CRUEL PUNISHMENTS.
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situation ; and in the extremity of his hunger, actually ate the flesh from off his shoulders. The place where he was executed is well known to many in Antigua as White's Bay, and a few years ago, the remains of the gibbet was to be met with. How ought we to bless God, that we lived not in those days; that our feelings are now not outraged by any of those dreadful exhibitions: certainly, his crime (piracy) was a dreadful one, but who cannot but feel for his after-sufferings ? The following letter from a white inhabitant throws a further light upon the insurrection of the negroes, in 1736, which we have noticed in the “ Legend of the Ravine;" and points out the particular punishment awarded to many of the actors in that tragedy :— Antigua, Jan. 15th, 1736.
“ Dear Friend, “ We are in a great deal of trouble in this island ; the burning of negroes, hanging them up on gibbets alive, racking them upon the wheel, &c, takes up all our time ; that from the 20th of October to this day, there have been destroyed sixty-one intelligent negroes, most of them tradesmen, as carpenters, coopers, and masons. “ I am almost dead with watching and working, as are many more. They were going to destroy all the white inhabitants of the island. ' Count,' the king of the negroes, ' Tomboy,' his general, and ' Hercules,' his lieutenantgeneral, who were all racked upon the wheel, died with obstinacy. Mr. Archibald Hamilton's ' Harry,' after he was condemned, stuck himself with a knife, in eighteen different places, four of which were mortal. Colonel Martin's 'Jemmy,' who was hung up alive from noon to eleven o'clock at night, was then taken down to give information. Colonel Morgan's ' Ned,' after he had been hung up seven days and seven nights, that his hands grew too small for his hand-cuffs, he got them out and raised himself, and fell down from a gibbet fifteen feet high ; he was revived with cordials . II.
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