss of living human flesh. To • keep thenUstjll and powerless, and prevent insurrection,, aring was put on one ancle, to which an iron bar was attached which reached up to the boiljCand to which the manacles were fastened wntduwere put on their wrists. Thus situated, row, and legs interlaced with legs, a long iron bar ran along over the line of ancles, to which the irons were attached which fastened the feet. Thus nearly all motion of the body and. exercise of the limbs was impossible, men in the stocks having as much liberty as they had, with ail tlie advantages of light and air. Even for a day, such a position would be painful and almost intolerable; what then a passage from continent to continent over tlie broad Atlantic, amidst storms, and calms, and suffocation, and occupying often sixty days or more! Occasiortally the slaves are taken on deck in gangs, where they may breathe the pure air a slioqi time, and where they are washed by having buckets of salt water thrown, upon them, their fetters and manacles yet remaining on them, and the salt water washing the sores and raw flesh-which their sitting position on the hard planks, their pressing against each other, together with the galling irons, iiave made. Both men and women are either utterly naked, or else have hardly the equal of a fig-leaf apron for their protection. The stench and filth are necessarily horrible and indescribable, which a stable or a stye can hardly exceed and seldom equal. It is not strange that a fright? ful mortality soon broke out which ended the woes of many, and would have done all, but for the providential capture. J. C. Fremont, with his family arrived in San Francisco on the 12th of April. He was then about proceeding to the mining region, and intended to remain in California several months. (£rit is said that a body of persons calling themselves “Friends of Jerusalem,” has been formed at Wurtemberg, with a view of rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem. - Piety. — Chasing the “Almighty Dollar” six days in the week, and mourning over the depravity of the world on the j^venth. papers in the South state that less damage is likely to result from th*e frosts than was anticipated