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tors, and the aged and infirm commonly murder- CHAP ed on the spot. By these means, and the commutation of death into slavery for crimes real and pretended, are the nations of Europe supplied; and it cannot surely be a question, amongst a humane and enlightened people, concerning a person named Saubadou; who sold him, together with a cow, for a gun, a quantity of other goods, and some brandy.

Oliver, from Assiantee-his country name Sang-a young man, as I guess, about twenty-two or twenty-three years of age. His father was a free man, a carpenter-lived in a village far from the sea. The village was attacked by a party of Fantees, who came in the night, and set fire to the houses, and killed most of the inhabitants with guns and cutlasses particularly the old. The young people they took prisoners, and afterwards sold him and two others, for a piece of gold called sica, to a Black merchant, who carried them to the Fantee country.-He was afterwards sold or transferred over to six different Black purchasers; the last of whom carried him down to the sea-coast, and sold him on board a ship.-Was much frightened at the sight of White men, and thought he was to be eaten.

Esther relates that she was born in the Ebo country, about one day's journey from the sea-coast, where her grandmother lived, to whom she was sent on a visit by her father. While there, the village was attacked by a body of Negroes (she knows not of what country) on whose approach she and all the women were sent into the woods, where a party of the enemy found them, and carried away all such as were able to travel. The old, and those who were averse to remove, were put to death; her grandmother among the rest. The third day she was sold to the White people. She has many marks about the chest, which she appeals to as a proof of free birth, and asserts that her father had a plantation of corn, yams, and tobacco, and possessed many slaves.

the

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BOOK the injustice of a traffick thus supported. To attempt its defence in all cases, were to offer an insult to the common sense of mankind, and an outrage on the best feelings of our nature. Yet a good mind may honestly derive some degree of consolation, in considering that all such of the wretched victims as were slaves in Africa, are, by being sold to the Whites, removed to a situation infinitely more desirable, even in its worst state, than that of the best and most favoured slaves in their native country. It is, on all hands, admitted that the condition of those poor people, under their own governments, is the most deplorable that we can conceive a human creature to be subject to. They have no security for property, nor protection for their persons; they exist at the will and caprice of a master, who is not amenable to any law for his ill treatment of them, and who may slaughter them at his pleasure. He has in truth but very little interest in their preservation, having no means of employing them in profitable labour, and when provisions are scarce, he has even a strong inducement to destroy them.

THE chief objection to the slave trade arises from the great encouragement which, I fear, it unavoidably holds forth to acts of violence, oppression, and fraud, among the natives towards each other. Without doubt, this is the strong part

IV.

part of the petitioners' case; and I admit it to CHAP. be so, with that frankness which I trust no honest West Indian will condemn. At the same time it deserves very serious consideration, whether a direct and immediate discontinuance of the trade by the British nation only (the other nations of Europe continuing to purchase as usual) would afford a remedy to those miseries, the existence of which every enlightened mind cannot but admit, and every good mind must deplore; or rather, whether a partial and sudden abolition (so inveterate is the evil) would not aggravate them in a high degree.

IN considering this question, we must have in view not only the circumstances attending the Slave Trade on the Coast, but also the situation of the enslaved Negroes already in the Sugar Colonies. On the first head, it is to be enquired whether, supposing Great Britain should abandon her share in this commerce, a less number of slaves would in consequence thereof be brought down for sale in Africa? Admiral Edwards, who served on the station, and was on shore seven months at a time, is decidedly of opinion that, so long as other nations continue to purchase, the number would not be diminished in the least. (d); and a little

(d) See his evidence in the Report of the Committee of Privy Council 1789.

VOL. II.

K

reflection

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In

BOOK reflection may perhaps convince us that his opinion is founded in reason, and the nature of the case. Among the commercial nations of Europe, it is true that, in most cases of purchase and barter, the demand and the supply grow up together, and continue to regulate and support each other: but these are the arrangements of well-informed and civilized men. Africa, it is apprehended the slave merchants possess no ideas of this kind, neither does the nature of their traffick allow of such regulations. When two African states are at war with each other, the aim of each undoubtedly is to destroy as many enemies, or seize on as great a number of captives, as possible. Of these last unfortunate victims, all such as are able to travel, are commonly sent down to the coast for sale: the rest are massacred on the spot, and the same fate attends those unhappy wretches who, being sent down, are found unsaleable. The prices indeed on the coast have been known to vary as the market is more or less plentifully supplied; but, so long as ships from Europe create a market, whether the prices be high or low, it can hardly be doubted, that wars will be as frequent as ever, and that the same acts of oppression, violence, and fraud, which are said to be committed by princes on their subjects, and by individuals on each other, for the purpose of procuring slaves for

sale,

tale, will exist, as usual, without regulation or CHAP. restraint.

BEHOLD then an excess of 38,000 of these miserable people (the present annual export in British shipping) thrown upon the market, and it is surely more than probable that one or the other of these consequences will follow: Either the French, the Dutch, and the other maritime nations of Europe, by seizing on what we surrender, will encrease their trade in proportion to the encreased supply (e), or, having the choice and refusal of 38,000 more than they have at present, will become more difficult to please; confining their purchases to such only as are called prime slaves. Thus the old, and the very young, the sickly and the feeble, will be scornfully rejected; and perhaps twenty poor wretches be considered as unsaleable then, and sacrificed accordingly, to one that is so considered and sacrificed how.

THAT the latter supposition is not a mere speculative contingency, is abundantly proved by many respectable witnesses, whose examinations were taken by the committee of the privy

(e) Admiral Edwards being asked, Whether, if Great Britain were to relinquish the trade in slaves, the number sold to Europeans would, in his opinion, be much diminished? replied, Most certainly it would not be diminished. The French and Dutch would immediately get possession of this trade.

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