ndies. At one time three young men, Corpro,
Banna, and Marbrour, were decoyed on board a Danish slave-ship, under
pretence of buying something, and were taken away. At another time
another relation piloted a vessel down the river. He begged to be put on
shore, when he came opposite to his own town; but he was pressed to
pilot her to the river's mouth. The captain then pleaded the
impracticability of putting him on shore; carried him to Jamaica; and
sold him for a slave. Fortunately, however, by means of a letter, which
was conveyed there, the man, by the assistance of the governor, was sent
back to Sierra Leone. At another time another relation was also
kidnapped. But he had not the good fortune, like the former, to return.

He would mention one other instance. A son had sold his own father, for
whom he obtained a considerable price: for, as the father was rich in
domestic slaves, it was not doubted that he would offer largely for his
ransom. The old man accordingly gave twenty-two of these in exchange for
himself. The rest, however, being from that time filled with
apprehensions of being on some ground or other sold to the slave-ships,
fled to the mountains of Sierra Leone, where they now dragged on a
miserable existence. The son himself was sold, in his turn, soon after.
In short, the whole of that unhappy peninsula, as he learnt from
eye-witnesses, had been desolated by the trade in slaves. Towns were
seen standing without inhabitants all over the coast; in several of
which the agent of the Company had been. There was nothing but distrust
among the inhabitants. Every one, if he stirred from home, felt himself
obliged to be armed.

Such was the nature of the Slave Trade. It had unfortunately obtained
the name of a trade; and many had been deceived by the appellation; but
it was war, and not trade. It was a mass of crimes, and not commerce. It
was that which prevented the introduction of a trade in Africa; for it
was only by clearing and cultivating the lands, that the climate could
be made healthy for settlements; but this wicked traffic, by dispersing
the inhabitants, and causing the lands to remain uncultivated, made the
coast unhealthy to Europeans. He had found, in attempting to establish a
colony there, that it was an obstacle which opposed itself to him in
innumerable ways; it created more embarrassments than all the natural
impediments of the country; and it was more hard to contend with than
any difficulties