ogether occupied in shopkeeping,
hawking, and other mercantile pursuits. At sales of prize
goods, public auctions, and every other place affording a
probability of cheap bargains, they are to be seen in great
numbers, where they club together in numbers of from three
to six, seven, or more, to purchase large lots or unbroken
bales. And the scrupulous honesty with which the subdivision
of the goods is afterwards made cannot be evidenced more
thoroughly than this: that, common as such transactions are,
they have never yet been known to become the subject of
controversy or litigation. The principal streets of
Freetown, as well as the approaches to the town, are lined
on each side by an almost continuous range of booths and
stalls, among which almost every article of merchandise is
offered for sale, and very commonly at a cheaper rate than
similar articles are sold in the shops of the merchants.

"Two rates of profit are recognized in the mercantile
transactions of the European merchants; namely, a wholesale
and retail profit, the former varying from thirty to fifty
per cent, the latter from fifty to one hundred per cent. The
working of the retail trade in the hands of Europeans
requires a considerable outlay in the shape of shop-rent,
shopkeepers' and clerks' wages, etc. The liberated Africans
were not slow in observing nor in seizing on the advantages
which their peculiar position held out for the successful
prosecution of the retail trade.

"Clubbing together, as before observed, and holding ready
money in their hands the merchants are naturally anxious to
execute for them considerable orders on such unexceptionable
terms of payment while, on the other hand, the liberated
Africans, seeing clearly their advantage, insist most
pertinaciously on the lowest possible percentage of
wholesale profit.

"Having thus become possessed of the goods at the lowest
possible ready-money rate, then subsequent transactions are
not closed with the expense of shop-rents, shopkeepers' and
clerks' wages and subsistence, etc., etc., expenses
unavoidable to Europeans. They are therefore enabled at once
to undersell the European retail merchants, and to secure a
handsome profit to themselves; a consummation the more
easily attained, aided as i