The mystery, however, was soon cleared up, when I told him from whom I had received my intelligence: for Mr.Arnold, the last-mentioned person in the last chapter, had been surgeon's mate under Mr.Falconbridge in the same vessel.
There was one circumstance of peculiar importance, but quite new to me, which I collected from the information which Mr.Falconbridge had given me.
This was, that many of the seamen, who left the slave-ships in the West Indies, were in such a weak, ulcerated, and otherwise diseased state, that they perished there.

Several also of those who came home with the vessels, were in the same deplorable condition.

This was the case, Mr.Falconbridge said, with some who returned in the Alexander.

It was the case also with many others; for he had been a pupil, for twelve months, in the Bristol Infirmary, and had had ample means of knowing the fact.

The greatest number of seamen, at almost all times, who were there, were from the slave-vessels.