ORDINANCE of the Administrators, which forbids keeping warehouses of newly arrived nègres inside the city of Cap

Guillaume Léonard de Bellecombe, etc.

Alexandre Jacques Bongars, etc.

We have been struck by the danger with which the city of the Cap is threatened in its interior by the practice of crowding into private warehouses the newly arrived nègres who could not be sold on board the vessels anchored in this Roadstead. The inspection that the public prosecution had made of seven of these warehouses, now full, presented to us the revolting picture of the dead and the dying thrown pell-mell into the filth. Apart from the outrage that this abuse does to humanity, it is equally harmful to the health of the Citizens and to the interests of the shipowners. We judge that it is our duty to remedy it promptly, and We would do so of our own accord even if we were not prompted by the Regulation which forbids all Captains of merchant ships, on pain of a fine of five hundred livres, to keep sick sailors in their warehouses, and which enjoins them to have them carried to the Hospital. FOR THESE REASONS, and by virtue of the powers given to us by His Majesty, we have ordered and do order what follows: