This was the law for many years, and because of it thousands of slaves met a cruel death as the direct result of the effort to save them from slavery.

Many stories are told of these wholesale drownings.

The captain of the British cruiser "Black Joke" reports of a case in which he was pursuing two slave ships: "When chased by the tenders both put back, made all sail up the river, and ran on shore.

During the chase they were seen from our vessels to throw the slaves overboard by twos, shackled together by the ankles, and left in this manner to sink or swim as best they could.

Men, women, and children were seen in great numbers struggling in the water by everyone on board the two tenders, and, dreadful to relate, upward of 150 of these wretched creatures perished in this way." In this case, the slavers did not escape conviction, though the only penalty inflicted was the seizure of their vessels.