"I a grand trading man! I bring you slaves." But no scruples entered the mind of the captain of the slaver.

"If they will sell you I certainly will buy you," he answered, and soon the kidnapped kidnapper was in irons and thrust below in the noisome hold with the unhappy being he had sent there.

A multitude of cases of negro slave-dealers being seized in this way, after disposing of their human cattle, are recorded.
It is small wonder that torn thus from home and relatives, immured in filthy and crowded holds, ill fed, denied the two great gifts of God to man--air and water--subjected to the brutality of merciless men, and wholly ignorant of the fate in store for them, many of the slaves should kill themselves.

As they had a salable value the captains employed every possible device to defeat this end--every device, that is, except kind treatment, which was beyond the comprehension of the average slaver.
Sometimes the slaves would try to starve themselves to death.

This the captains met by torture with the cat and thumbscrews.