Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/130

 villages higher up the river. They seized on much the same number as before, brought them to Newtown, gave the same notice, and disposed of them as before among the ships. They took man, woman and child, as they could catch them in the houses, and except sucking children, who went with their mothers, there was no care taken to prevent the separation of the children from the parents when sold. When sold to the English merchant they lamented, and cried that they were taken away by force. The king at Old Calabar was certainly not at war with the people up this river, nor had they made any attack upon him. It happened that slaves were very slack in the back country at that time, and were wanted when he went on these expeditions.

Mr. Falconbridge thinks crimes are falsely imputed, for the sake of selling the accused. On the second voyage at the river Ambris, among the slaves brought on board was one who had the craw craw, a kind of itch, lie was told by one of the sailors, that this man was fishing in the river, when a king's officer, called Mambooka, wanted brandy and other goods in the boat, but having no slave to buy them with, accused this man of extortion in the sale of his fish, and after some kind of trial on the beach, condemned him to be sold. He was told by the boat's crew who were ashore, when it happened, who told it as of their own knowledge.

Beside the accounts just given, from what the above witnesses saw and heard on the coast of Africa, as to the different methods of making slaves, there are others contained in the evidence, which were learned from the mouths of the slaves themselves, after their arrival in the West Indies.

The Moors, says Mr. Keirnan, have always a strong inducement to go to war with the negroes, most of the European goods they obtain, being got in exchange for slaves. Hence, desolation and waste. Mr. Town observes, that the intercourse of the Africans with the Europeans, has improved them in roguery, to plunder and steal, and [tick up one another to sell. Dr. Trotter asking a black trader, what they made of their slaves when the French and English were at war, was answered, that when ships ceased to come, slaves ceased to be taken. Mr. Isaac Parker says, that the king of Old Calabar was certainly not at war with the people up that river, nor had they made any attack on him. It happened that slaves were very slack in the back country at this time, and were wanted when he went on the expeditions, described in a former page.

Mr. Wadstrom says, the king Barbesin, while he, Mr. Wadstrom, was at Joal, was unwilling to pillage his subjects, but he was excited to it by means of a constant intoxication, kept up by the French and mulattoes of the embassy, who generally agreed every morning on taking this method to effect their purpose. When sober, he always expressed a reluctance to harrass his people. Mr. Wadstrom also heard the king hold the same language on different days, and yet he afterwards ordered the pillage to be executed. Mr. Wadstrom has no doubt, but that he also pillages in other parts of his dominions, since it is the custom of the mulatto merchants (as both they and the French officers declare) when they want slaves, to go to the kings, and excite them to pillages