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0038

owing to his having received no pay from the Government since he took command of the "Diamond" which was on the first day of May of the present year.

I then went to the colored men who are employed upon the "Diamond."  They state, and I believe truly, that they are badly treated and that at no time since on board the "Diamond" have they received food sufficient to satisfy the cravings of their appetites, and that their food has uniformly been of the poorest kind, for instance mouldy and wormy hard bread, and that they get meat but once a day.  The coffee given them is generally of a poor quality and is sweetened with molasses.

And furthermore that they are cursed and abused by the white men employed in the Engineer Department.  One man stated that he was choked by one of the above mentioned men, twice yesterday, and again that they have frequently been told by the men in Engineer Dept. that they would put them through a course of sprouts (or words to that effect), on the return voyage to Savannah Ga. thereby intimating that the treatment to be hereafter received would be