Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/38

( 8 ) Marraba, king of the Mundingoes, he has heard that they had marched slaves out of the country some hundred miles; that they had gone wood-ranging, to pick up every one they met with, whom they stripped naked, and if men, bound; but if women, brought down loose; this he had from themselves, and also, that they often went to war with the Bullam nation, on purpose to get slaves. They boasted that they should soon have a fine parcel for the shallops, and the success often answered. Mr. Town has seen the prisoners (the men bound, the women and children loose) driven for sale to the water-side. He has also known the natives go in gangs marauding and catching all they could. In the Galenas River he knew four blacks seize a man who had been to the sea-side to sell one or more slaves. This man was returning home with the goods received in exchange for these, and they plundered and stripped him naked, and brought him to the trading shallop, which Mr. Town commanded, and sold him there.

He believes the natives also sometimes become slaves, in consequence of crimes, as well as, that it is no uncommon thing on the coast, to impute crimes falsely for the sake of selling the persons so accused. Several respectable persons at Bance Island, and to windward of it, all told Mr. Town that it was common to bring on palavers to make slaves, and he believes it from the information of the slaves afterwards, when brought down the country and put on board the ships.

Off Piccaninni Sestus, farther down on the Windward Coast, Mr. Dove observed an instance of a girl being kidnapped and brought on board by one Ben Johnson, a black trader, who had scarcely left the ship in his canoe, with the price of her, when another canoe with two black men came in a hurry to the ship, and inquired concerning this girl. Having been allowed to see her, they hurried down to their canoe, and hastily paddled off. Overtaking Ben Johnson, they brought him back to the ship, got him on the