ere, belonging to the same port.

I procured also an account of the exports and imports for the year 1786,
by means of which I was enabled to judge of the comparative value of
this and the other trades.

In pursuing another object, which was that of going on board the
slave-ships, and learning their construction and dimensions, I was
greatly struck, and indeed affected, by the appearance of two little
sloops, which were fitting out for Africa, the one of only twenty-five
tons, which was said to be destined to carry seventy and the other of
only eleven, which was said to be destined to carry thirty slaves. I was
told also that which was more affecting, namely, that these were not to
act as tenders on the coast, by going up and down the rivers, and
receiving three or four slaves at a time, and then carrying them to a
large ship, which was to take them to the West Indies; but that it was
actually intended, that they should transport their own slaves
themselves; that one if not both of them were, on their arrival in the
West Indies, to be sold as pleasure-vessels, and that the seamen
belonging to them were to be permitted to come home by what is usually
called the run.

This account of the destination of these little vessels, though it was
distressing at first, appeared to me afterwards, on cool reasoning, to
be incredible. I thought that my informants wished to impose upon me, in
order that I might make statements which would carry their own
refutation with them, and that thus I might injure the great cause which
I had undertaken. And I was much inclined to be of this opinion, when I
looked again at the least of the two; for any person, who was tall,
standing upon dry ground by the side of her, might have overlooked every
thing upon her deck. I knew also that she had been built as a
pleasure-boat for the accommodation of only six persons upon the Severn.
I determined, therefore, to suspend my belief till I could take the
admeasurement of each vessel. This I did; but lest, in the agitation of
my mind on this occasion, I should have made any mistake, I desired my
friend George Fisher to apply to the builder for his admeasurement also.
With this he kindly complied. When he obtained it he brought it me. This
account, which nearly corresponded with my own, was as follows:--In the
vessel of twenty-five tons, the length of the upper part of the hold, or
roof of the room, where the seventy slaves were to be stowed, was but
litt