Slave Coast

A 1729 map showing the Slave Coast

The Commodore by Patrick O'Brian (Wikipedia Link)

Do ever come across something awful and then you go on for a bit and you find that whatever you found awful a minute ago pales in comparison to what you see now?

Chapter 5. Captain Lucky Jack Aubrey has been given command of a fleet (!) of British war ships along with orders to do something about the slave trade. Self-righteous Englishmen had abolished the slave trade in 1833 and everybody else better toe the mark. In Mr. Whewell they have an old, intelligent hand, who has worked on slave ships and is a wealth in information about the trade on the slave coast. They capture a slave ship and are taking the slaves to Freetown (approximately in the middle of the red coast along the left hand side of the map.) where the ship will be condemned (a legal nicety that will keep it from being used. What? This needs more research.) and the slaves will presumably be turned loose.

The Doctor (Aubrey's particular friend) and Mr. Whewell are taking a break from their recent activity and on page 192 we get this:

'From your experience, would you say that this vessel was in a very bad condition? He asked.'

Oh no, not at all, " said Whewell." For a ship 14 days out of whydah, I should say she was doing rather well. No. It is ugly of course. And I believe the Commodore was sadly shocked; but there was little dysentery, and that in an early stage and it can be far, far worse. Perhaps the ugliest ever saw was a brig called the Gongora when that we chased for 3 days, off the coast. All that time the slaves were of course kept below - no food, precious little air with her running before the wind and went at last we took her and opened the hatches there were 200 dead below: dysentery, starvation, suffocation, misery, and above all fighting before they grew too weak to beat one another to death with their irons. The wretched brig carried almost equal numbers of Fantis and Ashantis, mortal enemies who had been at war, each side selling prisoners in the same market and they crammed in together. "

P. S. More research:

From the American Dictionary of the English Language we have the last definition of condemn:

6. To judge or pronounce to be unfit for use or service; as, the ship was condemned as not sea-worthy. To judge or pronounce to be forfeited; as, the ship and her cargo were condemned. 

Forfeit, that's the term we want.