XI. SIERRA LE ONA. go; for they have only to refort to the country law of pany- CHA P. aring. (§ 469.) In the Mandingo country also, it has been shown, that debts cause kidnapping; for chiefs getting into debt to Europeans are put into confinement; and hence their people are obliged to kidnap, to redeem them ( § 456.) In short, no proceeding of the S. Leona Company has sọ much offended the chiefs, as the refufal of the usual African credit. 480. War alfo might seem, on a fuperficial view, to rank with the least objectionable sources of the flave-trade. But, when viewed more closely, it is feen to involve the most horrible enormity. The Africans, afraid to live detached, congregate into towns, under the protection of fome chief, whom they commonly call their father. He, being corrupted by liquor, is largely credited by the flave-factor, who, on this ground makes war on the people. Some are killed, and many more taken and fold as flaves, and thus the chief's debt is paid. Such were precisely the numerous little wars of the great mulatto trader, against all the inferior chiefs around him. From these wars others spring, and a long train of hoftilities follows. A chief escapes from the mulatto trader, with the refidue of his people, to an ifland: thence he carries on a vindictive, predatory war; taking 40 prisoners at once, from the mulatto-trader, who would not be flow to retaliate; and the flave-trade gets farther victims from each fide (§ 454.) Some of these petty wars seem eminently productive. The chief of Quiaport attacks the chief of Bowrah, and fends his prifoners to the flave-factory. The latter gathers all his ftrength, and feizes double the number from the former; for he is obliged to redeem his people by paying two for one (§ 456.) Nor are these smaller wars the only productive ones. Every great nation near Sierra Leona, Wars. XI. SIERRA LE- CHAP. Leona, has been involved in war by the flave-trade. The female mulatto owns, that the Mandingoes have no wars, when flaves are not in demand, (§ 456.) The Foulahs, fays another evidence, are well known to go to war solely to get flaves (§ 456.) "The people directly inland, adds another chief, go to war for flaves. Our country being very much depopulated, and the passage of flaves from remote parts being hindered by wars, the flave-factors have lately endeavoured to prevent them, and the adjacent country to S. Leona, begins to be at peace." (§ 456.) Crimes, real 481. Crimes, real or imputed, are another chief cause of or imputed. flavery: adultery is one of the highest. A native chief, in one case, ( § 460.) and an European chief in another ( § 460 ) fells an inferior African on fuch a charge; both by their own arbitrary will, and evidently for their own emolument. And here, let the drunkenness and depravity of the chiefs, who are thus judges in their own cause, be confidered; let the African polygamy be added; nor let the remark of a native trader be forgotten, that it is common for chiefs, who want goods, to hint to their wives, to encourage adultery. Many of the other crimes have been so flight, and such the injustice of the judges, that the decifions aggravate the horror excited by this traffic. A whole town, the chief excepted, is enflaved, for letting fome runaway flaves pass to the mountains, (§ 458.) A woman from the next town, is torn from her unweaned child and fold, merely for impertinence, (§ 467.) Two men are fold by a chief, to compenfate for his having, in his drunkenness, ordered a flavetrader to be flogged, ($461.) A man is fold for having changed himself into a leopard, (§ 465.) The whole family of another is fold for his supposed theft, after he had been poisoned with red water, (§ 464.) The mulatto XI. trader's fetting up a flave as a judge, the growing power of CHA P. this judge, the court paid to him by the flave-traders, and SIERRA LE ONA the dread of coming near him, are also to be remembered. 482. The inftances given of kidnapping are numerous. A Kidrapping. Nova Scotian, formerly kidnapped from S. Leona, on landing there is recognized by his mother, (§ 457.) Relations of the king of S. Leona are carried off, at three different times, by kidnappers, (§351.) The Company's agent falls in with a party of natives, in the very act of kidnapping, (§ 348.) A free colonift from England is kidnapped. Another turns kidnapper himself; but is detected and punished, by the governor and council, ( § 476.). No lefs than three British commanders are infected with the contagion, and fell, without fcruple, the free mariners found on board French prizes. In one of these instances, 19 freemen were fold, many of them fons of chiefs, ( § 463.) In a fecond 3 or 4 others, in spite of the remonftrances of the Sierra Leona government. In a third 4 