sioned them to lose their power of exciting surprise. All this I
thought in my favour, as I should more easily, or with less
obnoxiousness, come to the knowledge of what I wanted to obtain.

My friend William Rathbone, who had been looking out to supply me with
intelligence, but who was desirous that I should not be imposed upon,
and that I should get it from the fountainhead, introduced me to Mr.
Norris for this purpose. Norris had been formerly a slave-captain, but
had quitted the trade, and settled as a merchant in a different line of
business. He was a man of quick penetration, and of good talents, which
he had cultivated to advantage, and he had a pleasing address both as to
speech and manners. He received me with great politeness, and offered me
all the information I desired. I was with him five or six times at his
own house for this purpose. The substance of his communications on these
occasions I shall now put down, and I beg the reader's particular
attention to it, as he will be referred to it in other parts of this
work.

With respect to the produce of Africa, Mr. Norris enumerated many
articles in which a new and valuable trade might be opened, of which he
gave me one, namely, the black pepper from Whidah before mentioned. This
he gave me, to use his own expressions, as one argument among many
others of the impolicy of the Slave Trade, which, by turning the
attention of the inhabitants to the persons of one another for sale,
hindered foreigners from discovering, and themselves from cultivating,
many of the valuable productions of their own soil.

On the subject of procuring slaves, he gave it as his decided opinion
that many of the inhabitants of Africa were kidnapped by each other, as
they were travelling on the roads, or fishing in the creeks, or
cultivating their little spots. Having learned their language, he had
collected the fact from various quarters, but more particularly from the
accounts of slaves whom he had transported in his own vessels. With
respect, however, to Whidah, many came from thence who were reduced to
slavery in a different manner. The king of Dahomey, whose life (with the
wars and customs of the Dahomans) he said he was then writing, and who
was a very despotic prince, made no scruple of seizing his own subjects,
and of selling them, if he was in want of any of the articles which the
slave-vessels would afford him. The history of this prince's life he
lent me afterwards to read, whi