two thirds of whom are exported by the British
merchants alone. This estimate is less than that which is usually made,
and has been published. The author has been informed by disinterested
people, who were in most of the West India islands during the late war,
and who conversed with many of the most intelligent of the negroes, for
the purpose of inquiring by what methods they had originally been
reduced to slavery, that they did not find even two in twenty, who had
been reduced to that situation, by any other means than those mentioned
above. The author, desirous of a farther confirmation of this
circumstance, stopped the press till he had written to another friend,
who had resided twenty years in the West-Indies, and whose opinion he
had not yet asked. The following is an extract from the answer. "I do
not among many hundreds recollect to have seen but one or two slaves, of
those imported from Africa, who had any scars to shew, that they had
been in war. They are generally such as are kidnapped, or sold by their
tyrants, after the destruction of a village. In short, I am firmly of
opinion, that crimes and war together do not furnish one slave in an
hundred of the numbers introduced into the European colonies. Of
consequence the trade itself, were it possible to suppose convicts or
prisoners of war to be justly sentenced to servitude, is accountable for
ninety-nine in every hundred slaves, whom it supplies. It an insult to
the publick, to attempt to palliate the method of procuring them."]

[Footnote 049: The writer of the letter of which this is a faithful
extract, and who was known to the author of the present Essay, was a
long time on the African coast. He had once the misfortune to be
shipwrecked there, and to be taken by the natives, who conveyed him and
his companions a considerable way up into the country. The hardships
which he underwent in the march, his treatment during his captivity, the
scenes to which he was witness, while he resided among the inland
Africans, as well as while in the African trade, gave occasion to a
series of very interesting letters. These letters were sent to the
author of the present Essay, with liberty to make what use of them he
chose, by the gentleman to whom they were written.]

[Footnote 050: Were this not the case, the government of a country could
have no right to take cognizance of crimes, and punish them, but every
individual, if injured, would have a right to punish the a