women left on board as pawns, (§ ibid.) The numbers in the Deferter's town are reduced, partly by kidnapping, (§458) Free-booters infeft the parts between the coaft and the Foulah country; fo that he who brings down flaves is often kidnapped on his return, and fold to the same factory where he had been selling others, (§ 456.) In the Susee country, kidnapping is frequent. In the Mandingo country, mothers dare not truft their children out of their fight, after fun-set, for fear of kidnappers, ( § 456.) The reasons of it's prevalence are debts; impunity, from the facility of selling the victims; and wars, ( § 479 et feq.) A chief owns that in a 5 years war, he used to waylay and kidnap passengers; but says it was a bad thing, justified only by the necessity of having fomething to give to the flave-factories for ammuni XI. SIERRA LE CHA P. tion, (§ 456.) We may add the extraordinary ravages of the proprietor of a neighbouring ifland, who fwept away the people of whole towns, when he had intoxicated them, and of whose indifcriminate ravages even the flave-factor complained. ONA. This account refpects S. Leona; but inland flave trade cannot be very dif. ferent. 80,000 flaves annually dragged from Africa, by the above nefarious means, 483. These are the four fources of the flave-trade near S. Leona; nor do the Directors conceive that any confiderable number have been obtained from thefe parts, by lefs exceptionable means. Indeed it is reasonable to presume, that at S. Leona, many atrocities have been perpetrated fecretly, or at least concealed from the Company's fervants. The preceding account, indeed, only respects the flaves from near S. Leona, not the general body fold in S. Leona river, most of whom are brought from the interior. But the Directors conceive that no one can fairly affume, that the case of inland flaves differs effentially from that of flaves from the coast: the injustice and treachery practised in taking them, and their consequent wretchedness, can hardly fail to be fomewhat fimilar, in whatever part of Africa such fcenes take place *. 484. Let then this aggregate of mifery be contemplated; let it be remembered, that the above is but a fample of the manner in which EIGHTY THOUSAND men are annually dragged from Africa by the civilized Europeans, especially by the British: let all the concomitant enormities, the blood fpilt in wars, in cutting off flave-ships, in acts of fuicide on board, and in fanguinary vengeance on shore, be borne in mind: let the drunkenness, the treachery, the unnatural * That the slave-trade is carried on by fimilar means, and is attended with fimilar fcenes, on the coaft from Senegal to Gambia, and alfo about 800 miles up the former river, may be seen in my " Obfervations on the Slave-trade, &c." 8vo. London printed 1789. C. B. W. fale XI. SIERRA LE ONA fale of wives and children, for debt and for liquor, let the CHA P. depravity communicated, as by contagion, to British captains, failors and factors, and the atrocities to which fome of them have been transported, be recollected; above all, let the stop put to the civilization of one fourth of the globe, and the guilt of hindering that light of revelation, which has so long shone on Britain, from shining on the inhabitants of that vast continent, be added to the account: let the miseries of Africa be contrasted with the blessings which might have resulted from a contrary conduct in G. Britain, and from the introduction of Christianity and European knowledge, and from that promotion of industry which is the fure refult of an honeft, innocent and peaceful commerce.-Let all these confiderations be put together, and the evil of the flave-trade will indeed appear enormous; it's hindrance to civilization, and it's hoftility to every principle profeffed by the S. Leona Company, become abundantly evident; and the prospects of civilization about to be stated will appear important, not only from their immediate consequences, but from their evincing the practicability of reversing the cruel system which yet prevails in Africa. traders, re 485. The fubverfion of the flave-trade was one leading Sick flavemotive in the institution of the Company; and it is one of ceived at S. the objects to which those who manage it's affairs, profefs Leona. that their beft endeavours shall be directed. But they trust that they shall not allow their deteftation of that trade, to degenerate into ill-will to thofe engaged in it; and they feel peculiar fatisfaction in obferving, that their government abroad, however their zeal for it's abolition may have been excited by the scenes they have witnessed, have never used either violent or underhand means to promote this object; having neither forcibly interrupted the flave-traders nor irritated the |