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HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

chap, than their associates who suffered death, were distributedi6S5. into gangs, and bestowed on persons who enjoyed favour atcourt. The conditions of the gift were that the convictsshould be carried beyond sea as slaves, that they should notbe emancipated for ten years, and that the place of theirbanishment should be some West Indian island. This lastarticle was studiously framed for the purpose of aggravatingthe misery of the exiles. In New England or New Jerseythey would have found a population kindly disposed to themand a climate not unfavourable to their health and vigour. Itwas therefore determined that they should be sent to colonieswhere a Puritan could hope to inspire little sympathy, andwhere a labourer born in the temperate zone could hope toenjoy little health. Such was the state of the slave marketthat these bondmen, long as was the passage, and sickly asthey were likely to prove, were still very valuable. It wasestimated by Jeffreys that, on an average, each of them,after all charges were paid, would be worth from ten to fifteenpounds. There was therefore much angry competition forgrants. Some Tories in the West conceived that they had,by their exertions and sufferings during the insurrection,earned a right to share in the profits which had been eagerlysnatched up by the sycophants of Whitehall. The courtiers,however, were victorious.*

The misery of the exiles fully equalled that of the negroeswho are now carried from Congo to Brazil. It appears fromthe best information which is at present accessible that morethan one fifth of those who were shipped were flung to thesharks before the end of the voyage. The human cargoeswere stowed close in the holds of small vessels. So littlespace was allowed that the wretches, many of whom werestill tormented by unhealed wounds, could not, all lie down at

* Sunderland to Jeffreys, Sept. 14.1685; Jeffreys to the King, Sept. 19.1685, in the State Paper Office.