The Massachusetts Slave Trade.

until the following February. This must have been an extremely profitable venture. The "Nete Prosed" from the sale of the negroes, rum, cotton and cordage, after deducting all expenses such as import duties, was £2,067 0s. 3¾d. The cargo of the vessel and "Harr Outsett," which included provisions as well as repairs, cost £798 2s. 6¾d. The wages of the seamen for this voyage are not preserved, but on another one to the West Indies the following year, which must have required approximately the same number of men for about the same length of time, they amounted to only £133 12s. 8d. This would leave over £1,000 of clear gain for the owners. The Katherine (with all possible orthographical variation) next made several trips to "Monsaratt," "Surrinam," and "Antiago," whence she brought back molasses and rum, but only one negro, destined for Peter Papillon. In August of 1729, however, the Katherine set forth for Guinea, with William Atkinson as captain. The ship's book stops with disappointing abruptness in the midst of this voyage and no trace of the return can be found. The invoice shows a typical cargo: it is almost entirely "Rume" and "Spirrits," but there is also "1 barr^l beeds." We know, too, that the vessel stopped at the West Indies on her way back, for one of the items of expense is £34 8s. 4d. for Francis Plaisted's "¼ of £500 Starling Insuerance on the Sloop Catharine from Boston to Ginney and Back againe and Reinsurance from Antiago." It seems reasonable to infer from these facts that Captain Atkinson on this voyage followed the usual course, disposed of the slaves which his outward cargo procured in Africa for molasses or rum in Antigua, and returned to Boston to the satisfaction of the men who signed themselves

"Y^r Loving Owner.
Peter Papillon ¾
Francis Plaisted ¼."

It was not unusual for several slaves to succumb to the long voyage. At a meeting of the selectmen of Boston, July 13, 1739, John Robinson, master of the schooner Mermaid from the coast of Guinea, made a declaration which reveals some of the horrors of the "middle passage."¹ He had left the river Gambo "two and Forty Days ago, with Eleven White men on board and Fifty Slaves." He had been obliged to do battle with smallpox, dysentery and measles, and had lost in all eighteen slaves. A committee was named to visit the schooner, accompanied by a doctor. This committee found twelve slaves on board sick and in such a condition that they considered it "necessary for the safety of this Town, that the said Vessell be not permitted to come to the Wharf." A warrant was accordingly drawn "for carrying the said Schooner down to Rainsford's Island, there to be aired and cleansed."
All through this period, until the Revolutionary struggle was imminent, the slave trade was carried on by the most respectable citizens of Boston. Yet our sense of the fitting cannot fail to be somewhat disturbed on finding that Peter Faneuil was engaged in it. In 1738 he directs Captain Buckley to sell some fish in Antigua and buy a straight negro lad, twelve or fifteen years old, —if possible, one who has had the smallpox. As the slave is intended for service in his own house, he desires as "tractable a disposition" as can be found.² In 1742 an expedition to Africa was actually planned and initiated by the donor of the building which was to become the "cradle of Liberty." The vessel, with the "ghastly funny" name of The Jolly Bachelor, met with misfortunes. The captain was murdered on the coast of Guinea, and George Birchall, a resident of the Banana Islands, took possession of the abandoned boat. He sent it back to Newport with twenty negroes on board.

¹ Records of Boston Selectmen, 1736-1742, p. 187, 288.
² Weeden, II, 627.

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