d men annually transported: an immense number,
but easily to be credited, when we reflect that thousands are employed
for the purpose of stealing the unwary, and that these diabolical
practices are in force, so far has European _injustice_ been
spread, at the distance of a thousand miles from the factories on the
coast. The _slave merchants_, among whom a quantity of European
goods is previously divided, travel into the heart of the country to
this amazing distance. Some of them attend the various markets, that are
established through so large an extent of territory, to purchase the
kidnapped people, whom the _slave-hunters_ are continually bringing
in; while the rest, subdividing their merchandize among the petty
sovereigns with whom they deal, receive, by an immediate exertion of
fraud and violence, the stipulated number.

Now, will any man assert, in opposition to the arguments before
advanced, that out of this immense body of men, thus annually collected
and transported, there is even _one_, over whom the original or
subsequent seller can have any power or right? Whoever asserts this, in
the first instance, must, contradict his own feelings, and must consider
_himself_ as a just object of prey, whenever any daring invader
shall think it proper to attack _him_. And, in the second instance,
the very idea which the African princes entertain of their villages, as
_parks_ or _reservoirs_, stocked only for their own convenience,
and of their subjects, as _wild beasts_, whom they may pursue
and take at pleasure, is so shocking, that it need only be
mentioned, to be instantly reprobated by the reader.

The order of slaves, which is next to the former in respect to the
number of people whom it contains, is that of prisoners of war. This
order, if the former statement be true, is more inconsiderable than is
generally imagined; but whoever reflects on the prodigious slaughter
that is constantly made in every African skirmish, cannot be otherwise
than of this opinion: he will find, that where _ten_ are taken, he
has every reason to presume that an _hundred_ perish. In some of
these skirmishes, though they have been begun for the express purpose of
_procuring slaves_, the conquerors have suffered but few of the
vanquished to escape the fury of the sword; and there have not been
wanting instances, where they have been so incensed at the resistance
they have found, that their spirit of vengeance has entirely got the
better of th