Osotogary
05-02-10, 07:44 PM
Bad times for Robert Quinn. He wrote a note, which he signed "UNHAPPY SLAVES", and had it delivered anonymously to Commodore Barron aboard the flgship President in 1804. While the U.S.Navy prided itself on being more humane, more fair than the British Royal Navy, Quinn disagreed. He wrote:
The horrid usage that has been on this ship of late by the principal officers is enough to turn every mans heart to weakness, we are kept on deck from 3 o'clock in the morning till 8 at night (seventten hours. There is noregulations in any one thing, we have been on deck several days without one bit of victuals, and durst not look for it, we cannot wash a single article for fear of being cut in two. You expect everything done at a word, there is no allowance for our friging (moving about) day and night, but the time will come, when you will drive all thoughts of fear out of our minds. Tyranny is the beginning of mischief...any Commander or Captain that had the least feeling or thought, would not suffer this horrid usage, it is almost impossible for us to live. The President is arrived to such a pitch as to exceed the Hermoine ( bloody mutiny in 1797), some of our friends in America and other parts shall know of this shortly and in time we hope to get redress. Death is always superior to slavery.
What did Robert Quinn get for his thoughts? On June 23 his sentence was passed. "...to have have his head and eyebrows shaved, branded in the forehead with the word MUTINUS- to receive three hundred and twenty lashes with a cat-o-nine-tails and then he was sent to the gallows."
Seems like a good time to see how Bulkyker is doing. LOL
The horrid usage that has been on this ship of late by the principal officers is enough to turn every mans heart to weakness, we are kept on deck from 3 o'clock in the morning till 8 at night (seventten hours. There is noregulations in any one thing, we have been on deck several days without one bit of victuals, and durst not look for it, we cannot wash a single article for fear of being cut in two. You expect everything done at a word, there is no allowance for our friging (moving about) day and night, but the time will come, when you will drive all thoughts of fear out of our minds. Tyranny is the beginning of mischief...any Commander or Captain that had the least feeling or thought, would not suffer this horrid usage, it is almost impossible for us to live. The President is arrived to such a pitch as to exceed the Hermoine ( bloody mutiny in 1797), some of our friends in America and other parts shall know of this shortly and in time we hope to get redress. Death is always superior to slavery.
What did Robert Quinn get for his thoughts? On June 23 his sentence was passed. "...to have have his head and eyebrows shaved, branded in the forehead with the word MUTINUS- to receive three hundred and twenty lashes with a cat-o-nine-tails and then he was sent to the gallows."
Seems like a good time to see how Bulkyker is doing. LOL