Another officer involved in the abolitionist cause was Captain John Samuel Smith. He was the captain of the
Captain who, being ill, exchanged with Nelson in 1796, but died in Gibraltar before he could return to England. Smith had served in the West Indies and in 1786 allowed James Ramsay to publish a letter of his in support of an essay by Ramsay. His letter, after some personal remarks, opens
“The ill treatment of slaves is too well known, and too universal, to be denied.” and then goes on:
Quote:
I do affirm, I have seen the most cruel treatment made use of at several of the West India Islands, particularly at Antigua. While serving on that station, ten years ago, I visited several of the plantations there. In consequence of meeting with an old school-fellow, who managed an estate on that island, I was introduced to many of that description; and too often has my heart ached to see the cruel punishments for trifling causes, inflicted by the manager with such unconcern, as not to break in upon his jocularity. When I have interfered, I have been asked, "Do you not punish on board ships?" My answer was, "Yes, no doubt, but not in this cruel way." A poor negroe laid stretched flat on his face on the ground, at his peril to move an inch, till the punishment is over; that inflicted with a whip, whose thong, at the thickest part, was the size of a man's thumb, and tapering longer than a coachman's whip. At every stroke a piece [of flesh] was taken out by the particular jerk of the whip, which the manager (sometimes his wife) takes care to direct…
He regarded this sort of cruelty as the norm that he had seen on many plantations on many islands, but he had come across one single estate in Grenada where slaves were well treated. He quotes this one example as evidence that the cruelty was not necessary and was even counter-productive. He provides much more detail and entirely rejects the idea that anyone who has visited the Islands can believe slaves are well treated, saying
“It is astonishing that any man will presume to affirm that the negroes are better treated than the peasantry in England. The real fact is, that the first sentiment entertained, by a stranger, of a set or gang of negroes going to work, or at work, is neither more nor less than of a drove of cattle going to Smithfield market, or cattle working under unmerciful drivers. It shocks me much to recollect the comparison.”
In 1789 John Samuel Smith gave evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee appointed to take the examination of witnesses respecting the African slave trade.
As a biographical note, Smith’s son, also John Samuel Smith, was wounded at the Battle of Trafalgar while a midshipman in the Minotaur, whose captain, Mansfield, had previously served under Smith senior.