om Gallinas to purchase his prisoners. "He could do
nothing with his foes," he said, "when in his grasp, but slay or sell
them." The king's enemy, on the opposite shore, disposed of his
captives to Gallinas, and obtained supplies of powder and ball, while
Fana-Toro, who had no vent for his prisoners, would have been
destroyed without my assistance.

Matters continued in this way for nearly two years, during which the
British kept up so vigilant a blockade at Cape Mount and Gallinas,
that the slavers had rarely a chance to enter a vessel or run a cargo.
In time, the _barracoons_ became so gorged, that the slavers began to
build their own schooners. When the A---- was sold, I managed to
retain her long-boat in my service, but such was now the value of
every egg-shell on the coast, that her owner despatched a carpenter
from Gallinas, who, in a few days, decked, rigged, and equipped her
for sea. She was twenty-three feet long, four feet deep, and five feet
beam, so that, when afloat, her measurement could not have exceeded
four tons. Yet, on a dark and stormy night, she dropped down the
river, and floated out to sea through the besieging lines, with
thirty-three black boys, two sailors, and a navigator. In less than
forty days she transported the whole of her living freight across the
Atlantic to Bahia. The negroes almost perished from thirst, but the
daring example was successfully followed during the succeeding year,
by skiffs of similar dimensions.

* * * * *

I can hardly hope that a narrative of my dull routine, while I
lingered on the coast, entirely aloof from the slave-trade, would
either interest or instruct the general reader. The checkered career
I have already exposed, has portrayed almost every phase of African
life. If I am conscious of any thing during my domicile at Cape Mount,
it is of a sincere desire to prosper by lawful and honorable thrift.
But, between the native wars, the turmoil of intruding slavers, and
the suspicions of the English, every thing went wrong. The friendship
of the colonists at Cape Palmas and Monrovia was still unabated;
appeals were made by missionaries for my influence with the tribes;
coasters called on me as usual for supplies; yet, with all these
encouragements for exertion, I must confess that my experiment was
unsuccessful.

Nor was this all. I lost my cutter, laden with stores and merchandise
for my factory. A vessel, filled with rice and lu