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9 (1861)
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WILLIAM THE TniRD.

275

by an intermittent fever. Still lie would not admit that chap.

J _ XXIV.

the climate of bis promised land was bad. There could' icao,not be a purer air. This was merely the seasoningwhich people who passed from one country to another mustexpect. In November all would be well again. But therate at which the emigrants died was such that none ofthem seemed likely to live till November. Those who werenot laid on then- beds were yellow, lean, feeble, hardlyable to move the sick and to hury the dead, and quiteunable to repel the expected attack of the Spaniards. Thecry of the whole community was that death was all aroundthem, and that they must, while they still had strength toweigh an anchor or spread a sail, fly to some less fatalregion. The men and provisions were equally distributedamong three ships, the Caledonia, the Unicorn, and theSaint Andrew. Paterson, though still too ill to sit in theCouncil, begged hard that he might be left behind withtwenty or thirty companions to keep up a show of posses-sion, and to await the next arrivals from Scotland. Sosmall a number of people, he said, might easily subsist bycatching fish and turtles. But his offer was disregarded:he was carried, utterly helpless, on board of the SaintAndrew; and the vessels stood out to sea.

The voyage was horrible. Scarcely any Guinea slaveship has ever had such a middle passage. Of two hundredand fifty persons who were on board of the Saint Andrew,one hundred and fifty fed the sharks of the Atlantic beforeSandy Hook was in sight. The Unicorn lost almost all its

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