Page:Newton's Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade.pdf/30

Rh are brought up. Can we then wonder at that impatience of subordination, and that disposition to mutiny, amongst them, which has been, of late, so loudly complained of, and so severely felt? Will not sound policy suggest, the necessity, of some expedient here? Or can sound policy suggest any, effectual, expedient, but the total suppression of a Trade, which, like a poisonous root, diffuses its malignity into every branch?

The effects which our trade has upon the Blacks, those especially who come under our power, may be considered under three heads, — How they are acquired? The mortality they are subject to! and, How those who survive are disposed of?

I confine my remarks on the first head to the Windward Coast, and can speak most confidently of the trade in Sherbro, where I lived. I own, however, that I question, if any part of the Windward Coast is equal to Sherbro, in point of regularity and government. They have no men of great power or property among them; as I am told there are upon the Gold Coast, at Whidah and Benin. The Sherbro people live much in the patriarchal way. An old man usually presides in each town,