kelsal

Updated: May 4, 2025

In the course of the trial which afterwards came on, it appeared that the slaves on board the Zong were very sickly; that sixty of them had already died, and several were ill and likely to die, when the captain proposed to James Kelsal, the mate, and others to throw several of them overboard, stating that 'if they died a natural death, the loss would fall upon the owners of the ship, but that if they were thrown into the sea, it would fall upon the underwriters. He selected accordingly one hundred and thirty-two of the most sickly of the slaves.

Mungo Park - Travels in the Interior of Africa — Volume 02