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Hail, dark abode! What can with thee compare?
Heat, sickness, famine, death, and stagnant air,–

* * * * *

Swift from the guarded decks we rushed along,
And vainly sought repose, so vast our throng.
Three hundred wretches here, denied all light,
In crowded quarters pass the infernal night.
Some for a bed their tattered vestments join,
And some on chest, and some on floors recline;
Shut from the blessings of the evening air
Pensive we lay with mingled corpses there:
Meagre and wan, and scorched with heat below,
We looked like ghosts ere death had made us so:
How could we else, where heat and hunger joined
Thus to debase the body and the mind?
Where cruel thirst the parching throat invades,
Dries up the man and fits him for the shades?
No waters laded from the bubbling spring
To these dire ships these little tyrants bring–
By plank and ponderous beams completely walled
In vain for water, still in vain we called.
No drop was granted to the midnight prayer
To rebels in these regions of despair!
The loathsome cask a deadly dose contains,
Its poison circles through the languid veins.
“Here, generous Briton, generous, as you say,
To my parched tongue one cooling drop convey–
Hell has no mischief like a thirsty throat,
Nor one tormentor like your David Sproat!”

Dull flew the hours till, from the East displayed,
Sweet morn dispelled the horrors of the shade:
On every side dire objects met the sight,
And pallid forms, and murders of the night:
The dead were past their pains, the living groan,
Nor dare to hope another morn their own.

* * * * *

O’er distant streams appears the living green,
And leafy trees on mountain tops are seen:
But they no grove or grassy mountain tread,
Marked for a longer journey to the dead.

Black as the clouds that shade St. Kilda’s shore,
Wild as the winds that round her mountains roar,
At every post some surly vagrant stands,
Culled from the English, or the Scottish bands.
Dispensing death triumphantly they stand,
Their musquets ready to obey command;
Wounds are their sport, and ruin is their aim;
On their dark souls compassion has no claim,
And discord only can their spirits please,
Such were our tyrants here, such foes as these.

* * * * *

But such a train of endless woes abound
So many mischiefs in these hulks are found
That on them all a poem to prolong
Would swell too high the horrors of our song.
Hunger and thirst to work our woe combine,
And mouldy bread, and flesh of rotten swine;
The mangled carcase and the battered brain;
The doctor’s poison, and the captain’s cane;
The soldier’s musquet, and the steward’s debt:
The evening shackle, and the noonday threat.

* * * * *

That charm whose virtue warms the world beside,
Was by these tyrants to our use denied.
While yet they deigned that healthsome balm to lade,
The putrid water felt its powerful aid;
But when refused, to aggravate our pains,
Then fevers raged and revelled through our veins;
Throughout my frame I felt its deadly heat;
I felt my pulse with quicker motions beat;
A pallid hue o’er every face was spread,
Unusual pains attacked the fainting head:
No physic here, no doctor to assist,
With oaths they placed me on the sick man’s list:
Twelve wretches more the same dark symptoms took,
And these were entered on the doctor’s book.
The loathsome Hunter was our destined place,
The Hunter, to all hospitals disgrace.
With soldiers sent to guard us on the road,
Joyful we left the Scorpion’s dire abode:
Some tears we shed for the remaining crew,
Then cursed the hulk, and from her sides withdrew.