Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/247

 At another time a young woman, living half a mile off, was sold, without Any criminal charge, to one of the slave-ships. She was well acquainted with the agent's wife, and had been with her only the day before. Her cries were heard, but it was impossible to relieve her.

At another time a young lad, one of the free settlers who went from England, was caught by a neighboring chief, as he was straggling alone from home, and sold for a slave. The pretext was, that some one in the town of Sierra Leone had committed an offense. Hence, the first person belonging to it, who could be seized, was to be punished. Happily, the free settlers saw him in his chains, and they recovered him before he was conveyed to the ship.

To mark still more forcibly the scenes of misery to which the slave-trade gave birth, he would mention a case stated to him in a letter by king Naimbanna. It had happened to this respectable person, in no less than three instances, to have some branches of his family kidnapped, and carried off to the "West Indies. At one time three young men, Corpro, Banna, and Marbrour, were decoyed on board a Danish slave-ship, under pretense of buying something, and were taken away. At another time another relation piloted a vessel down the river He begged to be put on shore, when he came opposite to his own town, but he was pressed to pilot her to the river's mouth. The captain then pleaded the impracticability of putting him on shore, carried him to Jamaica, and sold him for a slave. Fortunately, however, by means of a letter which was conveyed there, the man, by the assistance of the governor, was sent back to Sierra Leone. At another time another relation was also kidnapped. But he had not the good fortune, like the former, to return.

He would mention one other instance. A son had sold his own father, for whom he obtained a considerable price; for, as the father was rich in domestic slaves, it was not doubted that he would offer largely for his ransom. The old man accordingly gave twenty-two of these in exchange for himself. The rest, however, being from that time filled with apprehensions of being, on some ground or other, sold to the slave-ships, fled to the mountains of Sierra Leone, where they now dragged on a miserable existence. The son himself was sold, in his turn, soon after. In short, the whole of that unhappy peninsula, as he learned from eye witnesses, had been desolated by the trade in slaves. Towns were seen standing without inhabitants all over the coast; in several of which the agent of the company had been. There was nothing but distrust among the inhabitants. Every one, if he stirred from home, felt himself obliged to be armed.

Such was the nature of the slave-trade. It had unfortunately obtained the name of a trade, and many had been deceived by the appellation. But it was war and not trade. It was a mass of crimes, and not commerce. It was that which prevented the introduction of a trade in Africa; for it was only by clearing and cultivating the lands, that the climate could be made healthy for settlements; but this wicked traffic, by dispersing the inhabitants, and causing the lands to remain uncultivated, made the coast unhealthy to Europeans. He had found, in attempting to establish a colony there, that it was an obstacle